Hello girls, boys and everyone else. We finally have a complete tour schedule! I am so, so happy about our tour, performers, and the amazing community organizations we’re partnering with- from Esperanza Center to UBUNTU. A lot of folks have worked really hard to make this happen. Please spread the word, link and come out.
mangoswithchili.wordpress.com
mangos.with.chili@gmail.com
MANGOS WITH CHILI:
the floating cabaret of QTPOC bliss, dreams, sweat, sweets & nightmares
presents
SPLENDOR & GRIT: The Stunning South Tour 2009
October 16-31, 2009
Austin, Texas to Washington, DC!
Featuring:
SKIM
Aleksa Manilla
Amir Rabiyah
Ms. Cherry Galette
The Lady Vagina Jenkins
Maceo Cabrera Estevez
Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha
Who we are:
Mangos With Chili is a Bay Area based arts organization committed to showcasing high quality work of life saving importance by queer and trans artists of color to audiences in the Bay Area and beyond. Founded in 2006 by Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha and Ms Cherry Galette, Mangos with Chili features an annual touring cabaret of queer and trans people of color performance artists, offering unforgettable performance in celebration of our lives, stories, survival, and the legacies we are creating for future generations of queer and trans people of color.
For over 3 years, Mangos With Chili has performed to sold out houses across North America, wowing audiences in world class theaters, underground performance spaces, bars, and campus halls, with their high intensity, breathtaking performance, politics, and storytelling craft, reflecting the lives and stories of queer and trans people of color, while making art that speaks out in resistance to the daily struggles around silence, isolation, homophobia, and violence that QTPOC face.
For media inquires, downloadable logos and press pics or for more information please contact:
mangos.with.chili@gmail.com
mangoswithchili.wordpress.com
(510) 282-5223
Media Sponsored by Make/Shift Magazine
FULL TOURING DATES:
Friday, October 16
Texas A&M University
College Station, TX
7 PM (Doors Open at 6:30).
Rudder Forum . Please note: venue may change on short notice because Obama is speaking on campus! We’ll keep you posted.
Free and open to the public.
Saturday, October 17
San Antonio, TX
Esperanza Center for Peace and Justice
922 San Pedro Ave, San Antonio Tejas
http://www.esperanzacenter.org/
esperanza@esperanzacenter.org
210.228.0201
8 PM
$7-$10, no one turned away
Sunday, October 18
Austin, TX
The Off Center
2211-A Hidalgo Street
Austin, TX
http://www.rudemechs.com/
doors 7, show 7:30
$8-12
Monday, October 19
Austin, TX
Blue Theater
916 Springdale
Austin, TX
$8-12
Tuesday, October 20
Houston, TX
Avant Garden
411 Westheimer,
Houston, TX 77006
http://www.avantgardenhouston.com
$8-12
no one turned away
Wednesday, October 21
New Orleans, LA
Club Vibe
1605 Esplanade Ave.
9 PM
Benefit for INCITE! Women of Color Against Violence Women and Trans of Color Clinic
Thursday, October 22
Friday, October 23
Green Cup Books, 105 Richard Arrington Jr. Blvd. South,
Birmingham, AL
8 PM
Sunday, October 25
Atlanta GA
Spring4th Center
728 Spring Street NW
Atlanta GA 30308
7 PM doors, 7:30 show
$8-$12
http://www.spring4th.com
Tuesday, October 27
Durham, North Carolina
Common Ground Theater
4815B Hillsborough Road
West Durham, NC
doors 7:00, show at 7:30
Tickets: $7-$10, no one turned away
3 PM: Workshop with UBUNTU, http://iambecauseweare.wordpress.com/
location TBA
Wednesday, October 28
Richmond, VA
Richmond Gay Center
407 Sherwood Ave
Richmond, VA 23220-1004
doors 7:00, show at 8:00
Tickets: $7-10, no one turned away
Thursday, October 29
Baltimore MD
Floor Four
410 Jasper St.
doors 7:30 show 8:00
$8-!2 no one turned away.
Friday, October 30
Washington DC closing party
La Casa
La Casa
3166 Mt. Pleasant St. NW, Washington, DC
$8-12
Full Touring Artist Bios:
Mangos With Chili Co-Director Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha is a queer Sri Lankan writer, performer and teacher. She is the 2009-10 Artist in Residence at UC Berkeley’s June Jordan’s Poetry for the People program, a 2009 Sins Invalid performer and the co-founder and co-artistic director of Mangos With Chili. Her one woman show, Grown Woman Show, has toured nationally, including performances at the National Queer Arts Festival, Swarthmore College, Yale University, Reed College and McGill University. The author of Consensual Genocide, her writing has appeared in Yes Means Yes, Visible: A Femmethology, Homelands, Colonize This, We Don’t Need Another Wave, Bitchfest, Without a Net, Dangerous Families, Brazen Femme, Geeks, Misfits and Outlaws, Femme and A Girl’s Guide to Taking Over The World. She is proud to be the queer femme mixed slut schoolteacher Sri Lankan granddaughter of her queer femme mixed slut schoolteacher Sri Lankan grandmothers. She is finishing her second book of poetry and her first memoir, and is happy about the forthcoming publication of The Revolution Starts At Home: Transforming Partner Abuse Through Community Accountability, which she co-edited with Ching-In Chen and Jai Dulani, by South End Press in 2010.
Born into a family of migrant music makers, Mangos With Chili Co-Director Ms. Cherry Galette is a Moroccan and Chicana interdisciplinary movement artist fusing dance, burlesque, text, theater and more to create post-colonial fairy tales of modern resistance that celebrate queer desires, histories, survivals, migrations, and revolutions. Best known for presenting genre pushing work based in sultry, sacred, and profane fusions of traditional dance forms of the Arabic, Latin, and African diaspora with story, burlesque and ultra-gay cabaret, Cherry has presented work as a solo artist and produced and curated productions in theaters, festivals, cabarets, clubs, and varied stages extensively across North America. Cherry’s performance is a collision of cultural crossroads, era, tradition, and place, evoking elements of the cosmopolitan cabarets of the golden age of Middle Eastern dance, the legacy of movement passed down in women’s kitchens and salons, and the energy, joy, and enthusiasm of collective street dance. A favorite of the Bay Area burlesque, nightlife, and alternative dance and performance scenes, Cherry’s work is grounded in the transformative power of story to make change, creating accessible, community oriented theater and performance, and putting movement and music back in the bodies of the people through creating a dance movement that encompasses all experiences, ages, genders, and bodies.
Born in New York City, from a mother who taught herself how to play the piano, a father who conducted orchestras in his mind, and a culture called Hip Hop sweeping through the heart of the city, SKIM’s first language learned was music. Now based in Los Angeles, she has emerged as a fearless singer/ songwriter and poet. In 2006, she established her own production company, Mago Music, and released her first album, For Every Tear. Within days of its release, CD Baby’s executive director featured the album on the front page of the website. Drawing from each of her experiences and environments, she articulates herself through the music she creates, and captivates her audiences with raw honesty and charming humor. Skim mixes revolutionary visions and fiery rap lyrics with her sultry singing, while strumming a guitar. Her heart pounds as she drums with the passion of her Korean ancestry. Raised in New York City and presently in Los Angeles, she fuses the consciousness of third world peoples with the urban streets of U.S. cities. SKIM convinces ears to listen, bodies to dance, and hearts to open.
For the last 6 years The Lady Ms. Vagina Jenkins has titillated audiences all over the nation. Ever the ecdysiast exemplar, Ms. Jenkins acts defy audience expectations of what it means to be a woman of color and size. Through the lost art of the striptease Vagina Jenkins exhibits the kind of feminism that takes up space, and demands to be the center of attention. All this while awing audiences and leaving them hot, bothered and wanting more, more, more! Ms. Jenkins got her start at the 2003 Michigan Women’s Music Festival. And has since graced many stages, including but not limited to; Body Heat–The Femme Porn Tour (WA, OR, CA), South By Burlesque (Austin, TX), Miss Exotic World (Las Vegas, NV),The New York Burlesque Festival ’08, The Femme Conference ’08 (Chicago, IL), Moxie: A Queer Cabaret of Caliber (Atlanta, GA), The Southern Comfort Conference ’06 and ’07 (Atlanta, GA), Big Mamma’s House of Burlesque (Charlotte, NC) , and Atlanta PRIDE ’08. Vagina Jenkins is currently basking in the afterglow of a very successful one woman show aptly called “The Big Tease.” Be sure to check www.VaginaJenkins.com for dates in your town! The Southern Voice magazine calls her “…one of the top stars in Atlanta’s queer burlesque scene.” Charlotte’s Creative Loafing says Ms. Vagina Jenkins is “classy… a welcome shot of chocolate.” Atlanta Creative Loafing magazine named her “The Best Burlesque Dancer.” Critics have called her “Alluring”, “Sophisticated”, “Complex”, and “Unique.” No matter the adjective, Ms. Vagina Jenkins is sure to knock your stockings off!
From local bars to amphitheaters, lip syncing to live singing, solos to productions, black boas to Pink Martini, Aleksa Manila has traveled as a performer across North America. Aleksa Manila is known in Seattle and beyond as a stellar drag artist, consummate host and community activist. She is a beloved panelist and speaker at various LGBTQIA [Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer, Intersex and Allies], youth, people of color and political/activism workshops, trainings and conferences. When not in face, ‘he’ educates the community about the harms of crystal methamphetamine with Project NEON, a program of Seattle Counseling Service; tests for and counsels about HIV & STD with Public Health – Seattle & King County. Aleksa is honored to be a part of this cast! To know more about Aleksa Manila, visit www.aleksamanila.com
Maceo Cabrera Estévez hails from Brooklyn, New York and now lives in Oakland, California. Maceo is a performance artist, writer and long time text therapist. She has performed her work in various venues in NYC and the Bay Area such as the Asian American Writers Workshop, Dixon Place, La Galería de la Raza, La Peña, The Knitting Factory, The Nuyorican Poets Café and The National Queer Arts Festival. Maceo’s debut play Amor Cubano: In a bottle, a tube and a small packet was first performed at La Peña Cultural center’s Hecho en Califas Festival 2007. She also performed it at The Mission Cultural Center for Latino Arts in San Francisco, The Brooklyn Arts Exchange and The Bronx Academy of Arts and Dance as part of their Blaktino Performance Festival. Her writing has been published in Sojourner: The Women’s Forum and Riffrag Journal she also writes the blog Dripping River Water. In her spare time, Maceo practices la yoga, flamenco dancing, takes quizzes on Facebook and prays to the One.
Amir Rabiyah lives in Oakland, California and is an Arab/queer/trans poet and performer. He received his BA in Women’s Studies from Portland State University and his MFA in Writing and Consciousness from the New College of California. He is super excited to be performing with Mangos With Chili and to continue to honor his ancestors by being a rabble rouser. He has performed and read his work all over the US and has been published in Mizna, Riffrag, Tea Party Magazine and the anthology: I Saw My Ex at a Party. He was a finalist in Cutthroat Magazine’s 2008 Joy Harjo Poetry Contest.
