Out of the Closet, Into the Tropics

Every year, LGBT people in the tri-county area look forward to June. Aside from being Pride month, the auspicious beginning of summer also brings Out in the Tropics, a different kind of performing arts festival. And by different, we mean gay, queer, transgender, bi, and flexible sexuality. The festival opens with a free panel discussion and reception at the Shore Club Thursday. At Words and Power — a panel discussion moderated by founding artistic director Robert Rosenberg — artists Bitch, Keith Hennessy, Andrea Askowitz, and Octavio Campos will discuss reclaiming offensive terms such as bitch, queer, dyke, and fag. Friday at 8 p.m., check out Bitch: In Concert at the Colony Theatre (1040 Lincoln Rd., Miami Beach), where New York-based singer-songwriter Bitch will play theatrical punk. You might recognize her from her role in John Cameron Mitchell’s 2006 film Shortbus or from her collaborations with Ani DiFranco. Saturday at the Colony, behold Crotch, Keith Hennessy’s Bessie Award-winning homage to German performance artist Joseph Beuys. During a legendary 1974 performance, Beuys spent three days in a room with a wild coyote after an ambulance delivered him to a gallery on a stretcher. Hennessy, a former member of the San Francisco improvisational collective Contraband, uses dance, text, spectacle, and music to question art, art theory, Beuys, and Judith Butler. Out in the Tropics runs through June 19.

June 9-19, 7 p.m., 2011