2010 marks the 19th Annual Dixon Place HOT! Festival, a pioneering festival of queer performance and culture - and the oldest, continually running festival of its kind in the world! The festival hub is the brand new Dixon Place theater complex at 161A Chrystie Street on the New York City's famed Lower East Side. The theater consists of 2 venues: a state-of-the-art 120-seat laboratory theater, and an intimate performance lounge. Beginning in June and running throughout the month of July and into the first week of August (June 26 - August 7), you'll find an eclectic array of free and ticketed shows and programs 7 nights a week!

Download the press release for the 2010 HOT Festival (PDF, requires Adobe Acrobat Reader)

Why a "Queer" Festival?
While the term “queer” has successfully been appropriated by commerically successful programs like “Queer Eye for the Straight Guy,” we use the term to refer to an orientation that is distinct from the assimilationist and consumerist trends within the LGBT community. Penny Arcade says “queer is anyone who has exprerienced a period of isolation and exclusion so profound that they could never exclude anyone else.” This squares with a post-Stonewall political analysis that found the linked sources of our oppression and consequently demanded reaching out to others who also experienced oppression or exclusion in various ways. Call it 'the triumph of niche marketing' perhaps, but that progressive analysis seems too frequently absent from much of the activity not only in the LGBT community but other minority communities as well. While undeniably painful, the upheaval of the present moment does offer hope for those working for progressive social change on any number of issues, and it is here that our queer voices and perspectives are vital within the larger LGBT community. HOT! Festival provides a platform for art and ideas that embody progressive and uniquely queer voices.

There's already great ink on the 2010 festival—just click on logos to read the articles:

And the press on last year's festival was just as terrific: