A celebration of community: Queer Contact returns to Manchester for 2022 festival

Queer Contact returns to Manchester in the new year for a groundbreaking edition of the annual festival.

Taking over Contact Theatre, 2022’s programme promises to platform a broad range of life experience, forge alternative paths for celebrating queer identities and for the first time, will create opportunities to engage in educational activities around queer life and health.

The latest instalment of Queer Contact has been built with the next generation of LGBTQ+ artists and audiences in mind. Consultations and workshops with individuals aged 13-30 have helped shape the festival’s strategy and commitment to reflecting genuine experiences of young people in the LGBTQ+ community.

An eclectic and stacked lineup has been confirmed, with proceedings kicking off on Fri 11 Feb via drag king troupe, Pecs: King of the North. Next up will be The Enby Show, which brings an array of talented non-binary performers spanning singing, drag and comedy.

Contact Theatre’s drive to champion young artists will also shine through Scratch, which will showcase work from a number of queer Manc-based creatives—including the two recipients of the GM LGBTQ+ Arts and Culture Network bursary: Jova and the Wave and Maz Hedgehog who will share early material from their winning commissions.

Muslim drag sensation Glamrou present their debut solo show and a celebration of global vogue culture comes courtesy of the House of Suarez and Contact Vogue Ball to be hosted at Manchester Academy 1.

Also on the billing is The Untold Orchestra, presenting a contemporary classical music show with a diverse, local 15-piece orchestra playing a set inspired by decades of queer musical icons.

Emma Frankland’s Hearty, the fifth and final show in the ‘None of Us is Yet a Robot’ project that responds to Emma’s gender transition, The Bitten Peach, the UK’s only Pan-Asian cabaret collective and Ell and Mary’s Fitter, a singing, dancing, and f*cking around in crap drag love letter to masculinity, completes the confirmed line-up, with more shows still to be announced.

Tickets for each individual show are on sale now, you can grab yours using the button below.