“Pride has never gone away,” says Santa Cruz Pride Chair Rob Darrow.
Goodtimes dj how to#
“We’re going to be off-duty lifeguards who don’t know how to swim,” says Torres.Įveryone is likely to be in a celebratory mood this weekend, as it’s the first full Pride weekend since the pandemic. They’re hosting Hotel Paradox’s annual Pride Pool Party on Sunday, June 5 as Cherry Cola and Franzia Rosé. Torres and Berry will take a victory lap at Santa Cruz Pride this weekend-the aquatic kind. As Santa Cruz celebrates its 47th Pride festival this weekend, this burgeoning movement is injecting new energy into the local queer scene. What Torres and Berry didn’t know at the time was that they were at the forefront of a new queer-art revolution in Santa Cruz, one powered by a river of gender fluidity, humor and a backlash against societal norms. There are so many different iterations of the queer experience I think it’s reductive to reduce drag to just one side of the queer spectrum.” “A lot of people see it and say, ‘I didn’t know that was allowed,’” she says. “We would show up and say, ‘Hand me the auxiliary chord,’” remembers Berry, who performs female drag as a woman, something often judged harshly in the drag community. “And I told her, ‘No, I don’t perform, I just do it for myself.’”īerry’s response? “Too bad, I already made a flier, and you’re practically headlining it.”Īfter that, the two began performing renegade shows at other various parties, arriving in costume as their alter egos-”Cherry Cola” for Torres and “Franzia Rosé” for Berry-and taking over. “She told me, ‘By the way, I’m having a drag show and you’re in it,’” he remembers. But it wasn’t until Berry threw a house party in November 2018 that Torres began performing live. The pair trace the origin of Haus of Libations back to San Francisco Pride 2018, when they ran around the city together in drag. That outlet came with wigs, heels and one hell of a fabulous wardrobe. “We were equally crazy, equally gay and coming from a similar background. “We were both like, ‘Please, I need friends so bad,’” Berry remembers. “We all live double lives, and we’re all so stupid together,” says Torres, a Santa Cruz local who studied art and art education at Humboldt State, where he originally met Berry.Īfter graduation, both Berry and Torres found themselves back in Santa Cruz, randomly rekindling their friendship in the most artistic way at the now-defunct Palace Art store on Pacific Avenue. The Haus of Libations follows this tradition, as many of the members live under the same roof, and everyone does drag. As the houses grew, they began throwing underground pageants to compete with each other for different prizes in categories like “realness” and “runway.” Queer, Black and Latino members of the scene would band together into households and teach each other how to make outfits and do their makeup, while providing shelter in an accepting, chosen-family setting that was sometimes a stark contrast from their biological families. “And I’m Captain Hook.”ĭrag houses stem from ballroom drag culture of late-20th-century New York. “But I like to joke that she’s more the Peter Pan to our Lost Boys,” Torres jokes. The two friends founded the drag house Haus of Libations, and Berry quickly took on the role of house mom. “We didn’t have that and didn’t think to travel over the hill to find a drag community to latch onto,” says Torres. Eli Torres and Suki Berry were downright thirsty for a sickening-that’s drag slang for “amazing”-queer arts scene in Santa Cruz last year.
0 kommentar(er)
