Featured Artists, Poets, Musicians & Filmakers

last updated: june 2008

1. SOLO

Adelina Anthony (Los Angeles, CA)
ADELINA ANTHONY, a Xicana-Indígena lesbian multi-disciplinary artist. Adelina produces, directs, and participates in theater and other cultural productions on a continuous bases. Currently she leads workshops through a project she dreamed of implementing years ago: TEATRO Q (a safe space where L/G/B/T/Two-Spirited People of Color explore various aspects of theater arts/performance).

Hector Silva (Los Angeles, CA)
"Hector Silva is an artist based in Los Angeles who has been producing work for more than twenty years. Born in Ocotlan, Jalisco, Mexico, he moved to the US at the age of 17. He began drawing in his late 20’s when he discovered his own talent. He created his first portrait in 1982 of Lucille Ball. This drawing somehow reached her hands and she contacted Hector to acquire the original in 1984. This marked the beginning of his commercial career."

Maya Chapina (Bay Area, CA)
Maya is a Central American poet-performer, filmmaker, and activist-scholar. A two-spirited humble diva, this renaissance woman has enjoyed organizing events and showcasing artists who investigate and celebrate the intersection of politics, media and art over the past ten years. She has presented her academic work, performed poetry and theater, as well as given workshops in writing, performance and video production on both coasts and sevaral wonderful places in between.

Staceyann Chin (New York City, NY)
Staceyann Chin is a fulltime artist. A resident of New York City and a Jamaican National, she has been an “out poet and political activist” since 1998. From the rousing cheers of the Nuyorican Poets' Cafe to one-woman shows Off- Broadway to poetry workshops in Denmark and London to co-writer and performer in the Tony nominated, Russell Simmons Def Poetry Jam on Broadway, Chin credits the long list of "things she has done" to her grandmother's hard-working history and the pain of her mother's absence.

chueh jun-fung (CA)

Alison De La Cruz (Los Angeles, CA)
Performance Artist, Poet, DJ

Ryka Aoki de la Cruz (Los Angeles, CA)

DJ Nova Jade (Los Angeles, CA)
Tera "Nova Jade" Greene is a 24-year-old, gender-fluid enigma. She is a professional lesbian actively involved in the betterment of the community. Whether behind the decks as a dj, writing/performing poetry, mentoring/producing up-and-coming musicians, dancing in drag with the Pin Up Girls, or being a senior volunteer for OUTFEST, Nova Jade* is on a mission and can not be stopped. She can be reached on myspace.com/djnovajade, or via her house-music podcast, Nova Jade's Hodgepodge Consortium show.

D'Lo (Los Angeles, CA)
Described as a "jolt of creative and comedic energy", D'Lo is a Tamil Sri Lankan-American, political theatre artist/writer and music producer, currently causing the most trouble in Los Angeles. D'Lo's work is a part of the vibrant tapestry that sheds light on many of the issues of our modern day society; brutality, justice, AIDS, sexuality, political and social unrest and division along ethnic and gender lines. D'Lo is a teaching artist and has performed and held workshops extensively throughout the US and Canada, United Kingdom, Germany, Sri Lanka and India.

Alma Lopez (Los Angeles, CA)
Mexican-born Chicana artist, activist and visual storyteller. Alma's work ranges from serigraphs, paintings, and photo-based digital prints, to public murals and video. She is dedicated to issues of representation and social justice, taking as her subject the daily lives, mythologies and dreams of people of color. Through visual scholarship, she deconstructs and re-figures cultural icons, including La Virgen de Guadalupe, allowing them to exist in radically new ways.

Ami Mattison (Detroit, MI)
CD: Break The Glass Written by Ami Mattison, Produced by Ami Mattison & Ross Falzone
"A spoken word force to be reckoned with" (Atlanta Journal-Constitution, 2004), Ami Mattison is “a powerhouse poet...sexy, funny, funky, and yet substantive." (The Tennessean, 2004). Touring since 2002, Ami has performed at numerous art venues, festivals, conferences, colleges, and universities around the country. Ami's demo CD, Strange and Potent Mixture, is described by Nashville Scene (2004) as "not for the faint of heart or those with sensibilities too delicate to confront tough issues straight on. Of the nine poetic performances on Strange and Potent Mixture, all deal with identity, all are political, and all but a couple rage against American antipathy toward people of color, women, homosexuals and the poor…her poems are broadsides against a hostile culture of hate and greed.”

Monica Palacios

Yosimar Reyes (East Side San Jose, CA)
From the Mountains of Guerrero, Mexico comes Yosimar Reyes, a Two-Spirit Poet/Activist Based out of San Jose,CA. His style has been described as "a brave and vulnerable voice that shines light on the issues affecting Queer Immigrant Youth and the many disenfranchised communities in the U.S and throughout the world." Yosimar’s distinct style has managed to get him to perform form the Bay Area to New York City (always Representing East Side San Jose and his beautiful Mexico).

Sile P. Singleton

SKIM (Los Angeles, CA)
Skim's CD For Every Tear


2. COLLECTIVES, GROUPS

Butchlalis de Panochtitlan (BdP) (Los Angeles, CA)
Butchlalis de Panochtitlan is a trio that has emerged from community based activist spaces to create visibility around politicized identities and the limitations in identity politics within a Los Angeles-centric context. They work to produce multi-dimensional language as a way that activates a new way of seeing their multi-layered, contradictory and celebratory selves in an often hostile world.

DeepDickollective (Oakland, CA)
CD: On Some Other
DeepDickollective includes Juba Kalamka (Pointfivefag), Tim'm T. West (25Percenter), Jeree Brown (JB RapItUp), Ryan Burke (Solis), Marcus Rene' Van (Mr.Man Man), Leslie Taylor (Buttaflysoul)

Las Manas Tres (Bay Area, CA)
Current Touring Performers of Las Manas Tres: Maya Chinchilla, Cruz Grimaldo, Milta Ortiz. LAS MANAS TRES are hybrid poetas bringing the fuerte flava, heating the heart and melting the mind from the Bay to L.A. Their stilo is characterized by a mixture of theater, spoken word and movement, centered around themes of social justice, sexuality, motherhood and the relationship between first and third world women.

Mangos With Chili (U.S.)
Mangos With Chili is a multi-racial, multi-gendered and multi-genre traveling cabaret of queer and trans of color performance artists working in theater, dance, spoken word, burlesque and drag. Using performance to tell stories of race, class, survival, sex, dreams, and trans, femme and genderqueer identities that span Sri Lanka to the Philippines to Aztlán to the Caribbean to Morocco to Brooklyn to migrant small town Washington state, Mangos With Chili is a groundbreaking performance cabaret, taking This Bridge Called My Back into the 21st century.

The Rice Kings (Bay Area, CA)
asian/pacific islander drag king troupe: big daddy, dang kinki, and tito ray ray pansit on my face

Spotlight Stealerz (Los Angeles, CA)
Spotlight Stealerz is a Los Angeles-based theatre/comedy performance troupe who weave individual stories and group sketches to explore a range of issues within their multiple experiences, identities and communities (from Chicana, Tamil-Sri Lankan, Filipina, lesbian, queer, stud, immigrant, mixed race). The Stealerz was created, founded and based on the writing of Adelina Anthony, D'Lo and Alison De La Cruz. Each Stealer comes with their own flavor to add to the comedic, heart felt and engaging stew. The Spotlight Stealerz come with heart, humor and a bit of sketch to take audiences on a journey they might not soon forget.