Meet Oaklash's Artists in Residence
by Mama Celeste
When I was in college, my friend Jenny Sharp had a school project where she went into New York to photograph some of the biggest local names in drag. And I, for some reason, always tagged along. I’m sure I made myself useful on set but mostly I was just there because I wanted an excuse to meet all these people who I idolized – to get a peak behind the curtain of how they lived, what they loved or hated about drag, what project they were working on next, and usually if you followed them to one of their shows you could sneak into the club underage 😈
Basically, I’ve always been and always will be first and foremost a fan of drag.
One of the coolest things about this job is that now I get to work some of my favorite artists in the world and to help them bring their visions to life. In addition to this year’s festival which I’m sure you already have on your calendar, I’m also managing three residency programs right now with some of the Bay’s brightest queer and trans talent. It’s one of the coolest growth opportunities for Oaklash, I think, as we expand our programs year round and one of the most important ways we can be supporting all the amazing queer and trans artists here in the Bay with one-on-one mentorship support as they expand their artistic careers beyond the nightclub and into the art world.
Rather than just tell you about the residency programs we’re working on, which you can find more information about on this new beautiful page on our website that I just made, I’d like to tell you why I’m such a huge fan of each of the artists we’re working with:
If you were at Butch Queen 2023, you witnessed a moment in drag that I don’t think will ever be repeated in the same way again: half way through their crowning number, just as the Pointer Sisters were shouting “you want more, more, MORE!” – Glamputee stopped the number entirely. The audio scratched, they laid down on the floor, and they took a moment to rest as the words “access break” hovered on the screen above their head. And the audience lived for it. At any pageant, all of us who have been to dozens of pageants over the years are all sitting there waiting for the moment – the stunt that has never been stunted before where you look at the person next to you and you know that the pageant has already been won. Glamputee’s pageant winning stunt was to rest. It was iconic. And poignant.
One of Glamputee’s superpowers is bringing people together. Often their performances look like a party on stage, and even though you’re technically at the same party with them, you can’t help but experience a little FOMO that you’re not one of their background dancers. This is the energy we’re bringing to Glamputee’s LEG-acy Ball (premiering this May) which features a cast of all Black disabled drag performers developing a PeeWee’s Playhouse-esque theater show all about rest and celebration.
One of the most underrated things about drag in general, I think, is how many skills you have to have even just to get up on stage and do drag badly. You have to be a makeup artist, a costume designer, a stylist, a music producer, a choreographer, a dancer, a comedian, and you have to try not to trip over your own feet. OBSIDIENNE OBSURD does all of those things incredibly well AND they also happen to be a professional violist on top of that. I first saw OBSIDIENNE combine their drag artistry and musical prowess with a solo arrangement of the Diva Dance from Fifth Element dressed in full alien drag. Aside from the fact that this is a brilliant way to turn classical music into a club-ready drag experience, they also accomplished the impossible – to get a bar full of drunk people shut up and listen to someone play the viola.
That kind of talent deserves a full symphonic stage. So that’s what we’re doing. I don’t know if we’ve decided if The Last 7 Days of OBSIDIENNE OBSURD (premiering this December) is technically an opera or a concert or just some weird ass multidisciplinary performance art piece but I do know we’re renting out the largest theater we can afford for it.
I first met Evian at the 2019 Oaklash Festival – she wasn’t booked to perform but she showed up dressed as the devil and she looked better than everyone else there. That’s the kind of energy I’m always looking for in a drag child – someone who is hungry for opportunities and is already clearly very talented so I don’t have to try to pretend like I know how to glue brows down. I’m not that kind of drag mother. I’m the kind of drag mother who makes your dreams come true. When I adopted Evian as my drag child, she was already a better makeup artist than me, a better costume designer than most people, and she had years of experience doing set design for theatrical productions. So naturally, I put her to work.
Evian can make anything – from 15 foot foam core demon leather daddies to life sized origami disco horses, but I’m excited to see what she does when she has full creative reign over her own project. Over the next two years, we’ll be working together on developing a public art installation that we’re calling All The World’s A Fair which is very much still in the design phase but you’ll be able to check out some of her prototypes on the stages at our festival this year.
As you might be able to tell, I still have some contracts to negotiate before we can announce official premier dates for any of these programs. But we’re working on it! So instead of a “Save the Date”, consider this a warning: We’re leveling up 🤩