The Mission of MCVF is to nurture the development of Queer Performers, Educators and Activists by providing them with Artist in Residence Programs and Arts programming. We believe that the process and product of creative activity have equal value, that all talent is worthy of development, and that artistic expression is essential to our community's health. We place special emphasis on supporting the work of Queer People of Color, Trans People and artists living with HIV/ AIDS
Why We Do What We Do.
MCVF examines our sense of the world and how it’s shaped by a myriad of influences—the cacophony of ideas and information that contribute to the ongoing reshaping of our perception of contemporary life. our programs raise several questions: who—or what—do we trust and how do we know when to trust them? Is this a time to hold fast to what we think we know, or to really seek knowledge and understanding from external sources? How do we navigate among these multiple influences to achieve insights and understandings?
Dedicated to supporting the creative work of Queer People of Color, Trans People and artists living with HIV/ AIDS, MCVF is leading the charge in reshaping our contemporary Bay Area life. Furthermore, MCVF’s championing of Radical Queer Performance offers a platform for better understanding the realities and experiences of historically marginalized peoples. And isn’t MCVF so very very San Francisco, a city known for its far left ideals and beautifully quirky counter culture? San Francisco is often characterized as an isolated bubble as in “there’s San Francisco and then there’s the rest of the world.” It would be too easy to reduce MCVF as avant-garde, offbeat and perhaps, out of touch with the “real world.”
History
Dwayne Calizo, who is mixed-race Cherokee and Native Hawaiian, founded the Voice Factory in 2006, when he leased the 6000 square foot venue at 1519 Mission Street formerly known as the Jon Sims Center for the Performing Arts. After raising $50,000 to renovate the venue, Calizo re-opened the space and launched the DIY (Do It Yourself) Residency Program, a comprehensive strategy to support the creation and development of new Queer performance. The venue now includes 3 different rehearsal/performance spaces (a 100-seat main theater, a 70-seat Cabaret Space and a 30-seat Black Box). MCVF is the last Queer Performing Arts Center in San Francisco's who suppotrs the development in creating new works by queer artists.
As MCVF’s major artistic program, the DIY Residency promotes mutually beneficial collaborations between artists and their presenters. Each year the program originates, develops and stages approximately 18 new productions; to date, the Residency has developed and presented 70+ professional-quality LGBTQ? productions, many in the alterna queer and experimental music theater field.
The DIY Residency Program simultaneously addresses the major financial obstacles self-producing artists have to overcome and recognizes that artists need to feel comfortable and grounded in the space where they are working. From the outset, the Residency has consciously attempted to make the artists feel both physically and mentally at home at the Voice Factory. Feedback from resident artists has revealed that The Voice Factory’s emphasis on a healthy art-making environment positively impacts the artistic process, thereby supporting a higher quality production. The collaborative nature of the DIY payment plan helps to avoid the squabbling over financial issues that all too often define the artist’s relationship to their venue.
Staff at MCVF
Dwayne Calizo, Executive Director
Dwayne Calizo is the Executive Director and an active participant in the Rock Theater, Experimental Music and Dance Theater schemes in S.F. He identifies as a Vocalist/Activist/Composer/Musical Director/Educator. He is one of the founding members of New College of California The Experimental Performance Institute, the worlds first accedited B.A./M.A. and M.F.A. Degree programs in Queer and Activist Performance. He received his B.M. in Vocal Performance from University of Hawaii and his Masters of Arts in Creative Inquiry with an emphasis in Experimental and Activist Peformance and an M.F.A. Experimental Vocal Pedegogy. During the last 20 years, he has researching non-western approaches to vocal techniques and music notation that is based on Aural Tradition, the story telling around fires, in family circle, through group visualization exercises, simple graphs/symbols and intuitive drawing that include colors as dynamics that shape the musical line. And the roles that queer and trans people held in the in maintaing the tribal history, lineage, culture and song.
Dwayne develops the programs at MCVF which all have a componenet of arts and social justice activism. His personal mission is to create a dialog within the alterna queer artist and educator community that in which they look at the community through a lens of service through their work.
Mr.C. has sung professionally in theater, opera, experimental performance, dance theater and robotics-theater, and has been the Musical Director and/or Vocal Director for many a famous people. He serves as the Vocal director for The ESP Project, Dance Animals, and Mahu-Mele a Theatrical Experimental Vocal Ensemble. For the past 25 years the sole topic of his original works has been the A.I.D.S. epidemic. These works include 3 scores for musicals, 4 song cycles, "The Toxic Cocktail 1988" about the AIDS epidemic in Los Angeles, "Boobie Trapped" 1993, "Broken 1998" The Queens Rain 2000, Drag Attack 2003, The House of Many Mansions 2004"SPIT 1" 2005, " SPIT II 2005" The Toxic-CockTale: Hold the Retrovirus 2008 and is premiereing the last of the SPIT TRILOGY in November of 2009. He's produces 2 radio commercials, 4 soundtracks for short films, 4 albums, 11 dance theater scores, and over 150 ballads. He has also produced, written, and directed and produced 4 short films, and 4 "Rock Theater" extravaganzas "The Queens Rain" Winner of He Best of The Fringe 1999 and Most Sold Out Shows Award."Drag Attack" and "AIDS the Made for T.V. Musical" Which won an Bay Area Critics Award. The Toxic-Coctail: Hold The Retro Virus Please which won Best of The NQAF 2008.Dwayne will also be starring in the soon to be release Movie, The Beard Club. He is also a Master Voice Teacher who utilizes techniques he developed during a 20 years being a performer and student. Contact Dwayne at voicefactorysf@gmail.com
About
Our Mission
The Mission of MCVF is to nurture the development of Queer Performers, Educators and Activists by providing them with Artist in Residence Programs and Arts programming. We believe that the process and product of creative activity have equal value, that all talent is worthy of development, and that artistic expression is essential to our community's health. We place special emphasis on supporting the work of Queer People of Color, Trans People and artists living with HIV/ AIDS
Why We Do What We Do.
MCVF examines our sense of the world and how it’s shaped by a myriad of influences—the cacophony of ideas and information that contribute to the ongoing reshaping of our perception of contemporary life. our programs raise several questions: who—or what—do we trust and how do we know when to trust them? Is this a time to hold fast to what we think we know, or to really seek knowledge and understanding from external sources? How do we navigate among these multiple influences to achieve insights and understandings?
Dedicated to supporting the creative work of Queer People of Color, Trans People and artists living with HIV/ AIDS, MCVF is leading the charge in reshaping our contemporary Bay Area life. Furthermore, MCVF’s championing of Radical Queer Performance offers a platform for better understanding the realities and experiences of historically marginalized peoples. And isn’t MCVF so very very San Francisco, a city known for its far left ideals and beautifully quirky counter culture? San Francisco is often characterized as an isolated bubble as in “there’s San Francisco and then there’s the rest of the world.” It would be too easy to reduce MCVF as avant-garde, offbeat and perhaps, out of touch with the “real world.”
History
Dwayne Calizo, who is mixed-race Cherokee and Native Hawaiian, founded the Voice Factory in 2006, when he leased the 6000 square foot venue at 1519 Mission Street formerly known as the Jon Sims Center for the Performing Arts. After raising $50,000 to renovate the venue, Calizo re-opened the space and launched the DIY (Do It Yourself) Residency Program, a comprehensive strategy to support the creation and development of new Queer performance. The venue now includes 3 different rehearsal/performance spaces (a 100-seat main theater, a 70-seat Cabaret Space and a 30-seat Black Box). MCVF is the last Queer Performing Arts Center in San Francisco's who suppotrs the development in creating new works by queer artists.
As MCVF’s major artistic program, the DIY Residency promotes mutually beneficial collaborations between artists and their presenters. Each year the program originates, develops and stages approximately 18 new productions; to date, the Residency has developed and presented 70+ professional-quality LGBTQ? productions, many in the alterna queer and experimental music theater field.
The DIY Residency Program simultaneously addresses the major financial obstacles self-producing artists have to overcome and recognizes that artists need to feel comfortable and grounded in the space where they are working. From the outset, the Residency has consciously attempted to make the artists feel both physically and mentally at home at the Voice Factory. Feedback from resident artists has revealed that The Voice Factory’s emphasis on a healthy art-making environment positively impacts the artistic process, thereby supporting a higher quality production. The collaborative nature of the DIY payment plan helps to avoid the squabbling over financial issues that all too often define the artist’s relationship to their venue.
Staff at MCVF
Dwayne Calizo, Executive Director
Dwayne Calizo is the Executive Director and an active participant in the Rock Theater, Experimental Music and Dance Theater schemes in S.F. He identifies as a Vocalist/Activist/Composer/Musical Director/Educator. He is one of the founding members of New College of California The Experimental Performance Institute, the worlds first accedited B.A./M.A. and M.F.A. Degree programs in Queer and Activist Performance. He received his B.M. in Vocal Performance from University of Hawaii and his Masters of Arts in Creative Inquiry with an emphasis in Experimental and Activist Peformance and an M.F.A. Experimental Vocal Pedegogy. During the last 20 years, he has researching non-western approaches to vocal techniques and music notation that is based on Aural Tradition, the story telling around fires, in family circle, through group visualization exercises, simple graphs/symbols and intuitive drawing that include colors as dynamics that shape the musical line. And the roles that queer and trans people held in the in maintaing the tribal history, lineage, culture and song.
Dwayne develops the programs at MCVF which all have a componenet of arts and social justice activism. His personal mission is to create a dialog within the alterna queer artist and educator community that in which they look at the community through a lens of service through their work.
Mr.C. has sung professionally in theater, opera, experimental performance, dance theater and robotics-theater, and has been the Musical Director and/or Vocal Director for many a famous people. He serves as the Vocal director for The ESP Project, Dance Animals, and Mahu-Mele a Theatrical Experimental Vocal Ensemble. For the past 25 years the sole topic of his original works has been the A.I.D.S. epidemic. These works include 3 scores for musicals, 4 song cycles, "The Toxic Cocktail 1988" about the AIDS epidemic in Los Angeles, "Boobie Trapped" 1993, "Broken 1998" The Queens Rain 2000, Drag Attack 2003, The House of Many Mansions 2004"SPIT 1" 2005, " SPIT II 2005" The Toxic-CockTale: Hold the Retrovirus 2008 and is premiereing the last of the SPIT TRILOGY in November of 2009. He's produces 2 radio commercials, 4 soundtracks for short films, 4 albums, 11 dance theater scores, and over 150 ballads. He has also produced, written, and directed and produced 4 short films, and 4 "Rock Theater" extravaganzas "The Queens Rain" Winner of He Best of The Fringe 1999 and Most Sold Out Shows Award."Drag Attack" and "AIDS the Made for T.V. Musical" Which won an Bay Area Critics Award. The Toxic-Coctail: Hold The Retro Virus Please which won Best of The NQAF 2008.Dwayne will also be starring in the soon to be release Movie, The Beard Club. He is also a Master Voice Teacher who utilizes techniques he developed during a 20 years being a performer and student. Contact Dwayne at voicefactorysf@gmail.com