Queen Drea Born on the Fourth of July: From Mississippi to Minnesota

Makers Series Artist Queen Drea

Born on the Fourth of July: From Mississippi to Minnesota

A new interdisciplinary sound performance and installation project

Saturday, July 25, 2026 | 1–5 PM
Pillsbury House + Theatre Parking Lot | Minneapolis, MN

INSIDE OUT 5 Block Party

Featuring Born on the Fourth of July: From Mississippi to Minnesota by Queen Drea

Join Queen Drea for Born on the Fourth of July: From Mississippi to Minnesota, an immersive interdisciplinary sound performance and installation project exploring family archive, oral history, and Black cultural memory.

Through original music composition, poetry, oral history recordings, improvisation, and layered sound design, the work traces the journey of Queen Drea’s mother from Mississippi to Chicago and Minnesota while reflecting on Black womanhood, migration, caregiving, memory, and family legacy across generations.

Supported in part by the American Composers Forum, the project blends experimental sound practice, archival storytelling, and live performance into an intimate meditation on history, identity, and freedom.

Sound + Artifact Installation – Open Throughout the Day

Live Performances – Three performances throughout the event

Approximate Runtime: 30 minutes

INSIDE OUT 5 is a free community block party presented by Pillsbury House + Theatre celebrating creativity, healing, wellness, and connection through live performance, food, family activities, local artists, and community resources.

The afternoon will also feature:

• Community healing and wellness activities
• Live DJs and music from KRSM
• Artist marketplace and community organizations
• Food vendors and refreshments
• Games, family activities, and creative workshops
• Peace lantern making and interactive community spaces
• Full Cycle Bike Giveaway through participation in block party activities

Queen Drea

Queen Drea is a sound alchemist, mixing sonic potions laced with looped vocals, jagged rhythms, and found sounds. She has designed sonic worlds for PH+T’s productions of What to Send Up, When it Goes Down, The Great Divide 3&4, Penumbra Theater’s For Colored Girls…, Spittin Seeds, Minnesota Children’s Theater’s Locomotion, and dance companies, BrotherHood Dance, and Ananya Dance Theater. She has created work about depression in the Black community, African creator goddess Mawu, and an exploration of what life comes From Black Wombs. Queen is a 2022 McKnight Composer Fellow, 2019 PH+T Naked Stages Fellow, 2019 Jerome Finalist, and 2017 ACF Emerging Composer awardee.

ABOUT AMERICAN COMPOSERS FORUM

ACF’s mission is to support and advocate for individuals and groups creating music today by demonstrating the vitality and relevance of their art. We do this by empowering composers, modeling creative partnerships, and advocating for new music through storytelling and connections. Working with an ecosystem of artists, programmers, presenters, teachers, funders, and audiences, we frame all of our work with a commitment to anti-racism, believing that creating a fairer world for artists benefits all of us.

Founded in 1973 by composers Libby Larsen and Stephen Paulus as the Minnesota Composers Forum, the organization continues to invest in its Minnesota home while connecting artists and advocates across the United States, its territories, and beyond. ACF frames our work with a focus on anti-racism and includes within that scope (but does not limit it to) equitable engagement of diverse gender identities, musical approaches and perspectives, religions, ages, (dis)abilities, cultures, backgrounds, sexual orientations, and broad definitions of “American.” Visit www.composersforum.org for more information.

Part of the 2026 Makers Series

Queen Drea is part of Pillsbury House + Theatre’s 2026 Makers Series, a residency program supporting boundary-pushing performances at the intersection of arts and social justice.

PH+T’s Makers Series invites visionary activist-artists to create while in residence within our space and community, developing original work that opens pathways for stories that decolonize, democratize, and liberate.