Photo credit: Fresh Meat Productions

Fresh Meat Productions can claim a few impressive firsts: as the nation’s first and only touring organization dedicated to creating and cultivating transgender arts programs, it is also the first and only to put together a festival showcasing the wide array of talent born and bred from within the queer community.

The 15th Anniversary FRESH MEAT FESTIVAL will take at the Z Space in San Francisco from Thursday, June 16 to Saturday, June 18, 2016. Put on by Fresh Meat Productions, the festival will celebrate its 15th year of building community and inspiring change through showcasing transgender and queer performers and their art.

This year’s performers include:

• Award-winning mixed abilities dance by AXIS Dance Company
• Soul-stirring opera by Breanna Sinclairé
• Powerful wordsmith mestiza Elena Rose
• Queer circus by India Davis (Topsy Turvy Queer Circus)
• Queer bachata by champions Jahaira Fajardo & Angelica Medina
• Vogue & performance supertstars Jocquese Whitfield & Saturn Rising
• Revolutionary storytelling & theater by Karen Anzoategui
• World-class hula by Nå Lei Hulu I Ka Wékiu
• Same-Sex Ballroom champions Robbie Tristan & Ernesto Palma
• Trans/queer trailblazers Sean Dorsey Dance
• Stunning trans-Americana singer-songwriter Shawna Virago
• Power song siren Star Amerasu
• Transgender folk-hearthrob StormMiguel Florez
• Gender-bending boy band The Singing Bois

Post-show receptions will feature DJs, go-go dancers, photo booths, and, of course, dancing. Tickets available here.

Sean Dorsey, Founder and Artistic Director for Fresh Meats Productions, is an award-winning choreographer and the nation’s first acclaimed transgender contemporary dancer. Dorsey notes the significance of a festival like Fresh Meat, “Transgender people are under attack right now all across the US, with anti-transgender bathroom bills and hate-fueled campaigns. The Fresh Meat Festival is a joyful call to action, a celebration of world-class artistry by transgender, gender-bending and queer artists.”

Also, be sure to see Sean Dorsey’s The Missing Generation – a powerful and emotionally charged dance-theater work that gives voice to the longtime survivors of the early AIDS epidemic. A labor of love for forgotten generations, the performance came together after 2 years of conducting oral history interviews, archival research, and Community Residencies in 6 cities across the U.S. The 2-year, 20-city tour continues July 8 in Victoria, Canada and makes it way to San Jose in the fall. Learn more about the show, and the stories and people who inspired it.