MANGOS WITH CHILI
the floating cabaret of queer and trans POC bliss, dreams, sweat,
sweets & nightmares
"writing ourselves into history since 2006"
Dear Community Members, Lovers, Fighters and Friends,
Maybe you've seen us on a stage near you. Maybe we've shaken our asses next to yours on the dancefloor at Bibi or Butta. Maybe we've celebrated a birthday together, held each other through loss, laughed together in backstage dressing rooms, fed each other, or swapped resources. In short, we're writing you because we consider you part of our larger family in the Bay Area and beyond. And although you may know us in one of these, or many of these capacities, we write to you today as the Co-Founders and Directors of Mangos With Chili.
Founded in 2006 by us, Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha and Ms. Cherry Gallete, Mangos With Chili began as an annual touring cabaret of queer and trans people of color performance artists. Our breakout 2007 tour took 8 queer and trans performers of color to cities and stages throughout the Northeastern United States and Canada. With no core funding and mostly grassroots publicity, Mangos With Chili was a phenomenally successful tour. We raised our budget through grassroots fundraising and door revenue, and were able to pay artists a fair wage, in addition to covering all travel and housing costs. The show packed world class theaters, underground performance spaces, and campus halls, including Buddies in Bad Times Theatre in Toronto, C-Space in Cleveland, Swarthmore College, Cattyshack in New York, The Black Repertory Theater of Providence, Theatre Juste por Rire in Quebec, and more. Audiences everywhere thanked us for both the high caliber of work and the life-saving importance of the testimonies we shared through our art.
In our scant two years of existence, we've done incredibly well. In June 2009 we will present a powerhouse showcase of new performance by QTPOC artists in conjunction with SF Pride 2009, and will be presenting an event in collaboration with local organizations on queer immigration this fall. Our 2008 Queer Borderlands tour will take us down the California coast and across the Southwest from October 10-26. Featured artists will create new work addressing the themes of border transgression, migrations, deportations, relocation, displacement, legacy and the struggle to create new worlds. Our 2008 Mangos superstars are: Qwo-Li Driskill, Zuleikha Mahmood, Vixen Noir, Nar, Chica Boom, Tre Vasquez, Nico Dacumos, Ms. Cherry Gallete and Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha. All are extraordinary artists and trailblazers in their own right with impressive work and credits to their names.
We write to you today because we need your support to continue thriving. This year we secured fiscal sponsorship through CounterPulse, an awesome performance space based in San Francisco. This means that we can now apply for grants as a 501(c)3 organization. Unfortunately our 2008 tour is soon approaching and we will not receive any funds until after the tour is complete. We need funds now to cover initial tour costs such as buying artists plane tickets to the Bay, renting a van, and paying for promo.
We're reaching out to you because we know you believe in the power of art to save and transform lives, because you love and support queer and trans people of color in the arts, and because you understand the importance of community institutions. Community institutions like Kitchen Table Press, Aunt Lute Books, Bamboo Girl, Sister Vision Press, Audre Lorde Project- all of them profoundly saved and transformed QTPOC lives. They also were grassroots projects that inherently survived because of community support – because people in their supporting communities refused to not let them survive. We know some of you have a little. We know some of you may have a little more. We welcome whatever you have, from $5 to $50 to $500 to $5000 and more.
You can make your tax-deductible donation at: http://www.counterpulse.org/donate.shtml.
Please enter "Mangos with Chili" in the Project Designation field.
You may also mail checks made out to CounterPulse with "Mangos with Chili" in the Memo Line to:
Mangos with Chili
c/o Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha
336 40th St., 4
Oakland CA 94609
In 2008 Mangos with Chili remains the nation's only traveling cabaret of QTPOC artists. We have received positive media coverage from Bitch and Make/Shift magazines (making Bitch's Summer 2008, "Bitchlist: Things We Love") as well as in independent and campus media and raves from audience members for reflecting the lives and stories of queer and trans people of color. In the coming year Mangos with Chili is also working to establish itself as an Oakland based arts organization. In doing so we will create a home for queer and trans of color art in Oakland, create a cultural institution that gives QTPOC artists opportunities to create new work and reach new audiences, and inspire, nurture and support future generations of QTPOC artists, while celebrating the incredible presence, contributions, resiliency and survival of queer and trans people of color in Oakland.
We need your support to continue doing this work!!! Together, through community based arts we can speak out in response to the daily struggles around silence, homophobia and violence that QTPOC of all ages in all corners of the world face. Together we will write ourselves into history, and make sure the lives and stories of queer and trans people of color are documented, treasured and remembered. And together we can, and we will save and transform lives.
Please contact us at mangos.with.chili@gmail.com with any questions, booking queries, requests for more info, or ideas about how you can help support our necessary work.
In love, lip gloss and revolution,
Ms. Cherry Gallete Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha
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