Gaysian Stories is a storytelling event featuring LGBTQI+ Asian speakers from different walks of life. Hear their experiences of adversity and triumph; and how they navigate intersectionality in their personal and professional lives.

Created and hosted by electronic musician and performance artist, Dyan Tai with support from The Inner West Council and The Red Rattler Theatre. This is an inclusive event open to community and allies.

Guest speakers:

💕 Mai Kanhukamwe loves connecting creatives from Sydney (where she’s known as Auntie) to Shanghai (where they call her 鬼妹). Recently she was awarded a Community Recognition Statement by state parliament for her work with Worship Queer Collective. When she's not orchestrating events, vertical soap operas for China or chairing the Red Rattler Theatre, or building lego she's probably convincing someone to fund her next big idea.

💕 Alyssa Dimarucut is a Filipino-Australian filmmaker and comedian based in Sydney. She is an alumna at Australian Film Television and Radio School (AFTRS), where she developed the pilot for her comedy webseries Bad Asians for her graduation project. Alyssa continues to work in the industry and specialising in Producing, Writing and Directing. With a penchant for oversharing and a passion for Asian women-led stories, Alyssa aims to continue making screen content that resonates with community, while also making people giggle in the sidelines.

💕 Cassandra is a drag artist who will give you the experience of a lifetime. Few years into doing drag, she can be seen regularly at the iconic and historic Stonewall Hotel. She’s a two-time DIVA Sydney’s Favorite Drag Performer. She is the fabulous, fierce, and Filipina beauty queen with a heart

💕 Cherry Zheng (she/they) is a university medallist in Asian Studies, pole dancer, and newbie guzheng player, born onDharug Country to Cantonese parents and currently living in Ngunnawal and Ngambri Country. In 2024, she undertook the StoryCasters 2.0 mentorship with Diversity Arts Australia and won the Island Nonfiction Prize. Cherry has been published in Griffith Review, Overland, and the British Science Fiction Association’s Fission anthology. You may have seem them pole dance as the ethereal Cherry Chopstick.

💕 Carielyn Tunion-Lam / 林嘉蓮 (she/they) is a writer, videopoet, artist, educator, cultural worker and spicy content creator. She has also worked in the community sector supporting migrant and refugee women; and has experience in creative approaches for grassroots community organising. Carielyn’s work explores themes of yearning and radical nostalgia from an anticolonial diasporic perspective.

Program:

6.30pm Doors open

7.00pm Gaysian Stories

8.30pm Panel/Q&A session

9.00pm Finish

Accessibility:

This is a seated event. If you have access requirements eg. wheelchair access or AUSLAN, please use the contact form at check out or send us a DM. We would appreciate it if you could please send us your access requests at least 1 week prior to the event.

Ticket registration:
General admission: $10, $15, $20, $25 donation

Free entry for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander, unwaged and people facing financial hardship. Pls email worshipqueercollective@gmail.com

*Registration is essential to reserve a seat. Walk-ins will be subject to capacity and might be required to stand at the back during the event.

Acknowledgement:

Gaysian Stories is produced by Worship Queer Collective, a Queer Asian artist led collective based in Inner West.

This is an inclusive, safe space for QTBIPOC, Queer/Asians, friends and allies. Thank you for showing up with love and respect for our community.

Gaysian Stories will be held on Gadigal and Wangal land. We would like to acknowledge the Gadigal and Wangal people as the traditional owners of the land and pay our respects to Elders past and present. Always was, always will be, Aboriginal Land.