Homotopia is the UK’s longest running LGBTQIA arts and cultural festival. They’ve been running for 17 years and were born and bred in Liverpool, UK.
Their mixed arts festival includes theatre, film, music, visual arts, heritage and discussions.
They are looking for fully-formed submissions from theatre makers and producers, visual artists and performance artists who identify as LGBTQIA. They’re also always happy to hear from artists who create family-friendly live theatre and/or workshops exploring LGBTQIA identities.
They are interested in LGBTQIA artists and work that is:
- Risk-taking: we’ve all got a very different idea of what ‘risk’ is, so don’t worry about your work being too ‘risky’ to programme – it might well be perfect in the context of Homotopia.
- Unapologetically queer: We like work that celebrates queer culture, is high camp realness, radical or cosy queerness, femme, butch, trans, non-binary lives, identities and experiences.
- High quality: we love our audience and want them to have the best possible experience of excellent art, and believe such art is more likely to have a positive social impact. It is rare for us to programme an artist who has no track record and early-career artists may do better applying to our QueerCore Artist Development programme.
- Diverse: we programme work that reflects the full spectrum of LGBTQIA experiences and strongly encourage those who are currently underrepresented in the sector to apply, which might include folks who identify as QTIBPoC, intersex artists, and d/Deaf and disabled queer artists.
- Any art form: we are interested in heritage, dance, theatre, cabaret, visual arts, digital work, or anything else that comes to mind. Historically and presently, we have a special interest in LGBTQIA theatre and have more opportunities to offer in this area than in visual arts.
Submissions for theatre should be fully formed plays, or due to be complete in advance of November 2021. For early-career artists looking to develop new work, please refer to our QueerCore programme.
Submissions should include:
- A short bio about the artist and examples of their previous work;
- For theatre submissions, we require a video of the work or at least a trailer;
- Information about specific tech requirements and preferred venue types;
- Information about fees and related costs;
- Links to websites, images and additional videos are very welcome. Artists should identify as LGBTQIA and the subject matter of their work should explore queer/trans identities, challenges, experiences and culture.
Please be aware that they are an established arts organisation with a large reach, but have a modest budget to run our festival. Sadly, they are unlikely to be able to support large scale productions with big casts and crews.
Send submissions to hello@homotopia.net by 10am on Tuesday 9 March 2021.
If you are including attachments, they can only accept Word and PDF formats.
They read every single submission and will respond by April at the latest. Since they are a very small team however, they may not be able to offer detailed feedback.
If you are a musician, you can apply to be part of our annual music QueerCentric Music Night event by emailing hello@liverpoolqueercollective.co.uk. Please note, this event is curated by our programme partners Liverpool Queer Collective and priority is given to musicians based in the North West of England.
If you have questions about applying, we have two open slots to take zoom calls, of around 5-10 minutes;
20th January from 9.30am-12.30 midday (email us by 9am on the 19th January)
27th January from 1.30pm-5pm (email us by 9am on 26th January)
Simply email info@homotopia.net with the subject headline “FESTIVAL INQUIRY” and “20th Jan” or “27th Jan” and we will give you a time within the times of the open slot the day before.