Expect the usual eclectic mix of queer performances, online and offline for 2020
BY SOPHIE GRIFFITHS, IMAGE BY SOPHIE GREEN
Homotopia, the UK’s longest running LGBTQI arts and culture festival, is returning for 2020 with yet another unique and ground-breaking programme. Even in the year that has seen so many queer events forced to transform, Homotopia still promises its usual eclectic mix of queer performance, including theatre, spoken word, visual art and music, both online and offline.
This year’s programme aims to bring new voices into the spotlight with a theme of Show Your Working, exploring why the journey is just as important as the destination. Running from 29 October – 15 November there’s plenty of events to get involved with and make up for the lost time this year.
A “Queer The City” art crawl will feature nine artists from Liverpool and beyond, queer-imagining city planning. As part of this, a striking portrait of Marsha P. Johnson by Sophie Green will be on display on Paradise Street in Liverpool ONE. There will also be a podcast series to go along with this art initiative, featuring writer and broadcaster Roger Hill, providing an audio guide to the works.
Liverpool’s most eclectic spoken word night A Lovely Word will also deliver a special evening for Homotopia featuring poet, actor and writer Jade Anouka.
Six new audio plays, by Maz Hedgehog, Day Matter, Marjorie H Morgan, Fox Fisher, Ashleigh Owen and Mo Svendsen, explore Liverpool from a queer perspective. Commissioned and produced by Homotopia, with support from Unity Theatre, Culture Liverpool and BBC Radio Merseyside, the plays tell stories of LGBTQI experience, past, present and future.
Homotopia’s Festival Director, Char Binns, says: “A sense of urgency has swept over this year and at Homotopia we recognise the ability of the arts to reflect and to try to lead. Yet as the Black Lives Matter protests took place, as the rights of transgender people in the UK were threatened with not just a halting but a rollback, we had to press pause. It is one thing to lead, it is another to listen.
“Our theme this year is Show Your Working, and it says we need to search our souls – are we good allies to our trans siblings? Is a crisis just another excuse to maintain the status quo? Do we understand the challenges our Black, Asian or Arab friends and neighbours face, or do we upload supportive social media posts and think ‘job done’? Among the uncertainty and struggles of this year we’re showing queer culture as a place to figure things out. No one has all the answers, but we need to start asking the questions”.
For the full festival programme and for how to take part in each event visit: https://www.homotopia.net/
