Also Belongs to Me/The World: Trio

Trio with jose e. abad, Gabriele Christian, and NIC Kay
Wednesday, June 28 | 6:30 pm (pre-show at 6:00 pm)
Q&A with Artists to follow

Solo with Gabriele Christian
Saturday, June 10 | 3:30 pm (pre-show at 3:00 pm)

Also Belongs to Me/The World is a solo and tethered trio performance, programmed over the course of two days, responding to James Baldwin's novel Giovanni's Room. Both performances are free and open to the public.

Baldwin is a Harlem hometown hero, a forefather, a smacktalker, a diva, an auntie, a lonely world unto himself. For this trio performance, abad, Christian, and Kay consider Baldwin’s solitude, his sensuality, and his positionality around other Black queer bodies. What could pleasure look like for Baldwin? Or companionship? An immensely private man, Baldwin leaves us to speculate around his routes towards self-possession. How might three Black Trans/GNC performers best prepare us to see through his fog and fluidity?  

Also Belongs to Me/The World was curated in conjunction with the exhibition Invincible Black Soul: The Art of Bearing Witness on view in the SFAC Main Gallery trough July 8, 2023.

About the Artists

Born in Olongapo City, Philippines, to a Filipinx mother and a West Indian father, jose e. abad uses dance and storytelling to explore the complexities of cultural identity, feelings of landlessness, and the memories and wisdom held within the body that the mind has forgotten and history has erased. They have performed in New York, New Orleans, and San Francisco in collaboration with a variety of companies and artists including Keith Hennessy, Scott Wells, Anne Bluethenthal, Brontez Purnell Dance Company, #DignityInProcess, and Detour Dance.

Gabriele Christian is an Oakland-based conceptual artist and descendent of stolen folk experimenting within somatic practices, language, performance composition, video production and community arts facilitation to locate and center BlaQ (Black and Queer) experience, vernaculars and aesthetics as wellsprings for radical futurity. They are a founding member of BlaQ-led performance and land projects: &theruptureisnow; OYSTERKNIFE; and blaQyard. They’ve presented and collaborated internationally in multimedia productions and processes with choreographers, collectives and companies like jose e. abad/fugitivity labs, LXS DXS, Sherwood Chen, Lenora Lee Dance, SAMMAY, Skywatchers (ABD Productions), Kim Ip, Cornelius Sigourney/OX Productions, Robert Woodruff, Joe Goode Performance Group, Jess Curtis/Gravity, WePlayers, Larkin Street Youth Services, Destiny Arts Center, et hella al. Along with this experience, they've empowered the work and stories of Blind and Visually Impaired (BVI) folk, black and brown youth, Tenderloin residents, and LGBTQ+ elders. At the heart of all of their work, they strive to excavate oral tradition and movement as conduits for urgent and equitable conversations around belonging, spirit, desirability, abundance, and care. More at gabriele.work or on IG: @gabriele.mov.  

NIC Kay is an interdisciplinary artist, performer, and conceptual choreographer who works with movement to explore relationality and yearning. nic-kay.com