ARIKA Ep 6: Make A Way Out Of No Way

Arika returns to Glasgow at the end of the month, and this time they're bringing over MIKEQ for an exclusive 4 hour set! Also on the bil are dancers Pony Zion, Kia LaBeija and Miss Priss. THis is going to GO OFF!!   

Black, queer and trans bodies tell stories.  Often they are multilingual – talking to numerous cultures, telling many stories simultaneously.  Portraying a sense of ‘realness’, appearing to conform to a set of socially prescribed norms so that you can walk down the street safely, is a form of self-defence. But at the same time, realness and passing call those norms into question – they expose race, sex and gender as politically invented fictions that all of our bodies are asked to perform. ‘Realness’ recognises the need to make a way in a culture defined by these fictions - it insists that bodies in all their differentiation exist prior to these norms, no matter how violently they’re imposed. And in doing so, ‘realness’ works to explode the sheer possibility of any norm-based normality.

The Icon Ayana Christian was the Overall Mother of the House of Khan in the Ballroom community, and is an Icon for walking Femme Queen Face. From the same community, Legendary Co-Founder Michael Robertson Garçon is the father of the House of Garçon, a public health practitioner, advocate, activist and leader within the LGBTQ community.  He created The Federation of Ballroom Houses, co-created the USA's only Black Gay research Group, The National Black Gay Men's Advocacy Group, and the Nationally Diffused CDC Behavioral Change HIV Prevention Intervention Many Men, Many Voices. Reina Gossett is Activist-In-Residence at Barnard College’s Center for Research on Women, and Membership Director at the Sylvia Rivera Law Project. Charlene Sinclair is the Director of Centre for Race, Religion and Economic Democracy at Union Theological Seminary and co-organiser of the Cell Blocks and Border Stops conference. Fred is one of the great poets, educators and theorists of blackness and fugitivity.

Reina and Charlene will be taking part in the From Subjection to Subjection event on Sun 28. Fred Moten will be in conversation with Saidiya Hartman on Sat 27 in the Fugitivity and Waywardness event and will close the Episode with Storyboard P in Mutual Instruments on Sun 28.
- See more at: http://arika.org.uk/events/episode-6-make-way-out-no-way/programme/realness#sthash.UGwJRXHI.dpuf

MORE INFO HERE.

BERLIN VOGUING OUT

KILLER line up for House Of Melody's Berlin Voguing Out this year!! I need to get to this next year - maybe even sneak my way onto the bill? ;)

SASS Pics

AWESOME Party! Thanks to House Of Anita for asking me to dj, let's do this agian and soon!

SASS @ Kraak Gallery, Mcr, Sep 12th

I'm delighted to have been asked to play for FIVE fucking hours at the House Of Anita's new drag party SASS - YAS this is going to go OFF!! Expect lots of dirty hip-hop & filthy R'n'B, the sort of stuff you don't normally hear me play. Love the PR too - see you there...

VJUAN ALLURE "Anaconda Bump" (Nicki Minaj remix)

Vjuan does it again!! Much superior to the original - which is good for the first 90 seconds, until it becomes incredibly annoying - Vjuan turns this into dancefloor dynamite. His upcoming EP for Knightwerk is going to be HUGE too! I have a copy but have been told not to share. Watch this space!!

PURPLE CRUSH ft RAJA & JOSH PEACE "Shock & Awe" (CVNT TRAXXX Remix)

Cheers to the peepes at Do Androids Dance? for sharing this exclusive - my remix of LA's Purple Crush (ft Drag Race winner Raja and Moustache Mondays resident DJ Josh Peace), on a more tribal tip. Other remixes come from Tittsworth, ShyBoy and Josh himself - you can pick them up on iTunes.

QWEEN BEAT mixtapes piece for FACT Mag

My latest ballroom piece for FACT Magazine is a look at 3 recent mixtpes put out by heavy hitters at MikeQ's Qween Beat label - namely Beek, Byrell The Great and Divoli S'Vere:

What Brick Bandits are to Jersey club and what Teklife is to footwork, Qween Beat is to ballroom.

That is, unquestionably the number one production and djing crew, who set the standard for the music and culture in a scene that’s currently booming in popularity.

Headed up by the formidable MikeQ, resident at New York’s weekly dance showdown Vogue Knights and recording artist for LA’s Fade To Mind, Qween Beat counts among their ranks a dozen different members, with skills ranging from the usual production and remixing, to DJing and MCing (in particular the uptempo, in-your-face styles known as “commentating” and “chanting”, unique to ballroom and distinct from other rap-based vocal forms).

This past summer, three of the main members of Qween Beat – Divoli S’Vere, Beek and Byrell The Great – have all released their latest mixtape installments, showcasing each producer’s individual style and their take on the ballroom sound. While the genre is very much rooted in ’90s house and current East coast American club styles – with recognisable signifiers like the Kenlou “HA”/krash and vocal snippets from the like of Kevin Aviance (“cun-ty”) and Loleatta Holloway (the instantly recognisable “woop” vocal from Armand Van Helden’s “Witchdoktor”) – there is much more to ballroom than just a specific set of samples married to a minimalist club/house aesthetic.

I spoke to Divoli, Beek and Byrell to get the low down on what makes a track “ballroom”, but also to find out how exactly these talented producers differ from each other, and what else the Qween Beat crew has in store for us in the future.

READ THE REST HERE. 

BEEK "TeleKuntx (CVNT TRAXXX Remix)"

OUT NOW on Knightwerk Records! Along with a bunch of other top drawer club artists, I got to remix one of my favourite upcomgin ballroom artists, the one and only Beek! This has got a bit of a UK spin to the usual ballroom/Jersey influence. You can check out the entire release, including remixes by SPF666, Poolboy92, CREEPSIDE, Doctor Jeep and a whole load more, right here.

MIKEQ @ Chow Down, Aug 9th

BIG UP to everyone who came to Chow Down for MikeQ - what a night! Great to see ballroom finally taking off in my home town, here's some ace pics taken by Mike himself:

And two more - taken from the balcony of our 14th floor flat in Salford, just outside Manchester city center, great to finally have a photographer who can capture our nighttime view!

MIKEQ @ House Of Trax

Now THAT'S a vibe! The house lights had gone up but the crowd kept dancing to MikeQ's set at House Of Trax, easily one of the best club nights in London right now:

VOGUE BRAWL t-shirt

YAS - there's only 2 of these in the whole world as yet - this one for me, and white on black for MikeQ. Thanks to Rudy at OH HELL for the design and the vinyl cutting/printing - who knows, we might make some more to sell...

CHOW DOWN w/ MIKEQ & CVNT TRAXXX Aug 9th, Soup Kitchen, Mcr

ARGH!! Playing with the Legend that is MIKEQ next week - the first time a true ballroom star has djed in our city. Pros to CHOW DOWN for bringing him up and booking me to support!

VOGUE TRAIN!

Via Huffington Post

Note: The above video contains language that may not be appropriate for work or other sensitive environments
We can't get enough of this.
In this awesome video from director and choreographer Kemar Jewel, the underground culture of voguing is literally taken underground.
"I made the video to show that anywhere can be a performance area," Jewel said in a statement to The Huffington Post. "I am a member of Philadelphia's Black Gay Ballroom Scene and I wanted to showcase all of its creativity and talent. Also, since voguing and the Ballroom Scene is an 'underground scene,' why not put it underground, literally! The video was filmed in a flash mob style to avoid getting arrested by the transit police. Sometimes you just have to take risks for your art."
Check out the awesome video above. Can't get enough voguing? Check out this classic vogue battle between Sailor Moon and Wonder Woman.
And for more from Jewel, follow him on Twitter.

#13min "CUNT" mix for #FEELINGS in FACT Mag

Re-=posted by the good people of FACT Magazine:

UK ballroom impresario Niall Connolly drops an importantly-NSFW mix.

Earlier this year, Connolly shared the untold story of the UK vogue scene (part one and two) and shared a sizzling mix of contemporary vogue under his CVNT TRAXXX alias. And while his moniker may be controversial, it nods to one of the most important word in the scene (as anyone who has listened to ballroom knows).

“I always knew that associating myself with the “c-bomb” would be controversial, maybe even a turn-off for some folk, so when #FEELINGS asked for a 13 minute mix a few years ago, I decided to put something together to show how “cunt” has been used positively,” Connolly tells us.

“It basically means hyper-feminine and also super-strong, and in the context of voguing and drag it is very positive. House, and in particular ballroom music, has been the main genre for using the word, and this mix covers both modern ballroom and also the older 90s track that first used the term, like Tronco Traxx and in particular the legendary Kevin Aviance.”

Stream the mix — which features modern producers like MikeQ and Divoli S’vere alongside vogue originals Kevin Aviance and Tronco Traxx — below. Catch CVNT TRAXXX with MikeQ this Saturday at Manchester’s Soup Kitchen.

HERCULES & LOVE AFFAIR "My Offence" (the meaning of "cunt")

The latest Hercules & Love Affair video features a lot os NY nightlife stars explaining the meaning of "cunt" as a positive term used in queer/trans world. Hats off! Now I can just send people to the vid when they ask me about my name :)

SUGUR SHANE Kill Da Bitch EP

My homie Shane has a new EP dropping on the label Main Course, featuring this (the title track) and the stone cold ballroom classic "Buddha V Shane" which features heavily in my dj sets already. The nice people at Main Course - you can check out the full release here - have put together this video for the lead track:

Pam Van Damned @ CHA CHA BOUDOIR

Me and other members of the Hosue Of Tranarchy helped our sis Pam Van Damnedwith this lip sync to Light Asylum at Cha Cha Boudoir:

CVNT TRAXXX @ House Of Trax, XOYO, July 11th 2014

Some nice footage of voguers Benjamin Milan and David Magnifique plus friends, during my set at House Of Trax at XOYO. I love the way this looks against the strobe, though I had to keep my finger on the button to keep it on constantly, while djing and filming at the same time!

Tracks: "Walk 4 Me" Tronco Traxxx / "Vouge Remix" MikeQ & Madonna

Dance Tunnel re-posts my DJ SPRINKLES interview

(Originally published on CVNTY, 2013)

By Niall Connolly

In May 2013 I travelled to Glasgow for the Arika 5: Hidden In Plain Sight festival, a celebration of the past, present and future of vogue and ballroom culture. Among those performing at the festival were Vjuan Allure, legendary dancer Pony Zion, and DJ Sprinkles, whose connection with voguing goes back to hir residency at famous New York trans*/drag bar Sally's 2 in the early '90s.

I conducted an in-depth interview with Sprinkles about vogue culture that touched on many other subjects like politics, activism and gender expression, as well as notions of “spirituality” found within house music, and Sprinkles' reaction to those ideas within hir own work as Terre Themlitz.

The following is an abridged version of the interview, which can be read in full (3 parts) by clicking here

You are primarily known as a "deep house" dj and producer, and yet so many elements of that culture have to do with "spirituality", and not even a religious spirituality. In the UK, I feel, house music culture and the drugs that surrounded it was in a way a kind of secular spiritual rebirth, though it didn't have a language to express that necessarily. I find it very interesting that you are directly oppositional to that. 

I am directly oppositional to that, but I also have no hope of crowds of people overcoming those spiritual subtexts.  But the promise of overcoming is not what is important, resistance is what is important.

But do you find that your position alienates you from certain parts of the house music genre? Are there songs you wouldn't play? 

Absolutely there are things that I won't play. But there are also things like that I will play, I just happen to like them in some way. And I will deal with them. Like "Inspiration" by Arnold Jarvis, a track that is politically antithetical to my own nihilism. But I love it! And the irony of a track like that in one of my sets is not lost on everyone. You have to allow for humour, and camp. And hypocrisy, and "the fake" and all these things that are also a part of drag culture and transgender culture... I guess for those reading this who don't know anything about me, we should mention I identify as transgender, by the way...

READ THE REST HERE

CVNT TRAXXX @ House Of Trax, XOYO, July 11th

w00p! Looking forward to this, always great playing with the HOT fam!!