6:00 - 7:30
Though Bambi Lake has passed, her voice lives on. Join the Angels of Light as they reunite for an exciting and earth-shattering panel reflecting on their lives before and after — and on the legacy captured in their work.
In 1970, the genderbending, hippie, drag performance troupe the Cockettes split. Enter the Angels of Light. Active from 1970 to 1984, the Angels of Light performance troupe was a radical offshoot that fused theater, drag and communal living into a raw, confrontational art form. They rejected commercialism in favor of free performance, creating a glitter-soaked, boundary-breaking underground that pushed the limits of gender, art and collective life.
Join panelists Tahara, Beaver Bauer and Greg Cruikshank in conversation with August Bernadicou, alongside the enduring presence of Bambi Lake through her new book Devour Me Again (Nightboat Books, 2026).
Topics include communal living, free theater, art, counterculture, hippie ideals, alternative lifestyles, the gay liberation revolution and Bambi Lake.
This a free event. Registration via Partiful is not required to attend.
Bios:
Tahara is a pioneering performer and early gay liberation activist who was a member of the Cockettes and later the Angels of Light, two of the most influential queer performance groups of the early 1970s. He began his activism with the Berkeley Gay Liberation movement shortly after the Stonewall Riots, helping shape the intersection of radical politics and gender-defying performance in San Francisco’s counterculture.
Beaver Bauer is a renowned San Francisco–based costume designer and artist whose work spans theater, film and television, with credits including American Conservatory Theater, Los Angeles Opera and Teatro ZinZanni. She began her career with the Angels of Light and has been recognized by the Bay Area Theatre Critics Circle for excellence in costume design.
Greg Cruikshank is a multidisciplinary artist who performed internationally with Angels of Light and collaborated with Tuxedomoon, later working abroad with John Cleese, Vivienne Westwood and Derek Jarman. He spent more than 20 years as Music Director for Macy’s West Creative team and created video content for The Midnight Sun, while also DJing at The Detour.
August Bernadicou is the Executive Director of The LGBTQ History Project, a nonprofit dedicated to preserving the lives and legacies of LGBTQ pioneers from the gay liberation era. His audio recording archive contains over 1,000 files.
Connect:
The LGBTQ History Project - Website | The LBTQ History Project - Instagram | LGBTQHistoryProject - TikTok
Photo banner credit: Dan Nicoletta (1980)
LGBTQIA+ Interest
Gather, share knowledge and celebrate our unique identities at the queerest library ever.
For more resources, the James C. Hormel LGBTQIA Center is the gateway to the Library’s broader collections documenting lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, questioning, intersex and asexual history and culture, with a special emphasis on the San Francisco Bay Area.