Before we get started with the blog post I would like to provide some context as to why it’s so late and to inform you of where I (and Lizard) are at.
We have been trying to find a house to live in together, along with my partner for at least a month now. Every single house we have applied for, we have been rejected from, and we’re very quickly running out of time. Me and my partner will be moving out of our flat and into Lizard’s current home temporarily while we continue searching. The search has been demoralising and anxiety inducing and all of us are very, very stressed.
Landlords are bastards who discriminate against people on benefits, people who don’t fit their idea of an ‘ideal tenant’, even if they can afford to live in the place, people in part-time or insecure employment. Fuck landlords. Housing is a public health issue. Fuck landlords.
Thank you.
-----
A balmy Saturday evening. The air is heavy and warm and full of potential. I am very sleep deprived. I got up at 4:45 am to work an eight hour morning shift so that I could be here, in this empty lot in front of an open warehouse door at Islington Mill. There are Visible Queers milling about chatting, wearing masks. I'm definitely in the right place. Some of them I recognise, from previous cabarets, from a pre-pandemic time (a what?). I zigzag through the tables inside, past the stage, through a door, to the backstage area. To get ready. For the queer cabaret. The queer cabaret that is in person. All of us are really here, in this space, together. What the fuck.
Cases are up 200% on last week in Salford.
As soon as I step into the back there are more people I recognise. One that I worked a single nightclub shift with where I was dressed as a giant baby just days before we went into lockdown. Someone else that I knew from a small trans trampolining club a few years ago. Someone from uni. There are new people too. New, exciting people, whose art I will enjoy and whose names I will immediately forget.
Made-up in falsies and my big big shoes, I sit at a designated ~~artist table at the very edge of the room to watch the first half (we are the last act before the interval). The first two acts are a couple of very nervous and beautiful poets. They share with us their darkest thoughts dressed in tentative prose, before twisting and turning and weaving their bodies on the cramped stage. Guided by the music, they move, baring everything. God I have missed this so much. Where else can I see work this raw, unrefined, erotic, passionate, tender? Words can't do justice to the fullness of my heart seeing these people take to the stage, clearly terrified, but giving it their all anyway.
But I did a lateral flow before I came, negative.
Mandla takes to the stage (when Mandla stepped into the back we both screamed hello at each other, how long had it been since we were both working at HOME?). Mandla introduces the work as something a little bit different, and gently asks us to trust. To close our eyes. And follow along. Mandla is an easy storyteller to trust and the images conjured in my brain are deep and vibrant. Being given this space to sit with the words, to absorb them, float in them, it's space that I struggle to find sat on my sofa watching a screen. It’s restorative.
From there the energy keeps rising, nerves bubbling in my stomach as our slot draws closer. Poetry and dancing and swirling lights and now, us. It's a big responsibility to close out the first half. It informs how the audience feel as they enter the interval, if they're chatty and excited or pensive and quiet. Laurie introduces us generously and as the applause reaches the roof of the warehouse I step tentatively out the door and give the thumbs up. Quietly at first, getting louder, the opening notes of Two Trucks by Lemon Demon starts to play. As I reach the stage the lyrics come in. The song is a commentary about American patriotisim and masculinity and nationalism etc, carried by the rhetorical device of two trucks having sex. I do my little dance, thrusting my truck nuts at audience members and flexing as hard as I can. Then the horn cuts in, stopping me in my tracks. Where is that noise coming from? Can you hear it too? Oh no. I know what's going on here. As Lizard enters in their resplendent yellow vengabus outfit the audience cheers. Everyone LOVES the Vengabus.
They prance on, stealing the limelight from me (rude). But no-one can resist the charms of the Vengabus for long, and so I join in. Our dance is campy and simple and silly and fun, with moves ripped right out the music video. The space is so much wider than I had anticipated, so I try to make sure everyone gets a little love from us.
Sharply, the music changes. Time for things to get serious. It's Vroom Vroom and we're having a race, taking tiny rapid steps to make up the illusion of speed. At some point my box has fallen apart a bit, and is mostly being held on by the straps. It's okay though, in this space you can be barely keeping it together and still have the entire audience there with you, cheering you on. As Lizard and I collide and fall to our fiery deaths I feel cleansed, reborn.
Then, it's time for the interval.
Did everyone else do their tests?
What a wonderful feeling, stood outside in the balmy air, talking to other performers. The last time we could do this was so long ago, and frankly even now it feels fragile, vigorous testing and mask wearing and hand washing. No hugging, just frantic waving. We head back inside and I make the ill advised decision to spend nearly £4 of my very limited disposable income on a warm can of cider. I can't reiterate how much I've missed this.
The second half is opened by a folk story about ravens and love and the fall of England. I love folk stories, especially ones with music and song, and ESPECIALLY gay ones. The narrator is dressed in an outfit of shimmering black feathers. I can’t really see them, but I can see the projections on the wall behind them, patterns repeating and changing and twisting. I am captivated, and I feel a soaring in my heart as the ravens enact their revenge, and England falls. If only.
The Delta variant is more contagious.
Laurie's partner glides deliberately into the room, their wide brimmed hat glowing around the rim. As they reach the stage they remove the brim of the hat, it's a hula hoop. I don't remember what the song was, the details are incredibly fuzzy, but as they move, spinning the ring around themself I feel full to bursting with hope and love in every cell of my body. I love every single person in this room, I love that we are sharing this moment with each other. It has been so long of pretending that digital live stream cabaret is good enough, vital enough, that it scratches that itch in me. Here I can see you sweat and stumble and I can feel you here with me and it's so overwhelming I can hardly stand it but what a privilege it is to be overwhelmed by lights and sound and bodies.
Is this safe?
The penultimate performance is the BEST, and I mean, the BEST live voguing I have ever seen. I am enamoured. I am envious. I want this person to teach me. They stride around the room, arms twisting and turning, giving a taste to every single table. As they come round to our side they do a handstand split against the wall and twerk and when I tell you I SCREAMED! I mean it. It was so sexy and incredible I only wish I remembered more of the specifics.
Is this responsible?
Laurie finishes us off with a messy little lipsync number, nip slips galore in her forest nymph gown (we love it). When was the last time I saw this many tits live? I love queer cabaret spaces partially for how naturalised nudity is, how erotic the work can be without the entitlement and toxicity of spaces that cater to cisheteronormativity. These spaces are messy, unrefined, sexual, chaste, debauched, VITAL.
Laurie waves her trans flag in the air and I could cry with joy.
-