Lindsay Skedgell Photos
Asher Kai.
Along the walls of Cafe Nine, two trans pride flags framed the stage as a crowd began to gather inside from the cold. The room quickly filled, with art vendors and band merch tables lined along the wall closest to the front door. Crowd members walked around in clear earrings with black lettering, the name ’T4T’ dangling from their ears. It was the beginning of New Haven’s Trans 4 Trans music festival, and performers had come from all over the Elm City, and as far away as Oregon, Philadelphia, and Boston, to be there.
“Hello everybody,” East Rock House member Ashley LaRue said to the crowd. She continued: “Wait, I need energy. A little more,” and the crowd’s echo grew as the first performer of the event, Asher Kai, stepped upon the stage to sing some heartfelt folk tunes.
“I just put out an album today,” Kai said, to a cheering crowd, before delving into an array of songs with personal, honest focus. “To finish that song there’s a poem. It’s written on the back of a receipt,” Kai said, as she pulled out a receipt during the end of her last song. The last line of the poem read: “I draw things larger than life.”
The same could be said of the festival itself. One year ago, East Rock House started organizing backyard shows, highlighting and showcasing queer and trans musicians and artists. T4T, New Haven’s first trans music festival, came from the seeds of those first open mic shows.
“It happened organically from our first event,” said Marianna Apostolakis, member of the East Rock House team and organizer of the T4T Music Festival. After that first backyard show, the East Rock Team — consisting of Marianna Apostolakis, Evelyn Gray, Luke Devereux, and Ashley LaRue — worked together to set T4T into motion.
Gray has worked with the East Rock House team ever since she attended that first backyard show; she booked the bands — Space Camp, Rusty Mullet, Indigaux, Bug Seance, Erycka Ortiz, Ishtar Sr., Valentvne, Kai, and Gray herself — that played T4T. It was a process of putting out a submission call for artists, going through those submissions as a team, and Gray spearheading the final bookings. The final lineup reflected a priority toward trans musicians who are within the New Haven and Connecticut music scene, while still incorporating out-of-state acts.
“It feels important to me as a musician who grew up in the New Haven music scene, then came out and transitioned and had to start from scratch. It feels important to have this kind of event happening in New Haven so as to be intentionally carving out space for trans artists who so often have to fight so hard just to get seen, just to get representation, just to get added to the bill,” said Gray.
“I came all the way from Philly to perform. This is my first time in New Haven,” Ishtar Sr. said to applause as she took the stage. Her sparkled blue eyeshadow danced in the light as she sang over beats that took those who listened to them on a journey. “Everyone needs queers and nerds in their life,” she proclaimed, while she sang of queer acceptance and reflected on societal hierarchies, inner observations, and transcendence. Ishtar Sr. incorporated both pre-sculpted and improvised beats.
Alongside booking the bands and securing funding, the East Rock House team had to find a venue for the festival. Even after presenting venues with proof of historically well-attended events, grant funding to pay artists, and funding to pay the venue (T4T was supported by the Department of Economic and Community Development and Connecticut Office of the Arts, which also receives support from the National Endowment for the Arts), the team was still turned away from several places.
“I will say we did face what felt like transphobia from some venues that didn’t want to work with us,” said Devereux.
Apostolakis responded, “I think part of it is the assumption that maybe there isn’t a need for it or that people wouldn’t actually attend.”
After several attempts, the festival found its home at Cafe Nine. By the morning of the festival, all online tickets had been sold out.
As the night continued, LaRue, Apostolakis, and Devereux went on stage to acknowledge that the festival shared the date of Nov. 20 with Trans Day of Remembrance, a day to remember and honor trans lives that have been lost to anti-trans violence. The local T4T fest also took place one day after a gunman killed at least five people and injured another 25 at an LGTBQ club in Colorado Springs.
“We need to be in community, especially in times like these,” said LaRue.
In reflection of the festival’s chosen date, Devereux stated, “We don’t want it to stop there, with lives that are lost. We want to support the artists in our community that are with us now. We want to celebrate them, we want to support them, and we want to say this is a happy transgender community full of life. We’re holding that alongside what we have lost.”
The next performer, Indigaux, arranged candles on top of an amp and placed a bag of large confetti on the ground. They began to build an altar on the stage in honor of TDOR, an important backdrop to which they performed. Indigaux launched into a collage of experimental electronics and alternative hip hop as they heightened the room’s excitement and energy, even releasing a burst of bubbles incrementally into the crowd. Towards the end of their set, they sang a song entitled “Rest Rest Restless,” a declaration of the need to rest that explored both anger and softness. As the song neared its end, Indigaux sank to the floor to lay their head at the altar.
For more recent coverage of local trans-focused art, check out this article by the Arts Paper’s Lucy Gellman about a new photo exhibition now on display at the New Haven Pride Center.