Performance
Recent Performance:
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Willy recently debuted a mixed genre performance of material from his forthcoming memoir Born on the Edge of Race and Gender at Vassar College in Poughkeepsie, New York.
In the 2009 film Against a Trans Narrative, directed by Jules Rosskam (Transparent), Willy was the featured spoken word performer who stunned and inspired audiences where the dialogue left off. He performed a solo show at Brava Theater in San Francisco. Willy has read or performed spoken word and creative non-fiction at universities, conferences, and a variety of community venues in the San Francisco Bay Area and across the country.
Venues include:
Creating Change (annual conference of the National LGBTQ Task Force, Milwaukee and Portland)
Tranny Fest (San Francisco)
National Women’s Studies Association conference (New York)
Hapa Conference (Berkeley)
Asian and Pacific Islander Queer Women and Transgender Coalition annual Lunar New Year Banquets (San Francisco and Oakland)
Vassar College
UC Berkeley
UC Santa Cruz
Mills College (Oakland)
La Peña (Berkeley)
San Francisco LGBT Center
El Rio (San Francisco)
Cody’s Books (Berkeley)
Modern Times Bookstore (San Francisco)
Old Wives Tales Bookstore (San Francisco)
A Different Light Bookstore (San Francisco)
Boadecia’s Books (Kensington)
Lambda Library Sacramento (recognized as Poet of the Month)
Invite Willy to perform at your event, conference, or campus. Willy is also available for readings, speaking engagements, trainings, classroom presentations, workshop facilitation, panel discussions, and informal gatherings, such as receptions, dinners, and other social events.
Praise for Willy
in the film Against a Trans Narrative:
“This intriguing and challenging documentary examines the ‘pervasive narrative’ in the transgender community. Why do individuals undergoing gender reassignment have to ‘pass’ as a man or a woman, rather than be accepted for who they are and how they look?...Rosskam provides considerable food for thought…Yet perhaps the most striking narrative is from Willy Wilkinson, [who] shrewdly incorporates race, class, sexuality, and gender in a series of transfixing (pun intended) performances.”
--San Francisco Bay Times
“Arguably the best movie about gender I’ve ever viewed…remarkably intelligent, sensitive, and powerful…bold spoken word performances from Willy Wilkinson."
--Feminist Review
Photo credit; Reenie Raschke, Reenie Images