Rhinestone Steel Queer Pittsburgh

Rhinestone Steel is an all-day, all-ages q***r music and arts festival that will be held on the weekend of July 24th-26th 2015. Rhinestone Steel (RSS) hosts local and nationally recognized musical performers, showcases q***r art, and allows q***rs and allies to come together in a safe and fun environment. Rhinestone Steel is more than just a music festival; it is a political action in celebration

of our community. In an environment where q***r voices are seldom heard in mainstream music and arts spaces, Rhinestone Steel aims to not only celebrate our community’s varied talents, but also spark new inspiration within our community. RSS is a space for q***rs to show the extent of their artistic expression. We will showcase a wide variety of music and arts from q***r people with very diverse backgrounds, including performance art, slam poetry and poetry readings, music performers, dance, and puppet shows, to name a few. RSS also aims to exhibit q***r art by encouraging local artists to collaborate to turn the venue into an art installation. RSS gives local q***r artists the opportunity and materials to work together and show what they are capable of in a setting that will be embraced and enjoyed by many people. We hope that the Pittsburgh q***r scene will grow together by seeing and celebrating each other’s talents. RSS is not only a festival, but also a space where q***r folks can share resources: organizations come to “table” with political information, support resources, and opportunities to become involved. It’s a way to get the community more educated about what’s going on in the area and a way for people to become involved. RSS is so important because it builds bridges between local and national q***r organizations to create a tighter community and a wider reach. RSS will help create personal relationships between individual people and performers, both local and across the country. Rhinestone Steel started as a music and performance festival but has also recently decided to dabble in artist residencies. All of this is to bring in out of town q***r musicians, artists, performers, writers, etc and to show them how wonderful Pittsburgh is while they share with us their fabulousness