National Queer Arts Festival (NQAF) is an annual

queer ''Queer'' is an umbrella term for people who are not heterosexual or cisgender. Originally meaning or , ''queer'' came to be used pejoratively against those with same-sex desires or relationships in the late 19th century. Beginning in the lat ...

festival in

San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish language, Spanish for "Francis of Assisi, Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the List of Ca ...

organized by the

Queer Cultural Center Queer Cultural Center is a San Francisco "community building" organization to promote development of San Francisco's LGBT community. It was established in 1993. It is also known as the San Francisco Lesbian and Gay Center for Art and Culture. Di ...

and established in 1998 to coincide with

Pride Month LGBT Pride Month is a month, typically in June, dedicated to celebration and commemoration of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) pride. Pride Month began after the Stonewall riots, a series of gay liberation protests in 1969, and ha ...

. Other organisations which have assisted over the years include the

Harvey Milk Institute Harvey Milk Institute, located in San Francisco, California, was the largest queer studies institute in the world, and was founded by Jonathan David Katz in 1995. It was named in honor of Harvey Milk, an American politician and gay rights activi ...

, Mission Cultural Center for Latino Art and the Center for African and African American Art & Culture.

Jonathan David Katz Jonathan David Katz (born 1958) is an American activist, art historian, educator and writer. He is currently Associate Professor of Practice in Art History and Gender, Sexuality & Women's Studies at the University of Pennsylvania. Biography ...

is the founding artist director of the festival. Since 1998, NQAF has presented more than 800 different events that have featured more than 2,300 LGBTQ+ artists including Bill T. Jones,

Alice Walker Alice Malsenior Tallulah-Kate Walker (born February 9, 1944) is an American novelist, short story writer, poet, and social activist. In 1982, she became the first African-American woman to win the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, which she was aw ...

Robert Rauschenberg Milton Ernest "Robert" Rauschenberg (October 22, 1925 – May 12, 2008) was an American painter and graphic artist whose early works anticipated the Pop art movement. Rauschenberg is well known for his Combines (1954–1964), a group of artwor ...

Meredith Monk Meredith Jane Monk (born November 20, 1942) is an American composer, performer, director, vocalist, filmmaker, and choreographer. From the 1960s onwards, Monk has created multi-disciplinary works which combine music, theatre, and dance, recording ...

Adrienne Rich Adrienne Cecile Rich ( ; May 16, 1929 – March 27, 2012) was an American poet, essayist and feminist. She was called "one of the most widely read and influential poets of the second half of the 20th century", and was credited with bringing "th ...

Marga Gomez Marga Gomez is a comedian, writer, performer, and teaching artist from Harlem Harlem is a neighborhood in Upper Manhattan, New York City. It is bounded roughly by the Hudson River on the west; the Harlem River and 155th Street (Manhattan), 15 ...

Justin Chin Justin Chin (1969–2015) was a Malaysian-American poet, essayist and performer. In his work he often dealt with queer Asian-American identity and interrogated this category's personal and political circumstances. Biography Chin was born in Mala ...

, Thom Gunn,

Cherríe Moraga Cherríe Moraga (born September 25, 1952) is a Chicana writer, feminist activist, poet, essayist, and playwright. She is part of the faculty at the University of California, Santa Barbara in the Department of English. Moraga is also a founding m ...

and

Dorothy Allison Dorothy Allison (born April 11, 1949) is an American writer from South Carolina whose writing focuses on class struggle, sexual abuse, child abuse, feminism and lesbianism. She is a self-identified lesbian femme. Allison has won a number of a ...

. NQAF is the largest queer arts festival in North America.

Festivals

1998
# June 1, 1999 # June 1-July 4. 2000 # June 1-July 4, 2001 # June 1-July 7 # May 31- June 29, 2003. # June 3–27, 2004. # June 1–30

June 1–30

May 26- June 30

June 1–30

May 31 – July 11

References

External links

QCC
1998 establishments in California Film festivals established in 1998 LGBT events in California LGBT film festivals in the United States Arts festivals in the United States Culture of San Francisco Queer culture {{LGBT-event-stub