INTERVIEW
CURIOUS FESTIVAL
T-B, L-R: David Hoyle, Alex Billingham, Farrell Cox
STEVE SPITHRAY FINDS OUT WHAT’S ON OFFER AT CURIOUS FESTIVAL’S CELEBRATION OF LGBTQIA+ CULTURE Curious Festival is an award-winning annual celebration of LGBTQIA+ culture across the North East. Founded in 2016, the festival explores and celebrates Queer culture through the arts. Working in partnership with arts and community organisations throughout the region, the festival aims to provide a safe space for Queer communities by creating platforms for artists, creatives and young people to be visible, represented and celebrated. Curious Festival founder Phil Douglas comments: “Now more so than ever, visibility for trans, non-binary and Queer artists is important. We’re delighted that Curious Festival is back to create Queer positive spaces, platform exciting new work and enable us to be with communities across the North East again. The world is changing.” Cat Hurst-McGahey, chair of LGBT+ Northern Social Group agreed. “It is a breath of fresh air to work with an organisation who understand the importance of equity and who provide representation for many parts of our communities who are often overlooked or ignored.” This year’s festival includes events at venues as far and wide as ARC Stockton, Gateshead’s BALTIC, Queen’s Hall in Hexham, Dance City and Northern Stage in Newcastle. There will also be
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Mini Pride and Wildflower events at various venues across Newcastle. The three weeks of events culminates with the Curious Stage at Northern Pride on Saturday 23rd and Sunday 24th July. Mini Pride will also be present at Summer Streets festival in Sunderland on Saturday 9th July as well as Billingham Library and Darlington Pride Weekender on dates in August. However, kicking things off on Friday 1st July at BALTIC will be The Noir Narrative, a platform for Black LGBTQIA+ creatives. The following day the same venue sees the Curious Families Day, a day of colourful workshops, a zine making session and sculpture workshop followed by an evening exploring gender and non-binary narratives in film with screenings of Queers Shorts and Anders Duckworth’s Mapping Gender. Over at ARC in Stockton on the same day there is a protest poster making workshop, with the posters created being displayed at the venue throughout July as part of the festival. Taking place at Live Theatre on Sunday 3rd July is The Future is Queer, a mix of performances and presentations by young creatives from across the region. Elsewhere, the first of three weekly evening sessions hosted by Queer Youth Music at Dance City takes place on Tuesday 5th July. On Thursday 7th July ARC
