Press information
April 2009

Meet artists from Mexico to Melbourne at Outgames

Cities from around the globe will be bringing their best queer arts and culture to Copenhagen from July 25 to 31st, when the OutCities world festival week will be held as part of Copenhagen 2009 World Outgames.

OutCities is a cultural feast during World Outgames 2009 - a unique international collaboration with lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) artists from across the globe who will be performing in the central squares of Copenhagen.

Rio de Janeiro, Tel Aviv, Antwerp, Mexico City, Melbourne and Denmark's very own Aarhus are coming to fill the squares and streets of Denmark's capital with artists creating music, installations, events, and performances on the themes of gender, identity and diversity.

OutCities Highlights

All the OutCities are bringing an arts and culture programme with the very best LGBT artists from each city. Together they'll be presenting a vast array of world arts and culture - a world city festival in the streets of Copenhagen including:

Antwerp

The host of World Outgames 2013, will start the OutCities Route at Frue Plads right next to the cathedral in very the heart of Copenhagen. Antwerp's contribution to the celebrations at World Outgames is a whole week of cultural events and performances including a full-blown, same-sex fashion show and the biggest live 70s disco band in Belgium called Cirque Atomique. Antwerp is also bringing the spectacular drag show Mask' Ara and hosting the Ibiza-famous DJ Christophe all week. Rounding off Antwerp's OutCities week is a special guest performance by Eurovision pop star Kate Ryan, who was awarded a World Music Award for Best Selling Benelux Artist in November 2008.

Melbourne 

Right on the other side of the Copenhagen Cathedral at Dyrkoeb people can enjoy the very best and latest queer performance from down under with Melbourne's stage hosting the feminist cabaret diva Yana Alana and Tha Paranas. Audiences can expect tantrums, the hurling of targeted abuse, divine singing, acrobatic dancing and explicit, political lyrics. Hot on her heels in Copenhagen comes the queer electro band The Blow Waves. Brewing in the seedy underbelly of Melbourne's live scene for over two years, The Blow Waves are fast becoming known for their iconic blend of disco infused punk and danceable anthems.

Mexico City

Representing the global south in the OutCities project is Mexico City, who will be bringing a very different flavour to Ny Torv right outside the city courthouse. This includes the Mexican mega celebrity and soprano diva Regina Orozco, the colourful and outspoken lesbian cabaret Las Reinas Chulas, plus much more ...

Aarhus 

Denmark's very own Aarhus are building a ‘One Love City' of contemporary art installations at Soeren Kirkegaards Square just outside Denmark's Royal Library. People can look forward to the world premiere of Displacement by the contemporary dance and performance group Kassandra Productions - an absurd and humorous 'deca-dance' about identity, gender and slacker-mentality, inspired by clubbing and 80s kitsch. Another world premiere for World Outgames is the contemporary dance performance Damascus by Svalholm Dans created in close cooperation with the four male dancers casted at the first completely open audition in Damascus, Syria. All of this, plus bands, musicians and daily speeches on love and tolerance in keeping with the World Outgames slogan ‘Love of Freedom - Freedom to Love'.

Tel Aviv

Tel Aviv has become famous as the Mediterranean city that never sleeps with a world famous beach scene they'll be bringing to the Copenhagen waterfront at Islands Brygge. Here they'll be hosting daily chill-out sessions with top DJs, dance performances by renowned and worldwide famed contemporary dance troupes like the award-winning Renana Raz Dance Group and Sahar Azimi Dance Group. Topping the bill at Tel Aviv's Copenhagen ‘beach' is the Israeli mega star and gay pop idol, Ivri Lider, on the first stop of his first international tour. Not only a mega star, but one of the most adored and respected people in Israel, Lider decided to speak openly about his homosexuality in 2002. He is now also known and widely respected for his gay image. US based Out magazine named Lider one of 2007's 'Out 100' in its annual list of movers and shakers.

For further information or high res. photos contact:
Jane Rowley
OutCities Manager
Email: jane@copenhagen2009.org
Phone: +45 3377 8741