The 8th Annual New Masculinities Festival
Saturday, November 14, 2020

Online, in collaboration with
New York City's Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Community Center.

New Worlds, New Masculinities

From the confines of a New York City apartment to a summer of poetry in Texas; tracing links from the Mississippi to Ghana; dealing in kinda-poetic prep for webcam sex and kinda-utopic gender-role reversal in a Star-Trek style; buzzing on a cello’s bow and dancing on a pole--the 8th Annual New Masculinities Festival warmly invites you to experience new possibilities for gender expression, from the comfort of your own home.

The Main Room, 2pm-6pm
Features sets of performances alternating with opportunities for dialogue. Viewers may join by Zoom or watch the livestream.

After Dark, 8pm-9pm+
Features more sex-celebratory performances that will only be accessible by Zoom, from 8pm-9pm, followed by time to connect and mingle; viewers must be 18 years of age or older to enter.

Gay, trans, queer, black, brown, disabled, old, young, immigrant, international, artsy, extra, and people of all genders...join us. We're cutting out space and time for as much of a utopia as we can hold.

The 2020 Festival is complete! See the recording of the Main Room on our YouTube channel.

Festival Schedule

main room | 2pm-5pm

welcome

masc at home

The Damnable Deprivation of Dmitri
Catalin Stelian & Gabriel Stelian-Shanks

BOY
Chris Blak, Gamaal 'Taylor' Storr, Jahnathan Nixon

Virtually Yours
Celeste Cahn & Mohammad Shehata

Dialogue

poetic crossings

Driftwood
Troy Rockett & Sam Vernon

Sonetos del Amor Oscuro
Daniel de Jesús, Coutrlyn Carr

Dialogue

challenging expectations

“And Bring from the Darkness...”
Arthur Joseph Lundquist, Bruce Barton, Paul Chamberlain, Stan Saja, Ben Errig, Judi Polson

The Child Groom
Gretchen Suárez-Peña, Katherine Stenzel, Jen Diaz, Laela Rodriguez, Cornelio Aguilera

spider/wolf/goddess
Michael Wilson, Aimee Plauche, Azmi Mert Erdem

Dialogue

after dark | 8pm-9pm and onward

Welcome

Rituals of Desire
J Scales, Daniel Coleman, Emanuel Highlander Brown

Silence
Nathan Serrato

Rimbaud, Rimming, Reimagining Queer & Asian
Chen Chen

Penis (Plural)
Jeffrey Cougler

Lucky Star/ Illusion
Pioneers Go East Collective, featuring Daniel Diaz

Coming
Jake Frisbie

mingle and dialogue

Re-Performing Manhood

At the New Masculinities Festival, we examine the impact of expectations of masculinity on people's lives and imagine new possibilities for gender expression. We use the power of theatre, dance, poetry, spoken word, performance art, and dialogue to challenge thinking and transport participants to new worlds and perspectives on performances of manhood.

We seek performances of all kinds that passionately and curiously investigate how expectations of masculinity impact people’s lives, both positively and negatively, overtly and unexpectedly. We seek pieces that have the potential to challenge audience members to experience the world and, in some cases the word masculinity, in a new way.

The festival is open to people of all gender and sexual identities. We strongly encourage proposals from people traditionally underrepresented on stage: People of color, young people, seniors, HIV positive people, disabled people, trans, non-binary, and gender nonconforming people, and lesbian, gay, and bisexual people.

past New Masculinities Festivals

Our first Festival took place on September 8, 2012 and featured "Saving Seneka," an original play by inmates at Garner Correctional Institution, directed by Keith Johnston, Artistic Director of the American Theatre of Harlem. The other performers filled the historic Judson Memorial Church's meeting hall with dance, song, theatre, and unbridled giggles. Friends and family filled Judon's buffet with delicious home-made food. We ended with thirty minutes of dialog, which centered around the courage to dance.