The World
We Create
Portland’s most vibrant queer artists take the stage for two nights of theater, music, dance, and something entirely their own.
Daniel Switzer
ARTISTIC DIRECTOR · HE/HIM/THEY
Daniel Switzer is a performer, director, choreographer, and multidisciplinary creative whose work lives at the intersection of theatricality, collaboration, and community. His work is driven by a belief in the transformative power of live performance to celebrate identity, foster connection, and inspire people to live fuller lives.
With a career spanning stage and screen, Daniel brings an expansive artistic vision shaped by years of performance experience, storytelling, and a passion for directing and creative leadership. His credits include Wicked on Tour, Newsies Live on Disney+, Frozen The Musical, and Mean Girls on Broadway.
In Portland, Daniel has performed at BodyVox Dance Center, New Thought Spiritual Center, and was featured at the opening night celebration of the new Foster Theatre. He directed the web series Living the Dream and recently choreographed a piece for Poetry in Motion at the Dekum Theater.
He is honored to continue the legacy of the Queer Arts Spectacular and excited to help bring its third year to life with heart, imagination, and celebration.
The World We Create
Queerness has never been passive. It is built — through language, through community, through the stories we tell and the art we make when the world doesn’t make room for us. The World We Create is the animating theme of the 2026 Queer Arts Spectacular, and it asks something direct of every artist on stage: What are you bringing into existence that didn’t exist before you made it?
Under the artistic direction of Daniel Switzer, the 2026 Spectacular invites artists to turn inward and return with something made. Not a performance about creation in the abstract, but a live, embodied reckoning with the creative act itself as a distinctly queer practice.
The theme resists easy answers. It is an open invitation to sit with difficult, generative questions: How does queerness shape what we make — and what we make it with? What worlds are we building toward? What are we making room for that didn’t have room before?
The result is a show that is at once personal and collective — a multidisciplinary gathering of queer artists across dance, vocal performance, spoken word, drag, original music, and beyond, each bringing their own answer to the same essential question.
We welcome artists from all disciplines — theater, music, dance, spoken word, comedy, drag, visual performance, and everything in between.
No prior Spectacular experience required. We actively encourage first-time performers and artists from underrepresented backgrounds within our community to apply.
Recorded submissions are due by 7:00 PM
7:00 PM at Resound NW
1532 SW Jefferson St, Portland OR 97201
Via Email
7:00 PM at Alberta Rose Theatre