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Drag Queen/KingFeaturing the likes of Penny Arcade with Philadelphia co-host The Notorious O.M.G., performances will include Philadelphia-based performers Needles Jones, Anastascia Beaverhousen, and Sgt. Sass in addition to Glenn Marla, Gio Black Peter, Little Victory, Max Steele; and the Berlin-based band, Nuclear Family. Liz Liguori’s PUSSY FAGGOT! Portrait Studio and AL Steiner and AK Burns “Community Action Center” will be on hand to make this a truly interactive social action art experience for all.
Pussy Faggot! emerged from a bar room brawl where Dax was called this as a slur. He decided soon after to reclaim the phrase and Pussy Faggot! was born. Pussy Faggot! has its New York home on the Lower East Side in The Delancy Lounge, where each “one night festival” celebrating queer arts in their many forms can be found sprawling on three interconnected floors. So it’s only fitting for its Philly debut that Pussy Faggot! would be upstairs in the Balcony Bar at the Troc. If Dante were alive today, you can be sure he’d be there. In fact you can bet he’d finally find happily ever after with his beloved Beatrice, in her drag angel persona of course—and follow this up by writing an epic poem about his assent to heaven instead of hell which would be featured at the next Pussy Faggot! NY performance. (Spoiler alert) You’ve also just read the plot for Shrek 5. (End spoiler alert) Fortunately, dear readers, you don’t have to wait an eternity for this experience. And because we love to give you the inside scoop here at PhillyGayCalendar, you can click here to get a reduction at the door for Wednesday’s show if you RSVP online.
Philadelphians may remember Pussy Faggot! creator Earl Dax from his Philadelphia FRINGE series and wide variety of shows culminating in Direct From NY, featuring the best the NY performance scene had to offer, in the 2000s. Dax, well known for his background in community organizing and social activism around HIV/AIDS awareness and support for the arts, always finds unique ways to integrate social consciousness with artistic performance and installation. Pussy Faggot! is no exception with its travelling Community Action Center.
Among those appearing, the Notorious O.M.G. is the resident host of Philly’s queer drag and burlesque troupe, the Liberty City Kings aka LiCK, also the home troupe for Anastascia Beaverhousen; although both have thrilled us in solo appearances is a variety of Philadelphia performance spaces and events. Needles Jones needs no introduction to his fans and those who are unfamiliar simply need to imagine the ghost of Tom Waits creating a love child with Iggy Pop. Come see the show to decide which one he more resembles in live performance. Philadelphia local band Sgt. Sass features a mix of club music with hop hop and punk sure to give the evening an edge.
Pussy Faggot! co-host Penny Arcade is one of the veritable originators of the NY performance art scene. This emcee, writer, and comedian is perhaps best known for the critical and commercial darling Bitch!Dyke!Faghag!Whore! that toured nationally and internationally in the 1990s. Other out of towners include Brooklyn-based trans storyteller, drag and performance artist Glenn Marla, a former Miss LES (2006) and the current Mr. Coney Island, who recently appeared in Justin Bond’s Lustre and was nominated for 2 Glammy Awards (2008). Gio Black Peter aka “the Virgin Cannibal” promises to provoke in music and pose. The band Little Victory calls itself the gay Fleetwood Mac; nuff said. Storyteller and electronic musician Max Steele is also a go-go boy at the NYC queer punk party, QxBxRx, and writer of experimental queer porn for Scorcher; Logo fans may recognize him as Becky from Jeffery and Cole Casserole. Nuclear Family emerged from the Copenhagen queer collective big bang and blurs the line between music and porn in their work; the band recently performed at Lars Von Trier’s 50th birthday and produced two new albums “Electroclash is Dead” and “Gay is The New Punk.”
So come on out Philadelphia, Pussy Faggot! is your gateway to NY, without ever having to board the Bolt Bus or Amtrack. But if you just can’t get enough, you can join Pussy Faggot! Thursday night April 7th in NYC at The Delancy Lounge for its second anniversary show. You can sleep on the train.
To find out more about Pussy Faggot! or to learn more about any of the performers for this show, check out: http://www.pussyfaggot.net.
PUSSY FAGGOT! celebrates varied expressions of queer identity through an eclectic – sometimes dischordant – mix of live performance, DJs and visual artists jam-packed into “a one night festival featuring some of the most thrilling talent in New York City and beyond.” (Fierth.com). With a home at The Delancey Lounge on New York City’s famed Lower East Side, PUSSY FAGGOT! encompasses a downstairs stage and dance floor; ground level lounge and stage; and an immense rooftop garden – enclosed and heated in the Winter, open air in the Summer – where the mixed crowd gathers for conversation and smoking.
Originally conceived by independent curator Earl Dax, the name for the party derives from a fabled nightclub brawl where Dax was called “Pussy Faggot!” as an epithet. Reappropriating the phrase proved both empowering and generative, giving rise as it has to a vibrant intersection of queers and others regardless of age, gender, race or economic strata. The diverse range of participating artists is a selective yet nevertheless broad representation of the queer diaspora.
Penny Arcade will host both events, and performers at both shows include Kyle Kupres, Glenn Marla, Gio Black Peter, Max Steele; Philadelphia-based performers Needles Jones, Anastascia Beaverhousen and Sgt. Sass; and all the way from Berlin, Nuclear Family! Both cities with feature Liz Liguori’s PUSSY FAGGOT! Portrait Studio and AL Steiner and AK Burns “Community Action Center.”
Max Steele and the Party Ice is an electronic music project of Max Steele, a performer and writer. He has presented work at the New Museum, Rapture Café, Deitch Projects, Envoy Enterprises and the Queens Museum of Art. He writes the experimental porno zine Scorcher, is a contributor to East Village Boys and Birdsong, plays Becky on the Logo sitcom Jeffery and Cole Casserole, is a go-go boy at NYC’s only queer punk party, QxBxRx, and has presented his writing at New York’s PPOW Gallery.
is the musical brain child of singer, songwriter, and producer Nikolaj Tange Lange. Originally born as a duo with occational partner in crime Andreas Tange Lange, the project started in 2005 in the chaos of Copenhagen queer art collective dunst where they started their artistic career by marrying just for the party, the “fuck you”, and to combine their rhyming family names. Among their accomplishments, the duo has released two albums, established that “Electroclash is Dead” and “Gay is The New Punk”, played at the 50th Birthday of movie director Lars Von Trier, and been featured on the soundtrack of a porn movie, in which Nikolaj is also acting.
Pioneering performance artist and bona fide New York City icon, Penny Arcade is a resident host/emcee at PUSSY FAGGOT! Equal parts social critic, comedian and den mother, Penny Arcade (born Susana Ventura) emerged in the 1980s as a primal force on the New York art scene and an originator of what came to be called performance art. in the early 1990′s she created and starred in Bitch!Dyke!Faghag!Whore! – a critical and commerical hit that toured 24 cities and three continents internationally. Bad Reputation, a book of her plays and critical essays was published last year by Semiotexte/MIT press.
