WEHO PRIDE ARTS FESTIVAL
40 DAYS OF LGBTQ+ PROGRAMMING FROM MAY 22 THROUGH JUNE 30, 2023
The City of West Hollywood celebrates pride with its WeHo Pride Arts Festival, which runs from Harvey Milk Day (May 22) through the end of June Pride month (June 30). The Arts Festival has taken place since 2008 and was formerly known as One City One Pride LGBTQ Arts Festival.
FULL SCHEDULE
Britt Westveer’s We’ve Always Been Here
May 2023 - April 2024
West Hollywood City Hall, 8300 Santa Monica Boulevard, West Hollywood, CA 90069
This new mural on the side of City Hall debuts in mid-May. The exhibition is a collection of three large, printed posters wheatpasted onto the side of City Hall featuring digital collages made from found imagery and the artist’s own archives depicting the long history of diverse LGBTQIA+ people who have "always been here."
West Hollywood celebrates Harvey Milk Day, featuring the José Sarria Drag Pageant
Monday, May 22 at 6 PM
Respite Deck of the West Hollywood Aquatics and Recreation Center, 8750 El Tovar Pl, West Hollywood, CA 90069
Free and Open to the Public, RSVP required.
The City of West Hollywood presents its annual celebration for Harvey Milk Day and start of the WeHo Pride Arts Festival with the first annual José Sarria Drag Pageant, organized by HIT and sponsored by the Imperial Court. José Sarria was the first openly gay person to run for office in California and helped pave the way for Harvey Milk’s successful run for office. The competition is hosted by Maebe A. Girl, and judged by Mayor Sepi Shyne, and Queen Mother Kamala Samala and Emperor Eugene Maysky of the Imperial Court (an organization Sarria helped found). Drag Queens and Kings are invited to compete for the crown in 3 rounds: Formal Wear, Question and Answer, and Talent. Anybody interested in entering the pageant should email Sean Knapp (seandknapp@gmail.com) by May 21. Contestants can arrive as early as 4pm, but no later than 6:00pm. An unsecured room and restroom will be provided, but contestants are encouraged to come to the pageant fully dressed and made up. All contestants will compete in the formal wear round. 10 contestants will be selected to enter the question and answer round. From those 10, 3 will be selected to show their talent. This is a public space —talents should be suitable for all audiences. If your talent needs music, please have your music track (non-explicit) prepared for the DJ. The top 10 contestants will receive a cash prize.
In addition to the Drag Pageant, there will be a voter registration table, a Harvey Milk photo opportunity, and custom typewriter poetry provided by Pride Poets, a City arts grantee.
This event is free, however RSVP is required at https://2023harveymilkday.eventbrite.com.
Simran Bhalla: Queer Indian Cinema
Wednesday, May 31, 2023, 7pm
West Hollywood City Council Chambers, 625 N San Vicente Blvd, West Hollywood, CA 90069
Free, Reservations Required
Simran Bhalla is a Postdoctoral Fellow in the Division of Cinema and Media Studies at the University of Southern California. She has a PhD in Screen Cultures from Northwestern University. Her research focuses on postcolonial and pre-Revolutionary nonfiction films from Indian and Iran. She is the curator of multiple film series on Indian, Iranian, and Arab cinema. In 2020, film programmers discovered a print of Badnam Basti (1971) in a German archive — the movie is thought to be the first to openly portray a gay relationship in Indian cinema. However, it was considered lost or destroyed for several decades. In this lecture, Bhalla emphasizes the value of film preservation and archives in unearthing and contextualizing this hidden LGBT history. Bhalla shares examples of queer sensibilities in Indian cinema history, from 1920s cross-dressing and gender play to bisexual intimations in the 1970s and 1980s.
Angelic Troublemakers Exhibition
June 1 - August 24, 2023
West Hollywood Library, 2nd floor, 625 N San Vicente Blvd, West Hollywood, CA 90069
Free to attend, no RSVP needed. Open during regular library hours
Angelic Troublemakers is an exhibition of digital drawings and photographs relating to the theme of LGBTQIA+ Pride at the West Hollywood Library. “We need in every community, a group of angelic troublemakers.” - Bayard Rustin.
Free to visit, open during regular library hours. Please check the hours before visiting: https://lacountylibrary.org/west-hollywood-library
My Own Private Rodeo, by Coyote Park
June 1 - June 30, Hours: Fri - Sun, Noon-5pm
ONE Gallery, 626 N Robertson Blvd, West Hollywood, CA 90069
Free, Open to the Public, No RSVP required.
In collaboration with ONE Archives Foundation, the City of West Hollywood and HIT presents My Own Private Rodeo — an exhibition of new works by Coyote Park. Navigating the world in a body that has been desecrated, reclaimed, brutalized, and empowered, Coyote Park asks, "What does it mean for myself to exist in a way that my elders weren't allowed to?” These works move through feelings of grief, mourning, loss, pride, redemption, and play. It is in the deepest place of isolation, where Park finds a site where they are their personal spectator of their own pain - their own transformation. A rodeo of aching glory: where they are the hunter, the hunted, the bull, and the rider.
Rainbows, Wigs, and Shades
June 1 - June 30, 2023
8624 W Sunset Blvd, West Hollywood, CA 90069
Free to attend, no RSVP needed.
Artist’s Reception: Thursday, June 1, 6pm-8pm
Dustin Gimbel is an artist who primarily works in ceramic totems. This Pride-themed installation called “Rainbows, Wigs, and Shades” is a celebration of diversity not only of the community but also of the diverse sides within each of us, playing dress up with items like wigs and glasses to express our various alter egos.
WeHo Reads: Shining Like Beacons
Wednesday, June 14, 2023, 7pm - 8:30pm
Online
Free, RSVPs accepted, but not required.
Presented in collaboration with Lambda Literary and featuring Kamden Hilliard, K-Ming Chang, Golden, and Natalie Wee. RSVP at www.weho.org/wehoreads
Beautiful Things Craft Market
Saturday, June 17, 2023, 10am - 5pm
Plummer Park Community Center, 7377 Santa Monica Blvd, South Patio and Rooms 5 and 6, West Hollywood, CA 90046.
Free, Open to the Public, No RSVP needed.
Beautiful Things is a craft market by local LGBTQIA+ artisans and craft-makers. This indoor/outdoor market is free to attend and open to the public. Shop the curated selection of ceramics, fibre and textile crafts, hand-made jewelry, and more. On the same day in Plummer Park, there will also be an LGBTQ Comic Con presented by arts grantee Prism Comics and a casual day in the park organized by Women’s Freedom Festival. Parking will be tight, please consider taking public transit or rideshare.
Q Con presented by Prism Comics
Saturday, June 17, 2023, 10am to 5pm
Fiesta Hall, Plummer Park, 1166 N Vista St, West Hollywood, CA 90046
Q Con is an LGBTQ+ comic con celebrating the diversity of LGBTQ+ comics, games, and popular media today. Attendees will be able to meet creators from indie comics to major publishers, get autographs and sketches, attend panels and mix with other comics fans. Attendees are encouraged to cosplay their favorite characters with a fun and festive Costume Contest being held at 3:30pm. Q Con is free to the public and family friendly, providing pre-teens through adults with the opportunity to find a wide variety of comics and graphic novels affirming LGBTQ+ representation at one exciting, colorful event. Funded through an arts grant from the City of West Hollywood.
More info: https://qconprism.org
Drag Story Hour
Saturday, June 17, 2023, 11am
West Hollywood Library Community Meeting Room, 625 N. San Vicente Blvd, West Hollywood, CA 90069
Free, Open to the Public, No RSVP needed.
Drag Story Hour has been funded by the City of West Hollywood’s Arts Division since 2017 and is presented in partnership with the staff of the West Hollywood Library. June’s reader is Amber Crane.
Gay Men's Chorus of Los Angeles
Saturday, June 17, 2023, 7 - 8:30pm
West Hollywood Park, 647 N San Vicente Blvd, West Hollywood, CA 90069
Free
Watch the sunset and celebrate pride month with us as we sing our favorite hit songs from recent concerts: QUEEN, MOTOWN, SONDHIEM and our favorite POP DIVAS! This is a great way to get to know GMCLA or hear us again, and come for free! See the Chorus sing the best of the best in WeHo Park before our June performances of Disney Pride in Concert at Walt Disney Concert Hall!
This is an outdoor event, attendees may bring lawn chairs, outdoor cushions, or blankets. Funded through an arts grant from the City of West Hollywood.
Decoding The Closet in American Art
Wednesday, June 21, 2023, 3 - 4pm
LA LGBT Center, Anita May Rosenstein Campus, Senior Center, 1118 N. McCadden Pl., Los Angeles, CA 90038
Free
Some of the most iconic images in American art and popular advertising history, from Thomas Eakins’ “Swimming” to J.C. Leyendecker’s groundbreaking Arrow Man ads, to Grant Wood’s “American Gothic” and Andy Warhol’s “Campbell’s Soup” were created by queer artists with unusually complex sexual lives. Uncover the secrets behind their relationships and their trailblazing work.
Queers Performing Tricks Presented by AC Smith + Queer Animated Shorts presented by Silverlake Shorts
Thursday, June 22, 2023, 6:30pm
Fiesta Hall at Plummer Park, 1166 N Vista St, West Hollywood, CA 90046
Free, Open to the Public, No RSVP Needed.
AC Smith curates a night of short digital and live body performance works and tricks by non-binary and trans artists. Hosted by C. Bain and presenting Caleb Craig, Stephanie Mei Huang, Vaughan Larson, WAWY WUS TUB (Dallas Havoc, Kate Renshaw-Lewis, and Arius Ziaee), Zenaido Zamora, and a non-magical elf. Featuring Shy Ronnie’s West Hollywood drag king debut.
The Alliance of Los Angeles Playwrights presents its Annual Pride Play Reading Festival
Saturday, June 24, 2023, 11am & 2pm
Plummer Park
Free
The Alliance of Los Angeles Playwrights, presents its annual Pride Reading Festival at Plummer Park. This is the first year that we are once again presenting in person readings of the selected plays. Plays are selected by an independent panel of judges. Selected works will reflect the current challenges facing the LGBTQ+ community. 11am short play readings will be presented and at 2pm the selected full length play reading will be presented. Non- alcoholic drinks and food will be provided.
This presentation is supported in part by an arts grant from the City of West Hollywood.
Queer Book Bazaar
Saturday, June 24, 2023, 10am-5pm
Fiesta Hall at Plummer Park, 7377 Santa Monica Blvd, West Hollywood, CA 90046
Free, Open to the Public, No RSVP Needed.
The Queer Book Bazaar is a market and exhibition of local book dealers, independent publishers, and literary vendors. Live performances by queer musicians, dancers, and performance artists will be scheduled throughout the day on the Fiesta Hall stage. A full line-up of performances will be available soon.
Boris Dralyuk: Lecture and Poetry Reading
Saturday, June 24, 2023, 11am
Fiesta Hall in Plummer Park, 1166 N Vista St, West Hollywood, CA 90046
Free, Open to the Public, No RSVP Needed
West Hollywood has for several decades been home to a large community of Russian-speaking émigrés from the lands of the former Soviet Union, but the history of Russophone LA goes back much farther. Throughout the 20th century, thousands of people fleeing war, revolution, and repression in the Russian Empire and the USSR found peace, if not always happiness, in Southern California. Among them were poets like Alexander Voloshin (1886-1960), Vladimir Korvin-Piotrovsky (1891-1966), Vladislav Ellis (1913-1975), and Vladimir Dukelsky (1903-1969), who gained fame as a composer and lyricist under the name Vernon Duke. Boris Dralyuk will share his translations of their work. These poems of exile have only grown more poignant and timely in light of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which has brought a new wave of refugees to the Southland.
Rick Castro & Sam Sweet
Saturday, June 24, 2023, 2pm
Fiesta Hall in Plummer Park
Free, Open to the Public
Rick Castro and Sam Sweet present a new publication of images about hustlers on Santa Monica Boulevard, circa 1986-1998. A panel discussion will be followed by Q&A and book signing.
Rick Castro is a photographer, filmmaker, and writer who has lived and worked in Los Angeles for his entire life. He made his first image in 1986 and from then on immersed himself in homoerotic fetish photography. In 1996, he directed Hustler White, starring Bruce LaBruce. From 2005 to 2017, he owned and operated Antebellum Gallery, the only fetish art gallery in America. Over the course of his career, he has created portraits of Gore Vidal, Kenneth Anger, Ron Athey, Alice Bag, Peter Berlin, Michele Lamy, and the 14th Dalai Lama. He has collaborated on fashion editorial for Christian Dior Homme, Cartier, and Rick Owens. His publications include Castro (DPR Press, 1990) and 13 Years of Bondage: The Photography of Rick Castro (Fluxion Editions, 2004). He regularly posts new imagery at instagram.com/castrrick.
Sam Sweet is a writer, publisher, and archivist specializing in lost heroes and miniatures histories of Los Angeles. He is best known as the author of ALL NIGHT MENU, a collection of L.A. microhistories spread across five booklets. Each volume contains eight addresses and each address connects to a different time period, subculture, and section of the city. ALL NIGHT MENU has since grown to encompass visual publications, a photographic archive, and an oral history series. His work can be found at samsweet.info and allnight-menu.com.
Banjee Ball presents Haus of Telfar’s “Who’s Bad Ball?”
Saturday, June 24, 2023, 6pm-9pm
Fiesta Hall in Plummer Park, 1166 N Vista St, West Hollywood, CA 90046
Free, Open to the Public, After the Queer Book Bazaar
Banjee Ball is a celebration of LGBTQ+ youth and talent. A fixture in LA’s ‘Kiki’ scene, Haus of Telfar joins Purple Crush, the music directors of HBO Max’s Legendary, to bring the “Who’s Bad Ball” to Fiesta Hall in Plummer Park. This is an infrequent opportunity for outside spectators to witness the incredible artistry and ferocity of Ball Culture, right here in West Hollywood.
Invertigo Dance Theatre’s Walk the Walk + Yozmit
Sunday, June 25, 2023, 2pm-3:30pm
West Hollywood Park - At the Base of the Grand Staircase, 8750 El Tovar Pl, West Hollywood, CA 90069
Free, Open to the Public, No RVSP needed
Walk the Walk is an ensemble of Invertigo Dance Theatre - a dynamic mixtape performance of the trans/nonbinary body. Join us for the first public showing of an excerpt of Walk the Walk's production which premieres in September 2023. Fusing choreographies, spoken word, and vibrant media into a form-bending collage, Walk the Walk brings gender-expanding stories front and center. Featuring D. Hill, Cody-Brunelle Potter, Cedric Tai, Lennon Torres, and lead artist K. Bradford. The interdisciplinary artist Yozmit will perform a durational piece throughout the park.
This is an outdoor event that is free and open to the public. Unreserved seating will be available on the steps of the West Hollywood Aquatics and Recreation Center. Please bring sun-protection — umbrellas and hats are recommended.
Schindler House Haunting by Jas Lin 林思穎
Sunday, June 25, 2023, 7pm-9pm
MAK Center for Art and Architecture, 835 North Kings Road, West Hollywood, CA 90069
Doors Open + Refreshments: 7pm
Performance Starts: 8pm
For the 2023 WeHo Pride Arts Festival, Jas Lin 林思穎 restages their site-specific performance triptych, Schindler House Haunting, in a fourth iteration. Originally commissioned by homeLA as a part of the MAK Center for Art and Architecture centennial celebration Schindler House: 100 Years in the Making, this reverberation continues to build on R.M. Schindler’s “space architecture”, which shattered notions of useful domestic space partitioning interior and exterior, self and Other. Fear of the ghost is fear of the Other, both inside and outside of oneself– a gaze that turns queer, non-white, femme, wild bodies into ghosts. By embodying a figure of abjection and contradiction, Lin turns boundaries and binaries inside out, making visible the repression and oppression organized under dominant social frameworks. Paced to the duration of the sunset, the haunting moves with the ephemerality between lightness and darkness, contemplating the relationship between architecture, land, and spectral traces. The immersive musical score by FITNESSS is composed of breaths, creaks, and echoes resounding from both Lin’s body and the skeleton of the house.
Reservations requested but not required on the HIT app at (https://thehitapp.page.link/MtxS). Walk-Ins without a reservation will be placed on a waitlist first come, first serve. Those on the waitlist are not guaranteed admission.
Screening - Experimental Shorts - Curated by Jheanelle Brown
Monday, June 26, 2023, 7:30pm-9pm
Brain Dead Studios, 611 N Fairfax Ave, Los Angeles, CA 90036
Jheanelle Brown is a film curator/programmer, educator, and arts administrator based in Los Angeles whose curatorial practice creates frameworks to explore the boundlessness of Black life in experimental and non-fiction film and video. Jheanelle co-curates the Film at REDCAT program, teaches at CalArts, and is a programmer for Los Angeles Filmforum. At this moment, she is dreaming about cosmic marronage whilst trying to remember her terrestrial obligations.
Reservations requested but not required on the HIT app at (https://thehitapp.page.link/MtxS). Walk-Ins without a reservation will be placed on a waitlist first come, first serve. Those on the waitlist are not guaranteed admission.
Girl Internet Show: A Kati Kelli Mixtape
Tuesday, June 27, 2023, 7:30pm-9:30pm
Brain Dead Studios, 611 N Fairfax Ave, Los Angeles, CA 90036
This brand-new feature-length “mixtape” unearths and reintroduces a stunning, singular body of work by the enigmatic Kati Kelli, an outsider video artist and digital native whose subversive online uploads push at the seams of the digital form. For nearly a decade before her passing in 2019, Kati ran “Girl Internet Show,” a YouTube channel, parasocial experiment, and epically deranged one-woman universe built from scratch in her bedroom. This hand-made mixtape by Jane Schoenbrun and Jordan Wippell features a lovingly curated selection of Kati’s online work, unreleased videos, and her first (and final) short film opus "Total Body Removal Surgery.” A discussion with filmmaker Jordan Wippell will follow the screening.
Reservations requested but not required on the HIT app at (https://thehitapp.page.link/MtxS). Walk-Ins without a reservation will be placed on a waitlist first come, first serve. Those on the waitlist are not guaranteed admission.
Screening - Blue by Derek Jarman
Wednesday, June 28, 2023, 7:30pm-9pm
Brain Dead Studios, 611 N Fairfax Ave, Los Angeles, CA 90036
Comprising a single static shot a la Yves Klein, Derek Jarman's final film consists of diaristic and poetic text documenting his AIDS-related illness, at a time when he had become partially blind, his vision often interrupted by blue light. It was completed only a few months before he died.
Reservations requested but not required on the HIT app at (https://thehitapp.page.link/MtxS). Walk-Ins without a reservation will be placed on a waitlist first come, first serve. Those on the waitlist are not guaranteed admission.
Screening - Riot Acts: Flaunting Gender Deviance in Music Performance featuring a Live Performance by the Legendary San Francisco Musical Act Lipstick Conspiracy
Thursday, June 29, 07:30pm-9pm
Brain Dead Studios, 611 N Fairfax Ave, Los Angeles, CA 90036
At the time it was made (spanning 2006-2009), Angelo Madsen Minax's Riot Acts was one of few films about trans people that was also made by trans people, and created with one specific goal in mind: to combat mainstream images of isolation and destitution, to demonstrate that the journey within a trans experience isn't always one of tragedy, but one of creativity and joy. Documenting the multi-faceted lives of transgender and gender variant musicians, Riot Acts takes the shape of a lo-fi road movie-come-concert video to suggest that identities and bodies are undeniably political.
Reservations requested but not required on the HIT app at (https://thehitapp.page.link/MtxS). Walk-Ins without a reservation will be placed on a waitlist first come, first serve. Those on the waitlist are not guaranteed admission.
Screening - The Adventure of Iron Pussy by Apichatpong Weerasethakul
Friday, June 30, 2023, 7:30pm-9pm
Brain Dead Studios, 611 N Fairfax Ave, Los Angeles, CA 90036
Iron Pussy decides to take a commission from a Thai government, who usually deems her indecent for her publicly supporting the sex industry. But they cannot deny her ability to scrap the crimes with beauty. An undercover operation takes her to a remote mansion where she not only discovers illegal activities, but also her past, and her first love. Written and directed by Apichatpong Weerasethakul and Michael Shaowanasai.
Reservations requested but not required on the HIT app at (https://thehitapp.page.link/MtxS). Walk-Ins without a reservation will be placed on a waitlist first come, first serve. Those on the waitlist are not guaranteed admission.