Lightning Rod Spring Forward
A nonprofit fundraiser supporting
Springboard for the Artsdonation match campaign to support Legacy, Development and Opportunity for queer and trans artists
$3,373
raised by 42 people
$10,000 goal
We're beating our own records!
Woah! Incredible! If we can raise just another $370, we will make $2,000 in just one day. Can you help us make this milestone?
Don't forget that every donation you make is doubled with our generous anonymous match donor<3
While you're here, join our mailing list and follow us on Instagram (links at the bottom of the Story section of this page) to get updates on upcoming shows, auditions and ways to get involved!
Much Love to you All
Lightning Rod Team
This year Lightning Rod has an anonymous $10,000 matching donor. Every dollar you donate will be doubled!
Will you help us fully meet this generous match program?
Lightning Rod is a transgender-led, majority BIPOC organism, dedicated to legacy, development and opportunities for queer and trans artists.
In 2021, we are experiencing a huge expansion with new team members and an incredible season! (read more below)
Queer people and particularly young queer and trans people of color are the culture makers and culture bearers of Turtle Island and all over the globe.
We catalyze social justice movements, set aesthetic & cultural trends both in high art and mass media, and take on massive loads of educational, spiritual, emotional and reproductive labor in our communities.
photo credit: Jenny Zander
In the Twin Cities, our local queer and trans community needs are defined by gentrification, marginalization, tokenization, and in the wake of a global pandemic and living in the epicenter of a global uprising against anti-Blackness, we are working so hard to rebuild.
Please support our season as we offer programming to the community and resource emerging queer and trans artists to make new works, develop their craft, and research our queer legacy and transcestors.
It is Lighting Rod's mission to appropriately resource and uplift local queer culture bearers, social justice activists and caregivers that make this world survivable for so many. One way that we enact that is by putting ourselves as queer artist / activists in leadership and dedicating the majority of our budget to paying all staff and contractors as much as possible. The other way is Lightning Rod creates events and spaces in which our community can creatively and in togetherness develop the skills, confidence, and relationships to support our own agency in art-making, culture-sharing and community organizing. We also research and share the legacy of queer and trans artist/activists that came before us.
LIGHTNING ROD 2021-2022 SEASON
Exposition: Queer Performance and Conversation
In Partnership with Pillsbury House + Theater
Online, May 27-29, 2021
Thanks in part to support from The Jerome Foundation, Lightning Rod is proud to be partnering once again with Pillsbury House + Theatre to present a curated series of short digital performances from Black Queer Artists followed by livestreamed interviews about them and their practice.
Sur la tableau avec Lightning Rod
In Partnership with Northern Spark
Online, June 17-20, 2021
Lightning Rod investigates Alchemy, Ritual, and the place where Mise en Scene becomes Mise en Scenario for Northern Spark 2021 in durational performance of a family meal. Mastication, Cultivation, Digestion, Fermentation, it’s all magic, baby, and it’s all on the tableau.
Lightning Rod 5
Pillsbury House + Theater, August 8-21, 2021
Headed by founder Kat Purcell, this year's annual event will be a return to form, including the original structure of staged written works. After a week of workshops curated by Marcela Michelle featuring the Core Artist Ensemble and Guest Teachers, a selected group of 15 artists will form three groups containing a writer, a director, and three performers each to present works that respond to The Present, The Here, The Now.
Brujería for Beginners
A New Play by Keila Anali Saucedo, Directed by Marcela Michelle
In Partnership with 20% Theatre Company at Mixed Blood Theatre
November 5-21, 2021
Brujería For Beginners es una obra/ofrenda de parte de Keila Anali Saucedo Martinez Corona. The play follows a family while grief is closing in around them. As they try to process their worlds, they explore catholicism, witchcraft, and indigenous spirituality to find their way to the holy. Guided by spirits, love for each other, and ancestors (always), they find their way to claiming power and possibility.
Mainstage Ensemble Production
Venue TBA, February 2022
Lightning Rod’s Core Artist Ensemble will prepare for the stage a new performance work. What this work is will be informed by the practices and rituals emergent amongst the group.
Q-STAGE: New Works Series
Venue TBA, May 2022
We are proud to continue the work of 20% Theatre Company in presenting new works from Queer performance makers living in Minnesota. This year’s program will be curated by the Core Artist Ensemble and headed by our newest Co-Artistic Director Keila Anali Saucedo.
Check us out on
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Lightning-Rod-459249428174030
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lightningrodpresents/
Join our mailing list: https://mailchi.mp/ef3a5f6a2192/lightning-rod-email-list