“An intimate and fiery hour of slam poetry. Delightfully explicit. Yan’s solo performance rose to the top of a crowded field.”
New City Stage
Kit Yan is an award-winning, queer, trans, Asian-American poet from Hawaii. Queer Heartache is their solo slam poetry show that explores their identities, asks what queer hearts and families are made of, and interrogates the forces that constantly work to break them apart. Queer Heartache is a testament to the resilience of queer love in all its forms—between cis and trans siblings, lovers, pride parade attendees, and many more—in the face of heartbreaking barriers everywhere from the dating pool to the medical establishment. If you’ve ever had your heart broken, wondered how your pets self-identify, or wanted to tell someone your gender is none of their business, this show is for you.
Queer Heartache was part of the 2016/17 OBERON I.D. Festival. The show has also been featured in the 2015 Chicago Fringe Festival, where it won the Artist’s Choice, Audience Choice, and Spirit of Fringe awards, and 2016 San Francisco Fringe Festival, where it won Volunteer’s Choice and Best of Fringe, and had its New York premier at the first annual 2016 Transgender Theater Festival. A print adaptation is out now through TransGenre Press (2016).
Created and performed by Kit Yan
Directed by Jessi Hill
Featuring opening performances from:
Friday, February 9, 2018: Black Venus, Chrysanthemum Tran, Justice Ameer
Saturday, February 10, 2018: Kaleigh O’Keefe, Eddie Maisonet, Zenaida Peterson
Press
Credits
Guest Poets:
Friday, February 9:
Black Venus is a renaissance, drawing inspiration from artists like Josephine Baker and Audre Lorde, who allowed no limits to their creative expression. They are the Assistant Director for The Theater Offensive’s True Colors OUT Youth Theater Troupe, as well as, a slam poetry coach for 826 Boston. As an independent and multidisciplinary artist, Black Venus‘ work is deeply introspective and strives to challenge normalized language and discourse around identity. They find fulfillment when using various art forms as tools for education, healing, and liberation. Black is also an active community organizer, collaborating with fellow artists on programming that aims to dismantle oppression and promote healing through creative practices. For more insight into the art of Black Venus, follow them on Facebook/Twitter/Instagram, @blackv3nus, or visit their website blackv3nus.com.
Chrysanthemum Tran is a queer & transgender Vietnamese American poet, performer & teaching artist based in Providence by way of Oklahoma City. In 2016, she became the first transfeminine finalist of the Women of the World Poetry Slam. A 2016 Rustbelt Poetry Slam Champion & 2017 FEMS Poetry Slam Champion, Chrysanthemum is a Pink Door Fellow & the current lead teaching artist for the Providence Poetry Slam youth team. Her work can be found in The Offing, The Blueshift Journal, Muzzle Magazine & the Bettering American Poetry Vol. 2 anthology.
Justice Ameer is a Black trans woman poet based in Providence, RI. Xe is a Pink Door Fellow and a three-time semifinalist at the national college slam, CUPSI. Xe is the 2017 Providence Grand Slam Champion and a 2017 FEMS Poetry Slam Champion. Xyr work is a practice in becoming unapologetic and unafraid, writing in dedication to xyr community and xyr name. You can find xyr work on Glass Poetry Press and Wusgood Mag.
Saturday, February 10:
Kaleigh O’Keefe is a transgender poet, performer, craftsperson, designer, activist, and organizer living in Dorchester, MA. They have performed everywhere from dingy basements and downtown Boston sidewalks during protests, to the Boston Pride Festival, TEDx Vail Colorado, and the United Nations Headquarters in NYC. Average wage laborer by day, and political organizer and host of the First Friday’s Youth Open Mic in JP by night, Kaleigh is composed mostly of earl grey and has a measuring tape in their possession at all times.
A born and bred Boston writer and teaching artist, Eddie Maisonet is an afroboricua queer nonbinary boi who wants to manifest community healing through storytelling. He sees personal narrative as one of the best ways to build a more joyful, righteous, playful resistance in the face of marginalization. As a teaching artist, he loves leading workshops centered on facilitating queer/trans people of color engagement with storytelling to right/write narrative. He has been published in bklyn boihood’s Outside the XY and recently completed an artist residency project with The Theatre Offensive called the QTPOC Mixtape Project.
