the sorcery of sequins and drag

8/9/2019 The Sorcery of Sequins and Drag

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Get Hur : The Sorcery of Sequins

I owe a great debt to Drag, for it was through donning a wig and some carefully applied

false eyelashes that I was introduced to Warhol on his last visit to London, shortly before

his death. This brief audience at first laden with expectation then so suddenly vacuous,

sucked me towards the centrifugal force of my own 15 minutes of Fame, hurtling at speedinto nanoseconds. In the 80s wearing a dress opened many doors that usually closed just as

quickly, often with resounding violence.

I could say my debt is much greater, but Drag is not in the least parsimonious, instead

being abundantly generous a horn of plenty.

Its influences are manifold but key is the taking of risks and riskas a willed act.Such venturesome acts are key to creativity and without them one cannot advance.

Drag is an adventure that puts things at stake most of all the illusory fixity ofgender

roles although such terms are utterly jejeune in its sequined and sometimes blood-spangled terrain.


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There were three witches who ruled London. South, at the Vauxhall Tavern, reigned the

acid tongued Lily Savage; East, an avuncular and vulgar Dockyard Doris welcomed thecrowd to the Bull & Pump; North the ever imperious Regina Fong would oversee the

proceedings at the Black Cap. Most memorable under Reginas kind tutelage were the

efforts of Rose-Marie, who would stomp in hob-nailed boots to the strains of BobbysGirl never improving, despite frequent performances every week.

This was Pub Drag, subversive and highly inclusive in every respect. No subject of culturalor social significance was left untouched for either disparagement or devoted celebration.

The vital essence of this camp sensibility was the mingling of the derisive and laudatory, a

delicious cocktail spiked with cruel humour and foaming in wicked homage to the dead

dogs and detritus floating in the mainstream. The unloved or forgotten form was given thelimelight, while the over-loved or overexposed was administered the most remorseless and

exhibitionistic flogging.

This form of performance was already considered quite conservative in comparison toother ways of using and abusing the fathomless trousseau of transvestism and masquerade.

There was much cross-pollination between theatre, dance, film, club culture andperformance art, creating hybrid works and artists resistant to definition.

This was a queer aesthetic of far reaching influence, occurring during one of the most

difficult and virulent of times. Those who were gay endured unforgiving and relentlesshomophobia while experiencing the most unbearable losses.

Of particular note to me were; the nightclub Taboo in Leicester Square, hosted by Leigh

Bowery, Lindsay Kemps revival ofFlowers at Sadlers Wells, The Divine Davidstelevision slot on C4, the Lesbian Portraiture of the then Della Grace, and the astonishing

theatrical events devised by Neil Bartlett,A Vision of Love Revealedin Sleep and

Sarassine. These works and sensibilities were right at the vanguard long before academia,and ever-lagging behind, thestraightconsensual reality makers figured out that all identity

is a kind of masquerade and a form of impersonation.

Possibly one of the most radical performers using elements of drag to most subversive

effect was the late Ethyl Eichelberger whom I saw at Londons ICA performing as an

accordion playing Lucrezia Borgia, as Colonel KFC Sanders, playing King Lear, and lastly

as Tiresias, the original blind androgynous prophet and central to the myth of Oedipus.Here the classics and backstreet lowbrow aesthetics melded in the most challenging and

extreme forms. This stuff was about transforming perceived shit into gold whilst exposing

the real shit in reality! Such transformation was revelatory masquerade revealed whatwas really disguised beneath commonplace assumptions and appearances, the unveiling

was effected with both savagery and humour.

Bloolips used clowning and humour to razor sharp effect. They were radical drag birthed

from the ashes of 70s gay theatre and propelled by a blasphemous, satirical wit. The

maverick troupe comprised of Bossy Bette Bourne, Precious Pearl, Lavinia Co-op, Gretal

Feather, Regina Fong, Bella Borgia, Danny Diva.


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In 1987 I saw Bloolips at the Edinburgh Fringe in Slungback & Strapless, adorned in circus

slap and wearing mops for wigs. Drag, old music hall songs re-worded and biting politicalcommentary collided together in the most vivacious and dangerous tidal wave as the cast

careened on a whistle-stop tour of 20th Century politics and sexual mores. Midway through

the performance Bette Bourne emerged upstage with a lampshade on her head, holding apose whist announcing, Madame Mao gets the 50s!

There was so much to take from these performance tricks - the striking of poses referencingiconic shots from Hollywood movies, the use of piano music evoking the film score, stage-

craft and skilful use of props to suggest a change of scene acted as a form of jump-cut or

editing and the whole thing was collaged together from tat and tack! It was the witchcraft

of bricolage delivered with arch irony.

The strategies now freely adopted in the world of advertising, such as wit, irony, double-

take, visual deception, all deployed to make their hit on asavvy public, originate in the

terrain of the queer and queering, yet their life-giving and revolutionary trajectories aretrivialized and ignored.

Queering was to be neither male nor female - neither in the name of the mother nor the

father - to be no one and everyone - God Save the Queer!

"To be or not to beThat is the question?

I decided long ago To Be.

For me it is what to be?Make me a suggestion

Good, or bad which

Is best for me?"

(Bloolips Get-Hur)

the sorcery of sequins and drag

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