Riot Acts: Flaunting Gender Deviance in Music Performance
+ other shorts
Sunday, November 9, 2025
2:30pm - 4:00pm
ODD Box
Meet trans musicians through the ages, off stage and on, from the smooth soul sounds of Jackie Shane in 1960s Toronto, to the mumble punk of Edmonton’s Jesse Jams, and everything in between.
Heritage Minutes: Jackie Shane
Pat Mills and Ayo Tsalithaba, 2022, 1 min.
As a pioneering trans soul singer in the 1960s, Jackie Shane’s unapologetic and authentic presence in Toronto contributed to the local R&B music scene and made her an enduring queer icon in Canada. Courtesy of Historica Canada.
Jesse Jams
Trevor Anderson, 2020, 16 min.
A young Indigenous musician and his rock band bring mumble punk to the Interstellar Rodeo. A rock ‘n’ roll survival story of a different stripe.
Riot Acts: Flaunting Gender Deviance in Music Performance
Angelo Madsen, 2009, 72 min.
A “trans-fabulous” rockumentary representing the multi-dimensional lives of transgender and gender variant musicians.
Directors
Ayo Tsalithaba is a Canadian multimedia artist and filmmaker based in Toronto, Ontario.
Angelo Madsen is a multi-disciplinary artist, filmmaker, and educator.
Pat Mills is a Canadian director, screenwriter, and actor. He directed Lifetime’s first LGBTQ+ Christmas movie, The Christmas Setup.
Trevor Anderson is a Canadian filmmaker and director of a dozen short films and one feature.
Curator
Laura Horak is Professor of Film Studies at Carleton University, director of the Transgender Media Portal, and author of the forthcoming book Trans Cinema: Making Communities, Identities, and Worlds.