QUEER [RE]PUBLIC FESTIVAL
June 26-29, 2025 | Arrow Street Arts
Born from The Theater Offensive’s OUT In Your Neighborhood Festival in 2017, the QUEER [RE]PUBLIC FESTIVAL is a vital part of TTO’s next lifecycle and mission, presenting liberating art by, for, and about queer and trans people of color that transcends artistic boundaries, celebrates cultural abundance, and dismantles oppression. This inaugural 4-day festival serves as the culmination of our first 22-month long Emergent Artist Residency and True Colors Residency programs, featuring a series of workshops, staged readings, and dance performances.
Victoria L. Awkward’s In the Space Between
Photography by Hakeem Adewumi
“[An] important way in which the erotic connection functions is the open and fearless underlining of my capacity for joy. In the way my body stretches to music and opens into response, heartening to its deepest rhythms.” - Audre Lorde
“You do not have to be fire / for / every mountain blocking you. / you could be a water / and / soft river your way to freedom / too.” - Nayyirah Waheed
In The Space Between is a river towards care and liberation. Expansive movement, breath, and tactile fabric textures guide Victoria Lynn Awkward and collaborators as they carve space and transcend into joy, beauty, and pleasure, wading through the rifts and tangles of their efforts along the way. Crafted in collaboration with the dancers, Victoria’s choreography conjures new and ancient rituals of flight, weaving, and enacting love in community. Victoria invites audiences to stretch into the erotic as defined by Audre Lorde, a necessity for the realization of liberation in an often-vicious world.
In The Space Between builds on previous collaborations between Victoria and music director Desiré Graham, as well as dancer and rehearsal director Sasha Peterson. The project also features a new original score by multi-instrumentalist Eden Girma (also known as aden), vibrating across a lush world shaped by director Ian Andrew Askew, scenic designer Cheyanne Williams, lighting designer Itohan Edoloyi, and costume designer James Gibbel. In The Space Between is performed by an ensemble of seven dancers including Victoria and Sasha Peterson, alongside Dava Huesca, Diovanna Obafunmilayo, Dominica Greene, Justin Daniels, and Maxi Hawkeye Canion.
Performance Dates:
Friday, June 27th @ 7:30pm
Saturday, June 28th @ 3:00pm
Saturday June 28th @ 8:00pm
Sunday, June 29th @ 3:00pm
Location: Arrow Street Arts
Cast & Crew
Photography by Hakeem Adewumi
Victoria Lynn Awkard (she/her)
Victoria Lynn Awkward is a multi-hyphenate creator, administrator, educator and the Director of VLA DANCE. Through her work she aims to inspire people to pause and reflect on their actions towards themselves, their community and their environment. She pursued her multiple interests at Goucher College and graduated with high honors in Dance, Visual Art and Secondary Education. Alongside directing VLA DANCE, Victoria is a freelance artist, who most recently choreographed for Huntington Theater, Company One Theatre, Boston Lyric Opera, and Commonwealth Shakespeare. Victoria is also an educator having worked at Salem State University, Brown University, West End House, Middlesex School, and Urbanity Dance. She continues to deepen her teaching practices as a mentee with Midday Movement Series. Victoria is currently a Brother Thomas Fellow, and recipient of the Next Steps for Boston Grant Dance Program as well as a recipient of the Queer (Re)public Theater Offensive Residency.
Programs at the Theater Offensive
