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Bushwig 2021 – Day 2 (NSFW)

Post author By sidewalkkilla
Post date October 26, 2021

BUSHWIG DAY 2

(NSFW)

09-12-21

KNOCKDOWN CENTER, QUEENS

Looks and performances from the first day of Bushwig featuring Casey Spooner, Dahlia Sin, Evah Destruction, Jasmine Kennedie, Kevin Aviance, La Zavaleta, Maddelynn Hatter, Miss Malice, Neon Calypso, Rify Royalty, The Dragon Sisters, and much more.

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Alexey Kim

Founder

For image use or to request to see the full album of the event e-mail

[email protected]

If you enjoy our work, please consider donating:

EVENTS

Wigwood 2020: Portraits

She’s A Riot VII

Tags alexey-kim_, amanda lepore, azealia banks, baby love, beaujangless, bones jones, boulet brothers, bushwig, casey spooner, ceyenne doroshow, charlene incarnate, chevy lace, chiquitita, christeeene, coriander spice, dahlia sin, Dirty Martini, elle no.5, emi grate, evah destruction, ginger von snap, glow job, heidi n closet, honey davenport, horrorchata, J'Royce Jata, janelle no. 5, jasmine kennedie, jay kay, jette grey, joey arias, k james, kevin aviance, knockdown center, La Zavaleta, lady shug, Lola Von Rox, louisianna purchase, luxx noir london, maddelynn hatter, magenta, marcy richardson, marti g cummings, martyr, megami, miss malice, mondo guerra, mthr trsa, Neon Calypso, new york city, nicky ottav, qween jean, remy black, rify royalty, robyn edges, rollingray, serena tea, simone moss, susanne bartsch, switch n’play, the dragon sisters, the illustrious blacks, The Royal House of LaBeija, tommy genesis, tyler ashley, Untitled Queen, west dakota

Events Festivals Timeline

Bushwig 2019 – Day 1 (NSFW)

Post author By sidewalkkilla
Post date September 14, 2021

BUSHWIG DAY 1

(NSFW)

09-11-21

KNOCKDOWN CENTER, QUEENS

Looks and performances from the first day of Bushwig featuring Azealia Banks, Boulet Brothers, Ceyenne Doroshow, Chiquitita, Heidi N Closet, Horrorchata, Louisianna Purchase, Mondo Guerra, Nicky Ottav, Qween Jean, RollingRay, The Royal House of LaBeija, Untitled Queen, West Dakota, and much more.

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Alexey Kim

Founder

For image use or to request to see the full album of the event e-mail

[email protected]

If you enjoy our work, please consider donating:

EVENTS

Wigwood 2020: Portraits

She’s A Riot VII

Tags alexey-kim_, amanda lepore, azealia banks, baby love, beaujangless, bones jones, boulet brothers, bushwig, casey spooner, ceyenne doroshow, charlene incarnate, chevy lace, chiquitita, christeeene, coriander spice, dahlia sin, Dirty Martini, elle no.5, emi grate, evah destruction, ginger von snap, glow job, heidi n closet, honey davenport, horrorchata, J'Royce Jata, janelle no. 5, jasmine kennedie, jay kay, jette grey, joey arias, k james, kevin aviance, knockdown center, La Zavaleta, lady shug, Lola Von Rox, louisianna purchase, luxx noir london, maddelynn hatter, magenta, marcy richardson, marti g cummings, martyr, megami, miss malice, mondo guerra, mthr trsa, Neon Calypso, new york city, nicky ottav, qween jean, remy black, rify royalty, robyn edges, rollingray, serena tea, simone moss, susanne bartsch, switch n’play, the dragon sisters, the illustrious blacks, The Royal House of LaBeija, tommy genesis, tyler ashley, Untitled Queen, west dakota

Timeline Videos

Junior Mintt: The Only Voices You Need to be Listening to are Black Trans Voices (VIDEO)

Post author By sidewalkkilla
Post date December 11, 2020

Brooklyn Liberation March

06-14-20

Around 15,000 people wearing all white showed up for the Brooklyn Liberation Action in support of Black Trans Lives. Brooklyn-based drag artist West Dakota drew inspiration from the 1917 Silent Protest Parade organized by the NAACP that was held in response to an attack on the black community in East St. Louis.

In the video below, drag preacher/activist Junior Mintt explains why we can’t be truly inclusive until we listen to what Black trans women have to say.

Fran Tirado, Eliel Cruz, Dix Peyton, Raquel Willis, and organizations like G.L.I.T.S., The Okra Project, For The Gworls, Black Trans Femmes in the Arts, the Marsha P. Johnson Institute, and the Emergency Release Fund joined the movement.

VIEW ARTICLE

Alexey Kim

Founder

For image use or to request to see the full album of the event e-mail

[email protected]

If you enjoy our work, plese consider donating:

Activisim EDITORIAL Events Timeline

15K People Show Up For Black Trans Lives At Brooklyn Liberation March

Post author By sidewalkkilla
Post date June 21, 2020

EVENTS | ACTIVISM

Brooklyn Liberation:

An Action For Black Trans Lives

Around 15K people wearing all white showed up to Brooklyn Liberation March for Black Trans Lives.

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On June 14, 2020, around 15,000 people wearing all white showed up for the Brooklyn Liberation Action in support of Black Trans Lives. Brooklyn-based drag artist West Dakota drew inspiration from the 1917 Silent Protest Parade organized by the NAACP that was held in response to an attack on the black community in East St. Louis. Fran Tirado, Eliel Cruz, Dix Peyton, Raquel Willis, and organizations like G.L.I.T.S., The Okra Project, For The Gworls, Black Trans Femmes in the Arts, the Marsha P. Johnson Institute, and the Emergency Release Fund joined the movement.

Raquel Willis, Junior Mintt and West Dakota

Ceyenne Doroshow

The rally’s hosts Junior Mintt and Joshua Obawole asked Black trans people to move up to the very front of the crowd. Heartfelt speeches by Ianne Fields Stewart, Ceyenne Doroshow, Raquel Willis, and the family of Layleen Polanco followed next. Doroshov, an author, activist, and the founder of G.L.I.T.S. (Gays and Lesbians Living in a Transgender Society) has been housing 5 Black trans people recently released from Rikers Island. During her passionate speech on top of the Brooklyn Museum, Doroshov broke down in tears, sharing that almost $1 million has been raised in order for her organization to be able to buy two buildings in NYC to house Black trans people:

“We have always been last, that’s not gonna happen anymore. We’re first… We have never had equity in the city of New York. Motherfuckers, we do now.”

By the time the Brooklyn Liberation March of over 15K people has reached its final destination at Fort Greene Park, Doroshov announced that someone had just contributed $9,000, pushing the donations to the $1 million goal. But the fundraiser doesn’t stop there.

“Ceyenne has BIG plans, if we can keep the momentum going we’ll be able to impact the landscape of sustainable housing for Black trans people for decades to come,”

states G.L.I.T.S.’ e-mail campaign. If you would like to donate, head over to the G.L.I.T.S. donation page.

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EDITORIAL Timeline

The New Normal, Or How Creatives Stay Creative

Post author By sidewalkkilla
Post date March 30, 2020

EDITORIAL

The New Normal,

or How Creatives Stay Creative

Coronavirus kills, but life streams.

03-30-22

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According to a March 24 article in The Guardian, around 20% of the world’s population is currently under some form of a lockdown due to COVID-19, or coronavirus. With the disease quickly spreading and affecting the entire world, as of March 25, 2020, around 2.6 billion people (about one-third of the world’s population) are under government-mandated lockdowns and quarantines, with half of those people being in India, according to data provided by Statista. Some countries are implementing stricter lockdown laws than others: Jordan’s residents are not allowed to take walks or even grocery shop – anyone caught outside could face a jail term of up to one year; while in Italy, which quickly became the epicenter of the pandemic after China and currently has the highest death toll from the virus, people are still allowed outside for a limited time and only when necessary; Puerto Rico, one of the unincorporated US territories, implemented a mandatory curfew until April 12, from 9 PM–5 AM – certain professionals are excluded from the curfew, and others can only leave their home during that time for emergency purposes only; anyone who breaks the curfew and doesn’t meet the mandated criteria will face a fine of $5,000.

While the US was ranked #1 in Global Pandemic Preparedness, according to a pre-COVID-19 report, the 2019 Global Health Security Index, the Trump administration’s dismantling of the team in charge of pandemic responses in early 2018, and downplaying the coronavirus threat from the very beginning, didn’t do us any favors. WHO’s morbid prediction on March 24 about the United States possibly becoming the next coronavirus hot spot has now in a matter of days become the reality – as of today (March 31), the number of COVID-19 infections in the United States has surpassed China and Italy, with over 171,684 confirmed cases (live numbers here) and counting, with the death toll quickly approaching ,4000.

With over 172 million people currently under an at least partly enforced lockdown within the US, and with the virus that is well on its way to 1 million officially confirmed infections all over the world, Trump’s initial plan to get back to usual business by Easter was very ambitious, if not laughable. On Sunday, March 29, Trump announced extension of federal guidance on social distancing through April, with the peak death toll still two weeks away. In their turn, infectious-disease researchers recommend that the public continue to practice social distancing until some genius invents a vaccine, which could take 18 months.

A large number of people who have been laid off or simply not allowed to go to work due to closures of all non-essential businesses have found themselves wondering how the fuck they can afford to live another day. The recently approved unprecedented $2 trillion relief package aimed to help affected individuals with a one-time payment of $1,200 at most (based on a sliding scale) will also be used to expand unemployment benefits and help small businesses stay afloat. Even though the stimulus package can greatly help a certain chunk of the population (good luck getting through the unemployment call center), many freelancers and artists who depend on odd jobs are left in the dark about their own future. For many creatives, $1,200 can only go so far (forget about seeing this money if you are an immigrant without a social security number); with many businesses closed indefinitely and with the US stock market almost failing every other day, there is no telling when freelancers will get any commissioned jobs even when we are past the days of quarantine.

But leave it up to the artistic community to make the best out of a shitty situation, keep themselves busy and, hopefully, paid. Livestreamed shows have become as ubiquitous as the absence of toilet paper in supermarkets. These days it’s impossible to turn on your Instagram and not see at least half a dozen livestreams happening at the same moment. After only a matter of a few days into quarantine, people figured out that they could use the very available livestreaming services that a myriad of platforms offer for free to share their art with digital fans and, in some cases, earn a coin.

Amongst the first few live shows that we were able to catch were Charlene Incarnate and Tyler Ashley’s Baby Tea Brunch that was livestreamed from a rooftop in Brooklyn instead of from its usual site, lesbian-owned farm-to-table Superfine restaurant; Miami’s Counter Corner party that was hosted by the Ultimate Miami Drag Queen 2019 Karla Croqueta from the comfort of her home; and The Rosemont’s Oops! that was livestreamed right from the living rooms of the party’s creators, Juku and West Dakota.

Just before Juku’s and West Dakota’s first number, the pair expressed how this was already their biggest Oops! showing, with around 300 people tuning in to what the girls had in store for the night. The girls, known for their sharp wit and out-of-the-box creative performances, kept the viewers captivated, and the performance garnered a write-up in Vice magazine.

Biqtch Puddiń, the winner of Dragula Season 2, came up with the very first Digital Drag show, livestreamed on Twitch, the world’s leading platform for gamers. During the streaming of the show’s first installment, at some point during the night the viewership went up as high as 10,000 people watching the stream at the same time. During the broadcast Biqtch Puddiń confessed that she didn’t expect her Digital Drag show to gain such momentum on social media.

During these digital drag shows, a performer’s preferred payment information is displayed and the viewers are free to tip if they wish to support. It seems that for many drag performers, this has become their livelihood now that no more bar and club appearances are being booked. Biqtch Puddiń stated that the reason she wanted to do the Digital Drag show was to help out performers in trouble. All of the tips donated to the general account were promised to be distributed evenly between the performers, but everyone was encouraged to tip their favorites personally as well.

Within the first week of the closure of all non-essential businesses, Sidewalkkilla started a fundraiser on its Instagram page, inspired by queer writer and speaker Fran Tirado’s tweet. After receiving a few donations, we decided to split the total donated amount into $50 payments to people who have provided their payment info in the comments under our Instagram post. To our surprise, one of the randomly chosen benefactors, Laurel Charleston, passed up the donation in favor of another trans performer. She expressed that she received a good amount of donations from performing on Biqtch Puddiń’s first airing of the Digital Drag show, which helped her get out of a “fucked” situation. In turn, Laurel was inspired to give back to the community herself and is hosting her own first livestream drag brunch show on Sunday, March 29.

MTHR TRSA’s Hole Pics made its digital debut on Saturday, March 21, with an almost half-hour long opening performance that involved a lot of weed, drama, and clever camera work.

“What happens when we get back to actual clubs, like it’s gonna be live, but not on our phones, it’s gonna be so weird,”

MTHR TRSA, also known as New York-based artist Dylan Thomas, exclaimed at the end of the 2-hour livestream.

Not all creatives use livestreaming for drag shows. There are makeup tutorials, gossip, DJing, games, Q&As, yoga, workouts, and meditation – you name it, you will find it.

One of NYC’s drag staples CT Hedden started a live show called Makeup Hour, inviting all the high-profile people he knows for a quick beat and tea-spilling. His guests so far have been supermodel Winnie Harlow, actress-turned-activist Rose McGowan, American Ballet Theater prima ballerina Misty Copeland, and an indie pop star Allie X.

CT Hedden with Rose McGowan during Makeup Hour

“I think it’s gonna last a lot longer than people think,”

said Rose McGowan during her Makeup Hour with CT.

At the time of the stream Rose was quarantined at her friend’s place in Atlanta, saying that she would be leaving soon to wait out the pandemic in Mexico.

“A couple of days ago DOJ was seeking to suspend constitutional rights. I’m not staying in this country during a military coup,”

Rose went on,

“this is like a cultural reset, a lot more people will understand what refugees go through.”

Miley Cyrus during Bright Minded IG show with Alicia Keys

MTHR TRSA drowning in weed during

Hole Pics

Juku as a top and West Dakota as a bottom during Oops!

Just a couple of days before LA ordered the closure of all non-essential businesses and mandated social distancing by the public, Miley Cyrus started a talk show named Bright Minded with the help of her own Instagram account. From Monday to Friday, Miley hosts special (all of them obviously famous) guests to talk about “staying LIT in dark times.”

In the latest episode, Miley had a question for her special guest Alicia Keys:

“How do we come out of this? We don’t want to come back to the pre-COVID-19 world, we want to go back to a better world, one that’s more connected, one that’s more compassionate. Right now everyone is stopping everything that they got going on just to protect the vulnerable and we don’t always do that, that’s not a part of our everyday routine. So we actually might be becoming better people through the virus. Or actually even saying, ‘Hey what we got going on in our life isn’t actually worth jeopardizing someone else’s health’ and we don’t always do that – we drive in big cars and pollute the environment. . . What positive effect would you like to come out of this experience and what world do you wanna step back into?”

This was a deep question, throwing Alicia off for a minute, but undoubtedly making everyone watching contemplate on it as well.

In the current climate it seems that everything is pointing towards people spending more time inside their homes in the near future, whether because Netflix just dropped all 10 seasons of your favorite show, you are afraid of being blown up to bits at a crowded place, or simply because you are living in the current reality of World War III with the invisible and, at least for now, invincible enemy that is COVID-19.

Without a lie, this stay-at-home directive was sort of fun in the beginning, it was almost like someone let you play hookie and relieved you of all adult responsibilities, well, like going to work for example. Queef Latina, the creator and director of South Florida’s biggest queer performance festival Wigwood, expressed that she was happy to sleep and relax.

When we suggested that maybe, nowhere to spend = no need to earn, she retorted,

“Very true, except we still need to eat.”

Damn, forgot about that one…

Paris-based fashion photographer Michele Yong shared,

“I stay in so often that there is not much difference to me. We need a document to go outside just in case of police checks, but I haven’t been checked yet, because I mostly go out to walk my dog. It’s nowhere as strict as China. People are still allowed to be outside an hour a day or exercise.”

Even if we do turn into couch potatoes in the near future and have robots serving us freshly baked pizza out of their ass, most people are eager to be freed from this lockdown, if not for the love of socializing, then at least for the sake of earning money to pay the rent and buy canned tuna for their cat.

Nightlife photographer Mark Minton losing it, after moving to Tennessee and narrowly escaping the virus in NYC.

One of the questions that begs the answer is, will the livestream shows continue its momentum after the coronavirus is a thing of the past?

Dynasty, an eclectic Asian drag queen and writer for The Cut and New York Magazine, doesn’t think so:

“I don’t think streaming will continue after quarantine because they’ve sprung up out of necessity. Drag relies so much on a live audience and being with the community in real life. So I think everyone will be super excited to get back into real-life shows and being able to experience that together again.”

Dynasty’s close friend that shared the stage with her many a time, West Dakota, seems to be in the middle,

“I think that quarantine is forcing us to explore how we are connecting with our audiences and is going to open up new avenues for us to do so. Our weekly show that we’ve taken digital since the quarantine is reaching a lot more people than our physical space can accommodate. That being said I think that sharing space, intimacy, and touch are all irreplaceable parts of performing. I don’t think things will ever return to ‘normal’ but we’ll have new understandings of what it means to connect.”

“Having an audience is always nice to feed off the energy of the room. I think after quarantine the girls, myself included, will definitely consider more online shows, but I will be so excited to be back in a bar,”

says MTHR TRSA.

Even though most people are adapting to “the new normal” or the current reality, some performers seem to have a hard time imagining digital communication as humanity’s future fate.

Brooklyn-based trans self-appointed “post-drag priestess” Charlene Incarnate shared in one of her Facebook posts, just after Baby Tea’s rooftop livestream performance,

“I’m seeing the narrative being woven of the resilience and adaptability of drag queens to take their shows online, that video and streaming is ‘the future’ etc. and that happy hour with your friends on Zoom isn’t so bad. BUT I have to say that it’s a completely untenable and unsustainable practice – for my art and for me personally. I can deal with change, I have my whole life. I can deal with stock markets crashing, an impending ‘next great depression,’ the end of the world as we know it – hell, I’ve been turning nothing into something for a decade. But a world without live gathering is truly, truly not one I care to be a part of.”

Whichever way this is headed, only time will tell, but for now it looks like we will have to assimilate into the new reality and stay in contact mostly through the digital medium. As nightlife photographer and Sidewalkkilla contributor Mark Minton, who moved to Tennessee right before the shit hit the fan, simply put it,

“I just want to work without killing my parents.”

Alexey Kim

Founder

For image use or to request to see the full album of the event e-mail

[email protected]

If you enjoy our work, please consider donating:

Events Festivals The Mixer Timeline

My First Time At Bushwig

Post author By Mark Minton
Post date October 6, 2019

THE MIXER | EVENTS

09-07-19

My First Time At Bushwig Festival

You are definitely in for a treat if this is your first time attending Buswhig. Read about Mark Minton’s experience.

The first time I even heard of Bushwig was just before it started last year. I had just moved to New York less than a month prior and was paying rent to sleep on a couch in a one-bedroom in the South Bronx. Trekking to Brooklyn usually took me longer than an hour, and at the time I was so rattled by the impulsive decision to quit my job in Kansas and move to NYC with minimal savings and no income that I decided to stay home and cry instead of going to what is arguably the best drag fest in New York City.

I now live a 30-minute walk and a seven-minute Uber ride from Knockdown Center, the event space that hosts Bushwig. So this year staying home really wasn’t an option. I had already secured a press pass after accosting Horrorchata at the Bushwig On Top takeover a few days prior at Le Bain, and I was ready to attend a festival dedicated entirely to the art of drag for the first time in my life.

Molestia Child

The weird thing about Bushwig is that it starts early in the afternoon at around 1 p.m. So when I got out of my Uber five hours later at the corner of Flushing and 55th St., wearing Puma sneakers, a short golden dress I got at a thrift store down the street for eight bucks, no makeup, and the signature patent leather tufted beret I rescued from a stock room at Bloomingdale’s in Soho, I felt strange. There was a draft between my legs. The evening light had not yet waned. Shadowy drivers catcalled as they passed me in their cars. Pedestrians whistled at me from across Flushing Ave. I didn’t want to wear pants to a drag fest, so I wore a dress, but to me that was the bare minimum. I thought I would get out of my Uber, disappear into a swarm of drag queens and kings and in-betweens, and reemerge into the comfort of a moonlit darkness where social norms seem to disappear, or at least sleep.

It took a moment before I even saw Knockdown Center. I started walking the wrong way, and then I turned around. As people waved and whistled I smiled bashfully and wrapped my arms around my waist to hug myself in reassurance as I crossed the street. The smile said, “I’m in on the joke,” but the body language said, “Holy fuck why does this shit start at 1 p.m.?” But just as soon as I was lost, I found myself in that magical crowd of people in full face and look in the day’s last, gloaming light — wigs down to the ankles, lips overdrawn to the cheek, pads and bodysuits and choruses of “Hey sis!” I had found safety, but now the embarrassment was less that I stood out too much and more that I didn’t measure up to the legions of drag artists who had all shown up with something to show.

Charity Kase

Bimini

Georgia Tasda

After I feverishly gulped down a pair of diminutive $15 tequila sunrises, I lingered by the stage and watched from the back of the crowd as the “London Takeover” segment of the festival got underway. The first artist I watched was Georgia Tasda, who walked the stage with a giant white flag graffiti’d “Fuck Brexit.” My favorite picture of the performance only got the “Fuck” part of the message. The silhouette of the crowd obscured the rest. But “Fuck” to me said it all perfectly enough. “Fuck.” It felt right. Other queens in the act such as Bimini and Charity Kase gave some of my favorite performances of the night and got me thinking about a trip to the UK (feel free to book me for any big upcoming events, London ladies). It was a reminder that drag is like a universal language, bringing people together from all over the planet.

Most of what I do is photograph parties and, more specifically, the attendees of parties. The performances at Bushwig were nonstop, back to back, and after standing stageside for what must have been at least two hours, I felt sated by some of the amazing numbers by artists such as Blake Deadly, God Complex, Violencia Exclamation Point, and Tammie Brown.

Violencia Exclamation Point

I decided it was time to get some food, so I followed some friends to the food trucks in the outdoor commons. The lines were long, the turnaround times were long, and I’d been drinking for about 30 hours straight and had neglected to feed myself. So I left Knockdown with Willie Page and found a cluster of bodegas a few blocks away. On the way we passed a big white clown face built into a white wooden wall. Bushwig felt like it extended beyond Knockdown Center. It somehow seemed like all of Brooklyn, maybe even all of New York City, was eclipsed by the happening of Bushwig. Cashiers asked if there was a party going on. Somehow it was a hard question to answer.

When we got back, I milled through the crowd and found a few friends. Luka Ghost wore his quintessential white Deer Goddess regalia and crouched in a creepy nook I couldn’t divine the purpose of. Basit Shittu and Kylie Smith from the first fully queer season eight cast of Are You The One? just so happened to be wearing neon-green spaghetti-strapped garments that perfectly matched a neon-green spaghetti strap dress that West Dakota wore. They posed for a photo together and talked like old friends, but I think it was truly a coincidence that they were all wearing neon-green outfits with green spaghetti straps. It might have been planned though. I might have been drunk(er) by then.

Candy Sterling looked hot. Her dancers looked hot. They all posed against a wall with their asses out. It was hot. Serena Tea was dressed like cocktail fish and I snapped a photo of her on the metal stairs of a storage (barn?) unit. She didn’t know and I didn’t know and nobody else knew (I don’t think) that the next night she would be crowned Miss Bushwig 2019. I didn’t know anyone was going to be crowned Miss Bushwig, though. I’m learning more every day.

Luka Ghost

Kylie Smith, Basit Shittu & West Dakota

Candy Sterling and dancers

J Rosa

MTHR TRSA

Overall, the first night of Bushwig was a night I’ll never forget. As I left, MTHR TRSA (pronounced “Mother Theresa”) was lying in the parking lot eating pretzels with her mouth full, the sharp signature contour of her cheeks dancing to the motions of her insatiable masticating maw. We left Knockdown and J Rosa posed next to corrugated sheet metal and a graffiti’d rape van in a long-sleeved black Calvin Klein shirt and a clown beat. All the way home, Bushwig kept going and going.

I didn’t make it to the final night of Bushwig because I foolishly decided to stay in Manhattan, and I also didn’t know a Miss Bushwig 2019 crowning was a thing, but throughout the weekend I was amazed by the talent and bravery I witnessed both online and in person at that festival. It was such an amazing space for so many drag artists to come together and show how wide-ranging, diverse, and intrepid the art of drag really is. Let’s just say it’s the actual NYC DragCon.

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THE MIXER

Mark Minton

Journalist

For image use or to request to see the full album of the event e-mail

[email protected]

Events Festivals The Mixer Timeline

Bushwig: The Future Of Drag And Queer Expression

Post author By sidewalkkilla
Post date September 14, 2019

THE MIXER | EVENTS

Bushwig: The Future Of Drag And Queer Expression

Bushwig 2019 just happened this past weekend! So bizarre to think of this being my fourth time at the festival. It goes without saying, that this weekend was just as amazing as the years prior. I’ll always have a soft spot for this festival, since Bushwig 2016 was my first ever queer NYC experience. I’ve met so many of my Brooklyn friends and family that year…

The festival rattled me to my core and had me contemplating life, love, and everything in between. I had been playing around with drag and design for a couple of months at that point, but seeing so many queers in one space is some inexplicable shit. We can only try to put the experience into words, but at the end of the day, a person needs to see it, hear it, and feel it for themselves.

This was the first year that I was able to go both days to the Festival, which I would fully recommend. I had two days and plenty of time to connect with friends and capture the bountiful creativity around me. Bushwig had an interesting dynamic this year because it was on the same weekend as DragCon. Which epic drag event does one go to?!

For me the choice was obvious, but of course for our talented queer friends the choice might not have been as effortless. I sympathized with those who decided to go to both events, because that must have been exhausting. There were many creatives roaming the Knockdown Center. I couldn’t help but wonder what the outcome would have been if the events didn’t conflict. Would the Knockdown Center be even more occupied? A part of me wishes they were on different weekends, as I always have a sense of FOMO. It would have been cool to check out DragCon this year, but there was nothing that could keep me away from the nostalgic and magical feelings that Bushwig stirs.

Regardless of the conflict in events, the freedom to be your unique self was quite palpable and unwavering at the Knockdown Center. Not only did that uninhibited energy come forth in everyone’s personal presentation, but especially in the thriving and captivating performances. The one thing stronger than everyone’s individuality is the strong sense of community. Moments that especially reminded me how beautiful the BK family is, was watching artistic icons like Charlene and Juku crown the current reigning Mx. Bushwig Serena Tea. I’m thankful to have witnessed this moment. Not only because it was entertaining as fuck, but because its history in the making!

Bushwig is growing, and to be a part of its timeline and family tree is exciting and memorable. This festival exhibits the future of drag and queer expression, while also withholding the authenticity and importance of our community’s history. Sometimes it is hard for us to celebrate when we remember our community’s ongoing struggle. I am reminded on weekends like this, that family and friendship is the best fuel to move you forward. We are far from finished but we will not move forward alone. Thank you, Horrorchata, for creating such an important weekend for many of us.

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Bushwig Mike Sullivan - Sidewalkkilla.com

THE MIXER

Tags bushwig, charlene incarnate, chiquitita, horrorchata, mike sullivan, mike-sullivan_, new york city, serena tea, west dakota

Nightlife Timeline

Met Gayla – Camp: Notes on Fashion

Post author By sidewalkkilla
Post date May 6, 2019

MET GAYLA

CAMP: NOTES ON FASHION

05-06-19

Hosted by Chiquitita, with Baby Love, MTHR TRSA, Rify Royalty, West Dakota, Vigor Mortis

Lemon Chiffon, Zenobia and more.

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