They want to stomp out human rights, but we are multitude. A timely reminder of worldwide beauty, creative boldness, and sheer refusal to kowtow to xenophobic car-dealing transphobes whose idea of culture stops at the Village People and the “Memory” song from Cats will be on view at the San Francisco International Arts Festival (April 25 through May 11).
This year’s edition of the decades-old fest is taking over yoga studios, coffee roasteries, and yes, art galleries and theater venues—now in the Mission after years of occupying Fort Mason. And wow, will it be queer.
On the list of SFIAF 2025 LGBTQ+ presentations are Poland’s Grotowski Institute and Wachowicz/Fret Studio’s U.S. premiere of Granic / The Border (May 1 and 3), a play about the real-life experience of a Ukrainian trans performance artist fighting in the war against Russia. Japan’s Ayane Nakagawa and her Suichu-megane∞ ensemble explore gender identity through Noh masks and Nihon Buyo classical dance in my choice, my body and Anchor (May 9 and 10). Estonia’s Anneli Kanninen delivers a compelling multilingual immigration tale using elements of dance in HOMEing (May 10 and 11). Eric Ray Kupers’ immersive performance ceremony Lost and Found will occupy the hallowed grounds of queer bar El Rio on April 30 before heading to Monkeybrains on May 8.
Not that a focus on LGBTQ+ art is anything new for SFIAF.
“We are always presenting politically progressive and engaged work,” executive director and festival founder Andrew Wood, who has been working on the 2025 lineup for two years, told 48hills. “So, by default, we are usually prepared for the moment no matter what it brings. Even if Trump had not won the election, the conservative onslaught against the LGBTQ+ community building up in this country and around the world for the last few years has been unmistakable.”
For Wood, building faith in the future of us is a key part of his position at the festival.
“It is our job to give our audiences hope—along with inspiration, joy, insight, empathy, understanding, and a number of other things,” he says.
A quest for understanding is at the heart of another SFIAF U.S. premiere, a one-man show that looks back at the homophobic hate crimes that wracked Sydney, Australia through the 1970s and into the ‘90s, Fairly Lucid Productions’ MEMBER (May 8-10).
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The play’s writer and performer Ben Noble shares with 48hills that the fact the production is crossing the world (it previously played in the United Kingdom) tells him, “That what you have to say is valid.”
“I wanted to create a story and a piece of theater that challenged and made audiences question how we teach and talk to children, but most importantly draw attention to these horrific tales,” he continues. “And for those that lost their lives, [it means having] people go away and remember them, or think about them. That’s the biggest goal, that they are not forgotten.”
He adds that he has a feeling that the production, in which he plays a straight dad who was caught up in the darkness of the era, will resonate with U.S. audiences. For queer and disabled Noble, this thought makes braving the United States in 2025 an urgent matter.
“The pendulum is definitely swinging a certain way that makes me wary for sure,” he says of his upcoming trip to Trump’s America. “I’m not going to lie about that. But this story is about when we were in a time like that, and that makes it all the more resonate to have it be here now.”
Noble will join Kanninen and Nakagawa, along with SF’s own Evan Johnson (a house artist at CounterPulse), for an SFIAF panel discussion on LGBTQ+ civil rights around the world on May 7.
Wood, an expert in the matter after running the festival since 2003 and hosting creatives from 60 other countries, says that so far, 2025 hasn’t presented any more difficulties in obtaining visas for international artists as other years.
“The visa process is always a mixed bag,” he says. “Some sail through easily, others get stuck in what is an unnecessarily complicated, expensive and very arbitrary process.”
This year’s festival will culminate with the campy glee of a May 11 queer Mother’s Day extravaganza. For the first time, pianist and SF State professor Dee Spencer and vocalist Jason Brock will be dedicating an entire show to their rollicking, 10-year-old “Queer American Songbook” project.
If you just thought, “what was ever straight about the Great American Songbook?”—fair play. In a 48hills email interview Spencer, who has performed solo at two previous SFIAF iterations and will be teaching a women in jazz and world music course through this year’s festival, answers, “The queerness might be obvious to some, but many people associate the songs with love and romance in general, not necessarily gay or queer relationships.”
(When pressed on the gayest and straightest ditties in the GAS, she offers that, “Many Cole Porter songs such as ‘My Heart Belongs to Daddy‘ qualify as soooo queer. As a queer man, he used a lot of, let’s say, ‘references.’ Songs like ‘Love and Marriage‘ might qualify as straight.”)
Any remaining heteronormativity will be purged from the classic repertoire during the duo’s cabaret performance at the Chan National Queer Arts Center, where they’ll deliver full-throated renditions of George Gershwin, Porter, Rogers & Hart, and more, in addition to tales of how queer creators brought the country’s most iconic melodies to life.
“This year is just the beginning of one of the worst periods in history for LGBTQ+ people in America,” says Spencer. “We need as many collective celebrations as possible!”
“For us as an organization, [art] does more than give hope,” says Wood. “It is our way of organizing, resisting and making a statement that promotes our world view and values.”
SF INTERNATIONAL ARTS FESTIVAL runs April 25-May 11. Various SF venues. Tickets and more info here.
