Rights of Passage: Continuing the SF & Indonesia Connection

Thursday, March 10, 2011

Continuing the SF & Indonesia Connection

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The rumors are true. The next draft of our play Rights of Passage will be read at NCTC on April 3, 2011 at 2pm.

In other breaking news...We just received word from the US Office of Homeland Security that NCTC will indeed be permitted to host 4 performances of Gender Mystic next month featuring our friend and highly regarded international artist Didik Nini Thowok. Didik uses masks and dance forms from different Asian traditions to embody different characters, moods and contemporary ideas with comic strength. Didik is one of the few remaining artists who explores transgender culture and its cultural connection with mystical practices in Indonesia.

Gender Mystic is being presented in association with the SF Asian Art Museum who will also be hosting a lecture demonstration event during his visit. Didik’s limited engagement in San Francisco will benefit Rights of Passage which will have its world premiere in August of 2012.

Please visit our website at www.nctcsf.org to join us for the April 3, 2011 Rights of Passage staged reading, book your tickets for Gender Mystic April 21-24, 2011 or to visit us at the Asian Art Museum on April 23, 2011.

It’s a hive of activity next month!

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What is Rights of Passage?

Rights of Passage is a new play about courage and love. About people all over the world who want to be who they are and why that simple concept is not always so simple to make real. The play is both personal and universal as it illuminates the lives of LGBT people from different cultures and backgrounds. The storytelling style of the play is based on the ageless performance techniques found on the Indonesian island of Bali; these same theatrical techniques, in somewhat different forms, also represent cultures throughout the world. Monologues, scenes, puppetry, masks, and dance will bring the play’s stories to life. Rights of Passage has been developed through extensive research, hundreds of interviews, and the unyielding support of LGBT citizens and activists around the world. Rights of Passage will have its world premiere at The New Conservatory Theatre Center in San Francisco, beginning its run on August 17, 2012.

Post your story here or contact us privately at sfwave@comcast.net

Project Background

In the summer of 2007 we began our research for Rights of Passage, a new play project for The New Conservatory Theatre Center in San Francisco http://www.nctcsf.org/. At the same time, The International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission (IGLHRC) http://www.iglhrc.org/ in New York enthusiastically offered their support to the development of the play. Their assistance ignited our relationships with the vast international LGBT human rights network . ILGHRC continues as a primary guiding force for Rights of Passage, as does the work of Human Rights Watch http://www.hrw.org/ and Amnesty International http://www.amnesty.org/

The themes in Rights of Passage are based upon the Yogyakarta Principles http://www.yogyakartaprinciples.org/ a set of international principles relating to sexual orientation and gender identity. This document is a universal guide to human rights which affirm binding international legal standards with which all States must comply. They promise a different future where all people born free and equal in dignity and rights can fulfill that precious birthright.

Thanks to the power of the internet we are able to reach out to LGBT organizations, individuals, and our allies around the globe. We have also traveled traveled througout the US, Europe, Canada, Thailand, Cambodia, and Indonesia conducting research for the play. Our future travel plans will take us to the Middle East, Africa, China, South America and the Ukraine.

Rights of Passage is supported in part by The James Hormel Small Change Foundation and the generosity of individual donors world wide. We welcome new sponsors at http://www.nctcsf.org/donation