Make Outrageous! inclusive and free
Hi, we're Vikrant, Jo and Olivia, we make theatre, XR, installations and produce cultural events. We need your help to make a great thing that's happening way waaaaay greater. That thing is Outrageous! 2018....
WHAT'S UP?
We're supporting five LGBTQ Asian performing artists to create their work, and curating a night for the commissioned artists to perform alongside brilliant guest artists on the Friday night of London's Pride weekend.
Outrageous! 2018 will be a night of warmth, daring and joy, when Britain's queer Asian communities can come together with our other LGBTQ siblings and have a blast. But we need your help to make it as inclusive as possible. 
Help us provide:
- Translation (Urdu, Hindi, Tamil, Bangla... + more!)
- BSL Interpretation
- Free tickets
- And if we meet everything else ... better fees for our guest artists!
WHAT ARE WE DOING?
We’re building artistic and producing relationships for queer artists in Asia and the UK. First stop was Mumbai, now it’s London’s turn. We are:
• offering five paid commissions to artists who identify as Asian, British Asian, or having Asian heritage, to create new work including dance, cabaret, theatre, performance art and music.
• mentoring our commissioned artists to ensure they present the best version of their work
• making outreach in multiple languages a priority so that the communities who need this work most are in the best seats
• delivering free workshops for new and emerging queer Asian artists to ensure a wide pool of applicants to the commission
• following up with all artists in the month after the show to discuss where they should take their work next
Through a grant from Arts Council England, the date is set, the commission is out, and tickets to Outrageous 2018 are about to go on sale. But, we need your help! 
WE'RE RAISING FUNDS SO THAT WE:
- Can pay our translators:
To make Outrageous! a night for all Asian queers, we need to be ready for it to be a place of many languages, and much understanding.
The Difference Engine is the brain child of Talking Birds, and has already been tested out across loads of fringe venues and touring shows. It's a cost effective way of sending closed captions to an audience member's mobile phone. It makes shows accessible for Deaf and hard of hearing audience members.
We're also going to use it to make sure our artists can create in any language they want, and our audiences can know what they're saying no matter what language they feel most comfortable in. That means we need to hire multiple translators, and good translators who know how to work creatively don't come cheap.
- Can afford a BSL translator for rehearsal days:
Offering mentoring and support to the artists' we commission is key to what we do. This is about building lasting creative relationships, not just setting expectations and waiting to see if people meet them. We're using The Difference Engine to provide close captioning for Deaf and hard of hearing audience members, and to translate across languages, on the night. But we need a BSL interpreter to make sure we can reach out to Deaf artists and include them in the commission.
- Can give free tickets to new arrivals to the UK:
We want to offer free tickets to folks who have recently moved to the UK, to offer them a warm welcome, and connect them with a broad community of artists, makers and thinkers. We know that our sibling sometimes arrive in the UK seeking sanctuary, and that that arrival is sometimes as - or even more - traumatic than what they've left behind. This night has to be for them, too. We're aiming for twenty free tickets, with your help it could be even more.
- Can pay our guest artists properly:
We believe so hard in people being paid properly for the work they do. Our Arts Council grant has allowed us to work with some brilliant artists, but we want more - and we want better for them. Help us pay every artist who's agreed to give us their time and talent at a gift-wrapped just-cos-it's-you rate, the money that they're truly worth.
P.S: You can contribute a custom amount, and we'll make sure you get a reward that matches one of our reward levels!
PPS: You can read the call out for artists on our website here . Maybe you should, y'know, apply...
WHO ARE WE?
Led by artistic directors Jo Tyabji and Olivia Furber, we at ivo create theatre, performance and cultural interventions that cross borders: of genre, of geography, of politics.
Since 2013 we have made work in multiple languages with artists from Palestine, Iran, France, Germany, India and the UK.
On Outragous! 2018 we're joined by guest curator and producer Vikrant Dhote, who made it all happen with us in Mumbai in 2017.
Read on to find out more about why Outrageous! is important to us and how it all started:
Expressing a queer identity in Britain as a British or diasporan Asian is risky from two angles: First there’s the risk of homophobia or transphobia from Britons of all backgrounds, and second the risk that our queer identities will be co-opted by racists and Islamophobes. This second risk is epitomised by the hate groups ‘Gays Against Shariah’ and ‘Gays Against Islam’, but can be traced all the way into liberal rehearsal rooms and well meaning but patronising op-eds.
By bringing Outrageous! to London we’ll empower a new generation of artists to take their place in Britain’s larger cultural conversations, and forge new artistic relationships that can feed queer (and straight!) imaginations at the international level. We’re overjoyed that Vikrant Dhote, our co-producer from Mumbai, will be able to join us. This is just the beginning of building lasting artistic and producing relationships for queer Asian artists, across the continents.
BACKGROUND:
Outrageous! 2017: Mumbai
In 2017 we teamed up with Queer Ink and Sitara Studios in Mumbai to create a unique event.
The colonial era law that criminalises homosexuality was reaffirmed by India’s Supreme Court in 2013. India’s resilient and active LGBTQ community contest this every day, yet there are no paid opportunities for artists to create and perform work by and for our community. We wanted to fix that.
We commissioned four new performances from LGBTQ artists for Mumbai Pride, and presented them alongside established queer artists: Bengali activist and drag artist Gourab Ghosh, singer-songwriter Alisha Pais, and India’s first transgender-led professional dance company, Dancing Queens.
The brief was simple: up to ten minutes, on the theme of love & rage, and using any art form that can fit into a converted warehouse.
Now for London Pride 2018 we want to offer five LGBTQ British or diaspora Asian artists the same chance, and we need your help to do it.
WHY ARE WE DOING THIS?
Queer people of colour have made important gains in visibility in London’s queer arts and performance scene. But right now there is no performance opportunity, platform, night or programme specifically aimed at queer British & diaspora Asians.
We are welcome participants in QTIPOC and Black spaces, and solidarity across all queer communities is important, yet there is a clear need for queer British Asians to find the strength to create the work that expresses our fullest selves, despite – in fact because of – the risks we face.
OUR PARTNERS:
1. Talking Birds
"I had given up going to the theatre and live shows because of the isolation it creates when you cannot hear, particularly when the audience is laughing at something said on stage. So thank you for making this experience more inclusive.”
Audience feedback to Talking Birds by email
2. Tamasha Theatre
Tamasha is a diverse cohort of bold and playful theatremakers
Foregrounding emerging and established artists from culturally diverse backgrounds, they:
- Fuel the future of new writing by producing and touring the best new plays, that challenge and change audiences everywhere
- Nurture, train and inspire artists, leaders and young people through Tamasha Developing Artists
- Enable theatre makers to engage creatively with communities and audiences, altering the perception of what theatre can be
Successes like East is East, Snookered, Blood, My Name is... and Made in India have won acclaim from critics and audiences alike.
The company was founded in 1989 by director Kristine Landon-Smith and actor / playwright Sudha Bhuchar and has played a key role in pushing Asian culture into the mainstream. Find out more about our 28 year history here.
3. Hackney Showroom
A hotbed of new talent, queer performance, music, theatre, drag and art. Outrageous! 2018's perfect home...
Help us make the highest purpose of this night possible!
