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Addie Tsai

Queer and Trans BIPOC Artists ‘Shapeshift,’ Push Artistic Boundaries

Posted on May 8, 2023

A photo of Lechedevirgen Trimegisto, OUTsider artist.

The Austin-based queer transmedia festival OUTsider, founded by Curran Nault and co-founded by filmmaker PJ Raval, has long been known for pushing artistic boundaries. Last year, I was delighted to profile three of the festival’s BIPOC artists, focusing on how each found moments of liberation in their art during the era of COVID. Although I’ve since moved to my new home in Richmond, Virginia, I was excited to virtually reconnect with my Texas ties to interview a few of the…

Texas Asia Society Screens New Documentary Exploring the Lives of Trans Youth in Iran

Posted on January 24, 2023

On January 25, as part of the Festival of Films From Iran, the Texas Asia Society, in partnership with Rice Cinema, MFAH Films, and the Normal Anomaly Initiative, will present producer and director Saeed Gholipour’s 'This Is Not Me,' a moving documentary portrayal of the lives of two young transmasculine youth in Iran, Shervin and Saman, as they pursue the gender realignment options available to them.…

Never Getting it Quite Right: The Perfectly Imperfect New Year’s Offering of Merel & Tony’s musical film ‘ALMOST PERFECT WORLD,’ in Collaboration with Houston Artists T Lavois Thiebaud and Stephanie Gonzalez

Posted on January 1, 2023

A photo from Tony & Merel's 'ALMOST PERFECT WORLD' music video.

I first came to know of T Lavois Thiebaud—and became immediately obsessed—upon discovering their collaboration with musical duo Merel & Tony for the video Matroesjkpop. So I was delighted to learn about their new collaboration, ALMOST PERFECT WORLD, a musical film “rendered righteously imperfect” and meant as a New Year’s offering for 2023. This new film is whimsical, melancholic, wild, thoughtful, frenzied, and contemplative, which is also the perfect way to describe this magical collaboration. ALMOST PERFECT WORLD was conceptualized and…

Reproductive Justice, Love, and Rock n’ Roll: ‘I’ll Have What She’s Having’ Hosts Picnic Fundraiser for Abortion Access in Texas

Posted on June 1, 2022

I'll Have What She's Having members Lindsay Rae (l) and Keisha Griggs.

Between the leaked Roe v. Wade draft opinion, horrific attacks on trans kids from the state’s legislature, and the tragic school shooting in Uvalde, Texans have experienced immeasurable trauma these past few months. The Houston-based, women-led organization I’ll Have What She’s Having (IHWSH)—composed of women chefs, hospitality professionals, entrepreneurs, physicians, scientists, artists, and other professionals united in social activism—is turning pain into action.…

QTPOC OUTsider Fest Artists Felix III, mirrored fatality, and Kalup Linzy Find Moments of Liberation

Posted on April 14, 2022

OUTsider fest artists mirrored fatality.

I was grateful for the opportunity to speak directly to OUTsider artists of color Felix III, mirrored fatality, and Kalup Linzy, who all took the opportunity of this difficult moment in the world, in terms of the COVID-19 pandemic and beyond, to push their work into new dimensions.…

What it is to be an Active Witness: T Lavois Thiebaud and Jason Nodler Talk Collaboration and the Catastrophic Theatre’s ‘4.48 Psychosis’

Posted on January 8, 2022

I first learned of the playwright Sarah Kane through Houston’s Catastrophic Theatre and founder Jason Nodler in 2011, just a few months after I embarked on a dance theater collaboration with a contemporary ballet and dance theater company I had followed avidly for many years. I was running off the high of what the best collaborative relationships can be. It was through that collaboration that I would meet and date one of the actors cast in the Catastrophic Theatre’s production…

Queer Artists Debut New Work at 2021 Houston Fringe FestIVAL

Posted on October 13, 2021

A photo of Urethra Burns at Houston Fringe Festival

The 2021 Houston Fringe Festival, which will present three showcase-style evenings of fringe performances hosted by the Pilot Dance Project and curated by Adam Castaneda, will take place October 15–17, 2021, at Midtown Arts & Theater Center Houston (MATCH). Among the artists selected to perform are Urethra Burns, Ayan Felix, and duo Stephanie Saint Sanchez and Jay Mays, LGBTQIA+ artists who will present explorations of gender and sexuality. …

The DeLuxe Theater’s ‘Art for the People’ Celebrates History with a New Focus

Posted on September 29, 2021

Art for the People pays homage to The De Luxe Show, one of the country’s first-ever integrated art exhibitions, which took place 50 years ago in 1971 at the old DeLuxe Theater. The DeLuxe Theater originally opened in 1941 and served the city’s Black community. After the Civil Rights Act passed in 1964, segregated movie theaters were no longer needed, and the DeLuxe Theater closed in 1969. However, the building remained standing and, in 1971 when the De Menils tasked…

Changing the Game: Trans Athletes and the Fight for Inclusion

Posted on September 11, 2020

A political war is being waged against transgender Americans, and young trans athletes are caught in the crossfire. Mack Beggs is one of four transgender athletes featured in Changing the Game, a documentary that profiles the lives of young trans athletes in an effort to raise awareness about the complexity surrounding the transphobic policies that transgender high school athletes are forced to navigate just to compete. “I think it’s many things at once,” Alex Schmider, associate director of transgender representation at…

Where We Get to Just Be: Houston’s Catastrophic Theatre Presents Queer Playwright Maria Irene Fornes’s ‘Fefu and Her Friends’

Posted on February 27, 2020

A photo of Fefu and Her Friends at Catastrophic Theatre in Houston.

By Addie Tsai The conversation around gender and sexuality has considerably shifted since the 1970s, when queer Cuban playwright Maria Irene Fornes wrote her avant-garde feminist play Fefu and Her Friends, set in 1930s New England. America would see the legalization of marriage equality just three years before Fornes’s passing, and Merriam-Webster would name the gender-neutral pronoun “they” as the word of the year in 2019. The #metoo movement would bring about a national conversation regarding consent, sexual assault, and…

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Addie Tsai

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