Friends Fair Partners With Future Front and The Contemporary Austin On Its Second-Year Launch
Returning for its second year at The Loren Hotel on May 8 and 9, Friends Fair launched with an intimate reception at The Contemporary Austin — Jones Center, presented in partnership with Future Front.
Curated by our Founding Director Jane Hervey, the evening’s lineup reflected the overlapping friendships that define Austin’s analog art and live music scenes.
Throughout the night, guests enjoyed interpretative performances by masked movement artists Taryn Lavery and Aída Hernandez-Reyes, featuring pieces by Mexic-Arte Changarrito Artist-In-Residence Carla Santillana and Essentials Creative member Fabian Alejandro Diaz
Onstage, the program began with an all-vinyl set by Antone’s Nightclub photographer, live music curator and DJ Salihah Saadiq aka Foxxxy Brown, followed by an intimate art-rock performance by Austin Music Awards 2026 Best Vocalist BRUCE (accompanied by special guest pianist Sara L. Houser).
ENJOY THE VISUAL RECAP.
Images courtesy The Contemporary Austin. Photographs by Levi Thompson.
MEET THE EVENING’S LINEUP.
Guest Performer
BRUCE
BRUCE is the new project of Carrie Fussell, the former front-woman of Calliope Musicals.
you're home alone in the shower; you're singing "all by myself" by celine dion at the top of your lungs while ice cold water prickles your skin into that of a chicken. from somewhere that seems far away, a stadium full of people throw flowers at your feet and chant your name.
your name is BRUCE.
BRUCE is an art rock project. BRUCE got ready for sunday school all by herself. her debut album "must love teeth" was released on july 11, 2025, and she released a live concert film by the same name on november 4, 2025. at the very end of 2025, BRUCE was nominated by the austin chronicle as best vocalist (which she won), best new band and most creative event. pretty cool, huh?
Guest Performer
Foxxxy Brown
Salihah Saadiq aka Foxxxy Brown is a local vinyl vixen who's all about a good time and a good groove.
Heavily inspired by the energy of 70s/90s and innovation of the modern sounds, she integrates the old with the new, providing a sweet sonic experience.
Her signature sounds include soul, hip-hop, funk and electronic/house.
Movement Artist
Taryn Lavery
Taryn Lavery, originally from Utah, is a freelance dancer, choreographer, cross-disciplinary design artist and co-founder/co-director of Austin’s BLiPSWiTCH— a project-based dance company focused on collaboration and site-specific performance works as an avenue to community expansion. She is a current dancer with Allysen Hooks Projects, Performa/Dance, RushTopFish and TY&CO, and has worked with ARCOS (2015-2022), Jennifer Sherburn (2016-2021), KDH Dance Company, Lisa Nicks, Justo Cisneros, Pearl Bhatnagar, Collide Arts, Dance Carousel, SEAM Project and more. Taryn has a creative philosophy rooted in the belief that the way we gather and share in exposition is an extension of process, and she fuses her classical background with a desire to revitalize modern dance for broader audiences, extracting a new form of contemporary performance.
Guest Artist
Carla Santillana
Carla Santillana is an artist and art educator from Brownsville, Texas, currently based in San Antonio. Working across oil painting, textiles, and sculptural forms, including handmade masks, her practice explores how emotion is held and expressed through the body. She is a 2026 Changarrito Resident at the Mexic-Arte Museum in Austin, and her work was featured on the cover of Bittersweet Memories, a publication by a Rio Grande Valley artist.
Guest Pianist
Sara L. Houser
Active in the Austin music scene for over a decade, Sara L. Houser’s contributions have never been singular. Much of her career has been defined by her behind the scenes roles as a sought after collaborator in the studio world (Spoon, Golden Dawn Arkestra, Walker Lukens) and as a touring musician for big name acts Zella Day (Chaparelle) and Matthew Logan Vasquez (Delta Spirit). S. L. Houser was the KUTX January Artist of the Month in 2024 and nominated twice for Musician of the Year in the Austin Chronicle’s Austin Music Awards. Her first record, Hibiscus, is a spyglass look into the mind of a self-described recovering workaholic. The album was added to rotation at over 64 non-comm stations nationwide and has charted in NACC’s Top 200 since its release. In 2025, S. L. Houser made her debut at Austin City Limits on the BMI stage. She is currently working on her second album and continuing her production, arranging and touring work for other artists (Sirenhouse). For more on S. L. Houser, visit her website slhouser.com.
Guest Artist
Fabian Alejandro Diaz
Born in the small west Texas town of Andrews, Fabian Alejandro Diaz grew up in Aztec, New Mexico, in the four corners area on the Colorado border. He has called San Antonio home since 2008. An artist from the beginning, he works across several media, with tribal culture as the through line of his aesthetic. A fascination with adornment led him to experiment with accessorizing using whatever materials were on hand. Driven by the need to create, he continues to explore every avenue of his practice as he builds his brand, CASA DE OJOS.
Movement Artist
Aída Hernandez-Reyes
Aída Hernandez-Reyes is a freelance dancer, performer, choreographer and interdisciplinary art maker based in Austin, Texas. Their movement training spans from local Austin studios to programs with Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, Alonzo King Lines Ballet, Sidra Bell, B12 and the University of Texas at Austin from which they received a BFA in dance and performance.
Aída has worked with Jesse Zaritt, Michiyaya, Valleto, Sarah J Bartholomew, Mama Duke, Thee Gay Agenda, Andrew Schneider and Annie Saunders, Kelsey Oliver, Joy Alpuerto Ritter, ARCOS, Salvage Vanguard Theater, Performa/Dance, JKJK, and more. Their creative process is inspired by a motivation to build stamina, rest, be upside down, craft and diy, punk around, appreciate the mundane and notice the sublime, and examine and embody their multiracial queer experience of the world around them.
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