"Pride Taiwan" – a series of LGBTQ events with a Taiwanese flair – will be held in New York from April through June to underscore Taiwan's leading role in advancing gender equality and freedom of speech in Asia.
The three-part program will open with "Legacy of an LGBTQ Countercultural Icon – A Talk on Taiwanese Novelist Qiu Miaojin’s Works" on April 21 in remembrance of the late writer-trailblazer who took her life at the age of 26.
Co-organized with the 2018 PEN American World Voices Festival, "Legacy of an LGBTQ Countercultural Icon" will look into how Qiu's writing has re-shaped Taiwanese perception during a time of social and political vilification of LGBTQ groups.
The April 21 forum at Dixon Place will feature Bonnie Huie, translator of Qiu's "Notes of a Crocodile"; Ari Larissa Heinrich, translator of her "Last Words from Montmartre"; and poet-novelist Eileen Myles.
Next up in June is an evening of readings and discussions under the banner "Pride Voices: New Plays from Taiwan" with two leading contemporary Taiwanese playwrights – Chien Li-ying and Tsai Pao-chang – at the Martin E. Segal Theater Center.
As established queer artists, their highly political and engaged works not only give voice to an emerging cultural movement in Taiwan, their creative processes and cultural productions also shed light on the struggles and achievements of the LGBTQ community in Taiwan and Asia today.
The admission-free evening will include discussions on "The Possible Memoirs of a Traitor," which Chien uses to uncover stories from a Taipei gay shelter in the 1990s, and Tsai's "Solo Date," in which a man harnesses artificial intelligence in an attempt to reconnect with his deceased lover.
The "Pride Taiwan" program will wrap up after the 2018 New York Pride March with free screenings of "Looking For?" – a Taiwanese documentary on gay dating apps – and "Alifu, the Prince/ss" – a film on a tribal chieftain's heir who identifies as a woman – at the Taipei Cultural Center in New York.
'Legacy of an LGBTQ Countercultural Icon'
- Date: April 21, 2018
- Time: 7.30 – 8.30pm
- Venue: Dixon Place
- Address: 161A Christy Street, New York, NY 10002
- Tickets: US$15 (Use promo code "TAIPEI2018" here)
'Pride Voices: New Plays from Taiwan'
- Date: June 26, 2018
- Venue: Segal Theatre, The CUNY Graduate Center
- Address: 365 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY
- Tickets: Free
'LGBTQ Films from Taiwan'
- Date: June 27 – 29, 2018
- Venue: Taipei Cultural Center in New York
- Address: 1 East 42nd Street, Floor 7th, NY
- Tickets: Free