Sunday, December 1st, is World AIDS Day. Safe Link Alberta (formerly known as AIDS Calgary) Calgary Queer Arts Society and Contemporary Calgary have come together to present an afternoon called ARTS and HIV. Reflections, Joy & Hope.
Hosted by drag performer Misty Meadows, the celebration will feature a recorded interview with Joe Average, an acclaimed Vancouver HIV-positive artist, a screening of award-winning filmmaker Laura O’Grady’s Undetectable and a Q&A panel moderated by James Demers. ARTS and HIV begins at noon and runs until 4:30 at Contemporary Calgary.
There will be inspiring drag performances by Misty Meadows, Argintina, and Shane OnYou. The event will also offer attendees a chance to bid on an online silent auction featuring Joe Average’s original piece Thinking Cap.
In lieu of admission, the organizers suggest leaving a donation in remembrance of someone lost to HIV/AIDS.
The Calgary Underground Film Festivalloves queer history! This year, their documentary festival running November 20-24, is featuring the Canadian Premiere of Flashback about the legendary gay bar in Edmonton that existed between 1974 and 1991.
Flashback is the story of a defiant disco dance culture of sweat and sex and drugs and fashion. Despite community hostility to queer people, Flashback became a sensation on the international club circuit facing police raids, threats of violence and the scourge of AIDS. Flashback is a ghost. However, it comes alive again in the memories of the people who were there and the legends they left behind.
Cool kids in the feature documentary Flashback
In Calgary, the Parkside Continental was the analog of Edmonton’s Flashback—they are of the same vintage—and there was frequent to-ing and fro-ing between the two cities for those looking to dance with a different crowd.
Flashback features more than 30 interviews recounting the story of the beloved gay bar: a tribute to a place where young people could just be themselves. A soundtrack with two new disco recordings (recorded at Calgary’s National Music Centre) and archival photographs and footage takes us back inside the famous venue and blends with re-enactments shot with today’s club kids in Edmonton’s last remaining gay bar, Evolution Wonderlounge.
All this is framed by the rediscovery, restoration and resurrection of the club’s iconic neon sign. The blue glow of the old Flashback sign now shines from a wall of the Neon Sign Museum in Edmonton, and its journey to restored glory is documented in the film. Flashback is a TELUS original feature documentary film shot in Edmonton, Alberta.
The Calgary Gay History Project is pleased to be a community partner for the screening. Learn more about our Province’s queer history and join us for Flashback on Saturday, November 23, with Calgary director Peter Hays in attendance!
Do you want to explore Calgary’s Queer History from an autobiographical grade school perspective? (I think you do…)
Late in ‘88 is a limited-series podcast created by Bronwin Parks and Elinor Svoboda. The grade school classmates share their experiences of growing up queer and gender non-conforming in Calgary in 1988, at a time when there wasn’t language to describe identities that were fringe and undefinable. Shining a light on their middle childhood, Bronwin and Elinor explore the impact of historical context and the gift of contemporary language that allows more freedom of self-expression. The Calgary Winter Olympics acts as a backdrop to these conversations.
Elinor Svoboda and Bronwin Parks: creators of Late in ’88
Late in ’88 welcomes special guests and experts. The Calgary Gay History Project’s Kevin Allen makes an appearance in episode two, recounting his own queer history from 1988 as well as the story of Mark Perry Schaub, a Winter Olympics volunteer dying of AIDS.
Calgary is a different city than it was in the 80s. Late in ’88 explores how life has changed for queer people (and how it hasn’t) and the gravity of human connection which can make us whole. Recommended listening!
Calgary Gay History 