Queer Spectra Arts Festival is a Salt Lake City-based nonprofit dedicated to showcasing multidisciplinary artistic expressions from diverse LGBTQIA+ perspectives. The Festival Organizing Team includes Tori Meyer and Rae Luebbert. The 8th Annual Festival is coming up on May 14–16, 2026 at the Sorenson Unity Center exploring the theme "Troubling the Lines." The call for submissions for the 2026 Festival is open now through March 13th.
Serenity Renegade is a music/performance project created by Kade Bliss, a local trans artist and activist. This project is a practice in embodying love and gentle fortitude in the face of personal hardship, horrific global crises, and a future that seems uncertain at best and apocalyptic at worst. The Serenity Renegade discography explores themes of abuse, grief, loss, and fear through a carefully crafted lens that transforms pain into a heroic journey full of ups and downs, culminating in a joy that refuses to be tamed. The pieces that will be performed are Shadows (the first song of the project, rarely played live) and God aka All of Us (the capstone of Serenity Renegade’s most recent release: the Home album). From the first aching cry for a better life to a triumphant celebration of the love experienced along the way, Serenity Renegade ventures into the depths of the human heart and encourages audiences to join a softer kind of revolution; one where we get to revel in the freedom we gain by truly connecting with ourselves, each other, and the world.
Subject To Change is Jade’s first film — written, shot, and edited by them. This film is an experimental documentary exploring their journey of thinking they didn’t want top surgery to realizing they do want it. Subject To Change is an emotional meditation, a philosophical adventure, it’s one person’s spiritual movement from ‘no’ to ‘yes’.
Jade Swayne is a Black, Queer, Trans, Non-binary artist. Ever eager to transform whatever's around into a work of self expression, they have always sought to create. Whether it's as a writer, public speaker, curator, or filmmaker Jade seeks to guide others towards curiosity, expansion, honesty, and self expression.
"Tuesday as an Apparition explores my time as a partner and daily resident in the 'limbo dreamland' of Transitioning. Daydreaming has allowed my current self to witness and embody a future, intangible version of self, offering hope and patience amid constant barriers. Though this self exists in my head, it is rarely private, as others at varying levels of relational proximity — from strangers to chosen family — experience and build their own versions of Transitioning Mads. This visibility has felt affirming yet exposing, timely yet premature, and necessary yet dangerous. In this work, I use movement and physical worldbuilding to explore these facets of visibility through my experience with mutual apparitional love: T4T (trans-for-trans) partnership."
Mads Ward (they/them/theirs), moved to Salt Lake City, Utah, from North Carolina in 2020 to pursue a career in classical ballet. Desiring more autonomy and community connection beyond traditional performance, Mads stepped into the worlds of contemporary dance, multidisciplinary creation, and improvisational practice (@madsismoving) in 2022. Since then, they have enjoyed working as a freelance performer and choreographer, collaborating with other local multidisciplinary artists and organizations to produce installations, films, theatre performances, visual art pieces, and more, often exploring narrative themes of identity and becoming. Mads is a current member of Fleet Cooperative. Alongside their creative practice, Mads conducts qualitative research in urban design and planning and will complete their Honors B.S. in Urban Ecology and Sociology at the University of Utah in May 2026.
12 Minutes Max is dedicated to the memory of our dear friend and colleague Paul Reynolds: artist, librarian, and patron of the arts. The 12 Minutes Max program is a curated monthly performance series featuring experimental short works by local artists in many different disciplines, including dance, music, film, and more. Each piece is followed by a Q&A with the artist. 12MM is modeled after the program originated by On the Boards in Seattle.
