Performa 17
Queer nightlife has always been subversive by nature. By merely existing, spaces in celebration of Queer and Trans People of Color are a form of resistance and remain central to community strengthening. QTPOC art collective Papi Juice, New York-based platform RAGGA, and dancer-performer NIC Kay come together for a discussion on nightlife as art form and its critical role as a tool for activism. Moderated by Alexin Tenefrancia and Rosemary Reyes.
Bios:
Papi Juice is a Brooklyn-based dance party and kiki celebrating queer and trans people of color and the folk who love them. Every celebration carries on with sounds from around the world catering to a curated thematic event. Papi Juice has featured artists and DJs such as Maluca, Princess Nokia, MikeQ, False Witness, Juliana Huxtable, Rizzla, and Jay Boogie. Papi Juice is committed to being an intentional space for queer and trans people of color.
Adam Rhodes is an artist, DJ, and audio and video technologist living and working in Brooklyn NY. His sound draws prominently from his American and Caribbean heritage. Adam is currently working on mixes and videos that reflect his interests in queer histories, Black queer identities, and Afrofuturism.
Cristóbal Guerra is a photographer, writer, and filmmaker from San Juan, Puerto Rico. He is one of the organizers of Papi Juice, documenting the party since it’s early days. Currently, he is working on independent publishing projects and films centering Afro-Caribbean and queer experience.
Born in Long Island, NY, Christopher Udemezue has shown at a variety of galleries and museums, including the New Museum, Queens Museum of Art, Brooklyn Arts Exchange, AC Institute Art Gallery, and Envoy Enterprises. Christopher has been featured in New York magazine, The New Yorker, Artnet news, Gayletter magazine, Brooklyn Rail magazine, Afropunk, Style.com and OUT Magazine. As the lead organising member in the art collective House of Ladosha, Christopher’s work explores queer issues as they intertwine with the social politics of communities of colour. His recent body of work utilizes his Jamaican heritage and the complexities of gender identity, desire, tragedy through personal and public mythology and public lynching as a primary source. As the founder of the platform RAGGA NYC, Christopher completed a residency with the New Museum “All The Threatened And Delicious Things Joining One Another” in June 2017, exploring Afro-Caribbean diasporic traditions, bringing together works by a group of artists who trace their own relationships to Caribbean history.
NIC Kay is from the Bronx. Currently occupying several liminal spaces. They are a person who makes performances and creates/organizes performative spaces. They are obsessed with the act and process of moving the change of place, production of space, position, and the clarity/meaning gleaned from shifting of perspective. NIC’s current transdisciplinary projects explore movement as a place of reclamation of the body, history, and spirituality. NIC has shown work, spoken on panels and hosted workshops at numerous venues throughout the United States and International. In 2016 they developed a web series called the Bronx Cunt Tour around their debut solo performance lil BLK for Open TV, which premiered in April 2016. NIC Kay is currently a 2017 Movement Research Artist-in-Residence Van Lier Fellow in New York City. NIC Kay performed as a part of Jimmy Robert’s Performa 17 commission at the Philip Johnson Glass House, Imitation of Lives.
DATE & LOCATION
FEATURED IMAGE: Courtesy of Performa 17, Original article.
