A Boner Bizarre, Improvised Love Stories, and More Arts Events
Get some culture and love this week
By James Scott, Katherine McNevins, Richard Whittaker, Wayne Alan Brenner, Lina Fisher, and Rachel Rascoe, Fri., Feb. 16, 2024
OUTsider Fest
Thursday 15 - Sunday 18, the Vortex
C’mon y’all freaks and geeks: Austin’s premier transmedia festival dedicated to bold creativity within the LGBTQ community is back again. Over four days, creators like Good Pollution, Fargo Nissim Tbakhi, Ajani Brannum, Xandra Ibarra, and many more will bake your noodle with performances pacing past all known artistic outposts. Special presentations pop up throughout the fest run, but ongoing all four days will be DARKROOM, a blindfold-required sonic experience, and Lezbian Popcorn Cart, a celebration of savory sapphic her/hirstory. Highly recommended: the Legacy Awards boosting Austin spacemakers Priscilla Hale, Chale Nafus, Sandra Martinez, and Susan Post at Cheer Up Charlies on Friday, Feb. 16. – James Scott
Queer Film Theory: Rom-Coms
Thursday 15, Barrel O’ Fun
Ah, the rom-com: a pie-in-the-sky reflection of exactly zero people's real-life experience that somehow we still aspire to. This educational evening will explore rom-coms and how they f'ed with people's heads via a panel of movie "professors," including the Chronicle’s own Qmmunity and Calendar Editor James Scott. Get perspectives on some fave rom-coms through a queer lens, diving into how films like Playing by Heart, My Best Friend’s Wedding, and You’ve Got Mail baffled and bewildered with their wacky ideas of how relationships work. There's a lot to unpack here, so it's sure to be enlightening! – Kat McNevins
Boner Bizarre: Cronenboner
Friday 16, Come and Take It Live
Long live the new flesh, which coincidentally will be on display for this David Cronenberg-themed erotic variety show. More terrifyingly tantalizing than a new hole in your abdomen, these filthmongers promise acts featuring pole-dancing, aerials, contortion, fire-breathing, rope bondage and – most perverted of all – comedy. Performers include Foxxy Lane LeFevre, Stormy September, Zoja Exotica & Shelbi Aiona, Holly Pocket, Flex Fatale, Kitty McSparkles & Jaymie, Jordan Culpepper, and many more. Keep in mind, their event copy states, “Boner Bizarre is not responsible for anyone losing all sense of reality.” –James Scott
Local Hero
Friday 16 & Saturday 17, AFS Cinema
Texas cash and bravado meets Scottish pluck in one of the greatest British movies of the 1980s. A Houston oil tycoon (Burt Lancaster) believes that he can buy out a little fishing village, and dispatches “Mac” McIntyre (Peter Riegert) to convince the locals to hand over their heritage. Starring Jenny Seagrove, a pre-Doctor Who Peter Capaldi, and another sci-fi great, Denis Lawson (aka Wedge from Star Wars), it’s a heartfelt love letter to the power of belonging somewhere. Plus, you’ll be humming that theme by Mark Knopfler all the way home. – Richard Whittaker
Opening Reception: “Material Evolution”
Saturday 17, ACC’s Gallery 2000
ACC Highland does the city a (literal) solid with this new exhibition of works from more than 20 members of the Texas Sculpture Group, a creative powerhouse of Lone Star State makers whose fabrications span an array of traditional and modern techniques and a refreshing diversity of material types. Curated by the San Antonio Museum of Art’s Lana Meador, this show of three-dimensional expression features compelling constructs by Kurt Dyrhaug, Valérie Chaussonnet, Larry Graeber, and more – all within an elegant gallery surrounded by the infrastructure of higher education. – Wayne Alan Brenner
Sextet: Improvised Love Stories
Saturday 17, ColdTowne Theater
ColdTowne encourages you to bring “a partner, a friend, or your messy situationship” to some live improvised romantic comedy this Valentine’s weekend. Though based on Jason Chin’s play “Dinner for Six” directed by Jason Chin at Chicago’s iO theater in 2001, producer Abby Lincoln and director Kevin Anderson have refigured Sextet to focus on platonic as well as romantic love. The show follows three couples throughout all vicissitudes of the heart. Catch it on its last Saturday run Feb. 17. – Lina Fisher
Vast Is the Sea
Saturday 17, Co-Lab Projects
Austin’s ever-innovative Co-Lab Projects and Barry Stone/Porch Swing Orchestra continue to reveal this weeks-long series from eight artists whose diverse works are united by their explorations of images and sound, with each artist “constructing new oceans through live performances, video, and sound processing. Viewers are invited to gaze at visions projected on the ceiling and swim among the sounds in real time.” Tonight’s pair of distinctly different shows, immersive as sensory oceans, are by Ariana Gomez (7pm) and Gavin Watts (8pm). Note: Each performance is ticketed separately. – Wayne Alan Brenner
Scott Guild’s Plastic
Monday 19, BookPeople
A UT-Austin New Writers Project alum, Scott Guild returns to town on the occasion of his debut novel, Plastic, set in a comedy-ish dystopian world of non-human figurines. If the book’s unpacking of both the climate crisis and gun violence isn’t ambitious enough, the author also tees up an accompanying album out in April. Pulling from Guild’s musical past as the bandleader of New Collisions, pop tracks will tell the story of plastic protagonist Erin James with real-life production by Peter Katis (the National, Sharon Van Etten). This free event pairs Guild in conversation with the award-winning writer and UT professor Elizabeth McCracken. – Rachel Rascoe
eXistenZ
Tuesday 20, Alamo Village
Video game movies have a rough history because they’re all trying so hard not to be video games. David Cronenberg has no such worries with eXistenZ, his madcap and surprisingly funny examination of the mind-bending perils of virtual reality. Jennifer Jason Leigh and Jude Law plug in and phlegmatically try to uncover conspiracy theories across multitudinous levels of reality. All filtered through Cronenberg’s dry sense of humor, there’s plenty of pre-millennial gamer comedy that will convince you that he knew his way around a console. Screens as part of the Alamo’s Time Capsule series. – Richard Whittaker
Cirque du Soleil: CRYSTAL
Through February 25, H-E-B Center in Cedar Park
When you Google this upcoming show, under “People also ask” is the question “What is so special about Cirque du Soleil?” My proposed answer: In CRYSTAL, these incredible performers of the circus arts will be twisting, flipping, twirling, and flying through the air above solid freakin’ ice! And not only will they be above the ice: You’ll find a tapestry of synchronized, freestyle, and extreme skating performed across the frozen tundra of the H-E-B Center as well. Now that’s pretty damn special. – James Scott
“Black Canvas: Beyond Boundaries”
Through February 25, OFC Gallery
To create this photography exhibition featured at creative consultancy/gallery & studio space OFC Creatives, local artist and activist Jeremy A. Teel pulled from his wider “I, Too, Am Kink” series, which focuses on Black bodies within the BDSM/kink community to “consider the complexities of bondage, body positivity, and the liberation of the Black body amidst daily struggles and pleasures.” Last weekend, however, brought broken windows to the OFC gallery, who remarked it was no accident the only display damaged was the Black queer art. They plan to, in response, be “Blacker and Queerer,” so support them in that mission by catching this exhibition or attending their Friday, Feb. 16, discussion with ATX Queer Connection. – James Scott
O. Henry Stories
Through February 25, Rollins Theatre
“The Bard is just the beginning,” promise the irrepressible thespians of Austin Shakespeare; and now here they are, making good on their word with a play that showcases classic short works by Austin’s own William Sydney Porter – you know: O. Henry – to bring audiences at the Long Center’s Rollins Theatre an early-20th-century good time with “The Gift of the Magi,” “The Pimienta Pancakes,” “The Ransom of Red Chief,” and more. Bonus: Music and dance enhance the talented talespinning, and there are talkbacks with the director and cast after every show. – Wayne Alan Brenner
Always a Boy
Through March 2, Ground Floor Theatre
Author of Never a Girl, Always a Boy and subsequent co-playwright of its stage adaptation Jo Ivester hopes the play written alongside her son Jeremy serves to “contribute to the growing awareness of what it means to be Trans.” After an industry presentation in NYC with Tony-Award winning A Strange Loop producer JJ Maley directing, this personal transition story comes home for its world premiere at Ground Floor featuring director Lisa Scheps and performers Laura Leo Kelly, Kaden Ono, Molly Fonseca, Nathan Jerkins, Max Green, Chelsea Corwin, Trace Turner, and Jeremy. – James Scott
Want to see all of our listings broken down by day? Go to austinchronicle.com/calendar and see what's happening now or in the coming week.
