Amader Jolsha – Community Celebration + Open Mic!

Amader Jolsha (transl. “Our Celebration”) is a community celebration packed with fun cultural activities, beautiful henna art, delicious food, and a dazzling performance by Bangladeshi drag queen, NaFis 🌈 Join us to connect, create, and celebrate! This exciting event is open to community members of all backgrounds and allies!

Featured Performance:

NaFis is a Bangladeshi-American actor, singer, and lightworker born in Satkhira, BD and now based in Queens, NYC. Their artistic journey began in Bangladesh. At the age of 6, they won a National Folk Music Award, in Poddo-Kuri, and placed third nationally, before becoming a finalist on Bangladesh’s first televised children’s singing competition, Channel- I’s Khude Gan Raaz, in 2008. They were the first ever Bangladeshi student accepted into the conservatory Musical Theatre program at the University of Miami. Since moving to the US at fifteen, they have built a multidisciplinary career shaped by queerness, diaspora, and a deep love of storytelling. They originated Sebanti in SoHo Rep’s ‘Public Obscenities’, a performance that earned them a Drama Desk Award, and have appeared in ‘Femininjection’ at The Tank, ‘Rent’ as Angel with Open Hydrant Theatre, ‘Lady in the Dark’ at New York City Center, ‘House of Joy’ as Salima, and ‘Tinderella’ as Dylan, for which they also received BroadwayWorld’s Best Performer in a Musical award. They originated Rini, a non-binary queer Bengali character, in the play, ‘Mahamoha’, for Baltimore’s first t4t theatre festival, and will be closing out 2025 by playing the lead role of Rohan in the New York Theatre Festival’s production of ‘Down Once More’. Their current work focuses on expanding queer and trans South Asian storytelling and uplifting Bangladeshi cultural expression beyond the narrow, homogenized versions of South Asian representation seen in regional and diasporic media. To connect and follow along, IG: @nafis_storyteller