Next week: a conversation with Xandra Ibarra, Annie Sprinkle, and Beth Stephens! (And other July 2026 events)

Hi all,

Maria here. Some big things are coming in July!

WEDNESDAY, JULY 1: SUPERSTARS IN CONVERSATION!

Next week, on Wednesday, July 1, I am thrilled to present "Bodies of Work," a conversation with Xandra Ibarra, Annie Sprinkle, and Beth Stephens at Fort Mason. I've invited these three brilliant artists to chat about their own work as well as the Bay Area's rich history of sexual and artistic experimentation. What a treat! I am not messing around when I say this is a can't-miss event (and it will NOT be recorded).

For context – I'm presenting this event as part of a mini-residency in the PLEASE. STAY. TOUCH. Jess Curtis Experiments with Gravity exhibition. The exhibition itself presents archival materials and performance documentation from the late Jess Curtis, who passed suddenly in 2024 and whose absence is deeply felt in the Bay Area dance community. Seth Eisen and LisaRuth Elliott did a truly fierce job curating the exhibit, which contextualizes Jess's work within Bay Area dance lineages but also within a wider frame of Bay Area activism, artistic experimentation, and sexual culture. If you're interested, Seth and LisaRuth will offer a 6 pm curators' tour of the exhibition, just before our conversation starts.

This event is free, and the RSVP link is here.

SATURDAY, JULY 11: W.I.P. OF A NEW SOLO

On Saturday, July 11, I'll be showing a work-in-progress of a new solo called Screwball, also at Fort Mason as part of my mini-residency. Inspired by the last chapter of Christian Maurel's essay The Screwball Asses (originally published anonymously in French in 1973 as Les culs énergumènes), the piece explores sexuality and desire as they are shaped by systems of domination.

Screwball started with my fascination with this Maurel text, which itself is a response to Guy Hocquenghem's book Homosexual Desire. Taken together, these two books present an early 70s dialogue about whether gay desire is all that special or revolutionary. Hocquenghem takes up anonymous cruising as a symbol of what's so promising about gay sex (can it break down the family? can it resist capitalism? can it create a revolution in desire?), whereas Maurel points out how fragmented the gay community is, how racist conditioning affects (white, bourgeois) gay desire, and how easily sexual practices become consumer identities. I think all the points being made by Hocquenghem and Maurel are still really alive in the 21st century, and I'm hoping to somehow make a moving and abstract solo out of this material. (Whoops!)

The version you can come see at Fort Mason was built in a rehearsal process in Paris with dramaturg Thomas Dupal and will hopefully be in even better shape come July 11, with some more in-gallery rehearsals. I made the sound for it, too, which is an exciting new experiment for me. Look, this is a real "work-in-progress" moment — I barely know what's going on with this piece, and I need an audience to help me figure it out. To that end, after the showing, we'll have a very relaxed conversation about the work.

This event is also free. The RSVP form is here.

DJ & DRAG GIGS

My July calendar is rounded out by a couple DJ and drag gigs:

• Friday, July 10 – I'll be DJing the record release party for Edgar's new album Pavor at the Eagle in SF. Unity, Ex-Heir, and Josh Cheon are also playing. Fun!
• Tuesday, July 14 - it's Angels at Aunt Charlie's Lounge!
• Friday, July 24 – I have a Dore Alley DJ gig! details TBA but it'll be really cute

Relatedly, I've recently taken on the DJ moniker of INGENUE. You can listen to some of my recent home mixes here :) I am obsessed with DJing right now, so... please book me, lol. Or just come dance!

TADPOLE BODY/BECOMING AMPHIBIAN

I'm cooking up a new workshop called Tadpole Body/Becoming Amphibian. I'll be giving the first iteration of Tadpole Body at Campette in early July. (Campette is super sold out, so if you already have a ticket – see ya on the dancefloor! If not, maybe next time.) Here's my short description of the workshop, in case you want to invite me to come host a *freaky* movement workshop somewhere:

'Tadpole Body/Becoming Amphibian' sets forth 2 goals: (1) to embody some of the indeterminate, slippery qualities of the tadpole, and (2) to invite participants to shed everyday habits of movement and try something new. Together, we will attempt to grow our amphibian capacities.

With our time together, participants will work through an extended, guided warmup that invites a gradual shift from clothed to nude. Nakedness here should be as relaxed as it can be: we are less concerned with the cultural baggage around nudity (sexuality, transgression) than we are with the feelings of flesh without clothing, skin against air and earth. A series of solo scores will guide participants through a series of visualization-based, meditative exercises that will build our tadpole movement vocabulary: feeling into slickness, seeing underwater, breathing through the skin, growing gills and tails, and more. Naked and larval, our improvisations will start to cross one another, with partner work, group scores, and synchronized movement rounding out our time together.

Ribbit ribbit! That's all for now. Happy... Pride... ?

♡