Dinnerware Director, David Aguirre, is doing all sorts of innovative programming in this new huge space. Ignite is an event that they’ve done before and it was very well received. I’m glad he’s resurrected it. The Ignite Tucson website describes it this way:

Audiences that attend Ignite Tucson events have curiosity about the world around them, with a soul for exploring. The audience deeply appreciates presenters willing to get on a stage to squeeze an interesting topic into a 5 minute capsule. Beer, wine, and popcorn are also a big part of the 2 hour evening.

A $10 sliding scale donation will gain you entrance and you will be helping to support Dinnerware doing its creative thing.

Ignite began in Seattle in 2006 and they encourage other communities to use their model. They even have an extensive How To page on their website. Thanks to David for bringing it to Tucson.

Sister Spit: The Next Generation

Friday October 2, 8:00 PM at Gallagher Theater, University of Arizona, Free and open to the public

Sister Spit: The Next Generation is hitting the road again, with a whole new all-girl lineup of zinesters, fashion plates, novelists, performance artists, slam poets and fancy scribblers. Inspired by the legendary Sister Spit Ramblin’ Roadshow of the 90s, Sister Spit: The Next Generation is hauling a vanload of killer underground female talent across the USA carrying on the tradition of rowdy, raucous literary adventure. Come and meet your new favorite performers!

Beth Lisick, author of the books Monkey Girl, Everybody Into the Pool, and Helping Me Help Myself. Nude performance artiste. Comedienne.

Ariel Schrag, comics artist who documented her queer youth in a series of graphic novels — one of which, Potential, is being made into a movie by Killer Films.

Sara Seinberg, poetic powerhouse. Creator of the multi-city K’Vetch Queer Open Mic. Artistic Director of the past three Homo-A-Go-Go festivals. Photographer extraordinaire.

Kirya Traber, slam poet superhero. Teacher of poetry to the youth. Organizer of performances exploring queerness, race and more.

Ben McCoy, performance artist, novelist-in-progress, force of nature. Whose writings have been made into the short films My Hustler Boyfriend and The Face of God.

Rhiannon Argo, skater, future librarian, present novelist. Author of the queer tour-de-force The Creamsicle, which takes you into the lives of pill-popping, pole-dancing, heart-breaking, gender-fucking young queers

Hosted by Michelle Tea, co-founder of Sister Spit and the muscle behind Sister Spit: The Next Generation. Author of a bunch of books, including the Lambda Award-winning Valencia, and the coming-of-age-on-drugs novel Rose of No Man’s Land.

And special guest Tania Katan.

More info: http://www.myspace.com/sisterspitnextgen,

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Mighty Real with Lynnee Breedlove and Silas Howard

Saturday, October 10, 8 p.m., Dinnerware Artspace 264 E. Congress St. Sliding scale $7 +, all ages show

An evening of dueling solo shows

Lynnee Breedlove is an improv comic. Silas Howard makes 50-Cent videos. Lynnee is funny and ugly. Silas is poignant and handsome. Always disarming, alarming, and keeping you on your rocker boot toes, both use multimedia performance to trace the queer history that made them the men they are today.

Lynnee Breedlove’s all new solo show, Confessions of a Poser is a comic look at the mystery of the purple dick, how to use legacies of cultures not your own, and how to kill things, eat them and still be a Buddhist. He’s been told, “Too many props for standup,” and “Too many punchlines for theater.” Buckets, knives, and body parts are still integral to the show. Although dickless himself, weirdly, his biggest fans are straight bio boys, DWD, Dudes With Dicks, probably due to his constant appropriation of straight non-trans male culture.

Opening for Lynnee is Silas Howard’s one-man-show, Thank you for Being Urgent, tale of a transman in the queer punk world of San Francisco, spilling into the crappy and exalted glitter of Hollywood, searching for true tales of fierce outsiders, re-imagining the mainstream, traversing serendipitous heights and punishing ironies, Thank you for Being Urgent chronicles burlesque dancers with dementia, tranny jazzmen and film executives, using archival photos, film clips, and monologue.

More info: http://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Mighty-Real-Tour

Ignite Tucson, the event that David Aguirre of Dinnerware Artspace started a year ago will be at the Screening Room, 127 E. Congress, and down the street at the Club Congress, 311 E. Congress, you can catch Odyssey Storytelling (disclaimer, I’m the producer).  Both events start at 7 p.m. with doors opening at 6:30.  Don’t forget, parking is free on the street after 5 p.m.

IGNITE Tucson

Around 15 people will grace the stage in front of a projected Powerpoint presentation of 20 images, each on the screen for 15 seconds.  The speaker has five minutes to talk about a topic they are passionate about.

You’ll see Karen Falkenstrom, Kathleen Williamson, Joanna Frueh, Janet K. Miller, Jodi Netzer, Shipherd Reed, Danielle from Tucson Life Cache, and more.  There is a $5 donation at the door for everyone, including the presenters.

This is the 4th IGNITE, and, according to David, “all of them have been really, really fun, informative, a great way to get your message out, and a good way to network. IGNITE Tucson shows us creative and innovative projects and talent happening in Tucson.”

Odyssey Storytelling

Six invited storytellers have ten minutes to tell their personal stories on the theme ILLEGAL.  The stories are not read or memorized, they are told from the life experiences and creativity of the teller.

This month’s storytellers are writer, Tom Clark; author, Juliana Piccillo; fundraiser, Edna Meza Aguirre; private investigator, Lorna Soroko; retired warden, Duane Vild; and No More Death’s activist, Jim Marx.  Tickets are $7 at the door or can be purchased online at the Odyssey website.

Odyssey Storytelling has been entertaining and edifying audiences for over 5 years.  Because the storytellers are uncensored and from diverse communities the stories may be fun, amazing, messy, enlightening, disturbing, and entertaining . . . and more.