The Helix Queer Performance Network Presents: SAFE SPACE in Queer Community & Performance

A Public Conversation with Christina Hanhardt, Stephen Ira, Chelsea Johnson-Long and Jadele McPherson
Moderated by Dan Fishback

Thursday, May 15, 2014
7–9 pm

Join the Helix Queer Performance Network for a public conversation about “safe space” in queer community and queer performance. Does “safety” mean the same thing for everyone? Who benefits from “safety” and who is threatened by it? Do artists have a responsibility to ensure “safety” for their audience, and are curators responsible for the “safety” of their artists? Do conversations about emotional safety obscure issues of physical violence? Are queer performance traditions defined by danger, and what happens when new generations encounter those traditions? Panelists Christina Hanhardt (author, “Safe Space: Gay Neighborhood History & the Politics of Violence"), Stephen Ira (poet), Chelsea Johnson-Long (The Audre Lorde Project's Safe OUTside the System (SOS) Collective) and Jadele McPherson (LukumiArts, SUBMERGE) will discuss these questions from a variety of different perspectives, followed by an active conversation with the audience.

Hemispheric Institute of Performance & Politics
20 Cooper Square, 5th Floor
New York, NY 10003

The Helix Queer Performance Network is a collaboration between La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club, BAX/Brooklyn Arts Exchange and the Hemispheric Institute of Performance & Politics, seeking to empower queer performers, unite diverse communities and celebrate the legacy and lineage of queer performance in NYC.

This event is free and open to the public. A photo ID is required to enter NYU buildings.