Guest Curators: Maria Bauman (November 8), Zavé Martohardjono (November 15) and Zachary Frater (November 22)
BAX/Brooklyn Arts Exchange
421 Fifth Avenue, Brooklyn
8pm
Tickets Available HERE ($16 General / $10 Low Income)
As Audre Lorde said “…for it is not difference which immobilizes us, but silence. And there are so many silences to be broken.” The exciting artists that are part of the November SUBMERGE performances are breaking silences with their work, indeed. On November 8, Ashley Phillips, Ganessa James, and Monica McIntyre lift their voices as artists, as healers, as Black women, as queer people piercing through silence with clarity and panache. This show brings the storytelling of the three songwriters in a round robin, offering spontaneous collaboration and a way to weave three very distinct voices together with the common thread of love, spirituality and community.
In the second of a three-night SUBMERGE @ BAX series, curating artist Zavé Martohardjonopresents ReduX, a night of mixed media performance bringing together three multidisciplinary artists Mieke D, DJ Tikka Masala, and Alicia Ohs. Participating artists’ works are informed by in-studio artist-to-artist conversation and collaboration hosted by Brooklyn Arts Exchange. ReduX takes thematic interest in contemporary re-imaginations and subversions of “the traditional” through performance. As curator, Martohardjono invited artists in this program whose work blurs boundaries, subverts expectations, and crosses disciplines. ReduX specifically attempts to widen space for queer artists from the Asian diaspora within the artists of color space the SUBMERGE @ BAX series provides. All the while, ReduX offers a platform to its three artists to disrupt assumptions, speak back to formal practices or inherited ancestries/legacies, and remix their cultural influences.
The Inaugural Miss Krayola Pageant gathers together four figures who have little to no experience in the drag arts, but who have long awaited to legitimately, in the words of Marlon Riggs, “unleash the Queen.” Trust—each of these young monarchs has dreamt vividly and incessantly of adoration. In the weeks leading up to the pageant. Their raw talent and creativity will be coached, contoured, and cuntified by some of today’s burgeoning drag legends. Enter our judges & drag mentors: Misses Detoxx Bústi-ae, Leo Gugu, and the illustrious Sparklez. At Miss Krayola, our contestants will endure three rounds of judging: a classic Runway category, a rousing Q&A session from our judges and hosts, and an original Performance of their own design. Hosting the evening are two dissimilar Queens, both with various degrees of notoriety. One is our reigning Mr(s). Williamsburg, Bushwick’s very own Aja. The other, her crime-fighting cohort (and baby drag herself), Miss Banjela Davis. Somewhere in Park Slope, four promising talents will share a stage to compete for our love/their glory. Come and witness the ingenuity, grace, and unbridled zeal of these Queens as they transcend the material constraints of maleness to bring us something divinely feminine. Soon wigs will fly and we will see who really deserves to be called the cuntiest crayon in the box! Arise, Miss Krayola!!!
The Helix Queer Performance Network is a collaboration between La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club, BAX/Brooklyn Arts Exchange and the Hemispheric Institute of Performance and Politics.