If there are two things that go well together, it’s nostalgia and performance art; but it’s how artists combine them that truly has the power to intrigue.
Take B-Roll: Toy Story – a Toy Story-themed drag show organized and created by Dayne Tank (aka Dee Blew) – at the Penthouse Night Club on March 27. Or, We All Float Down Here: A Burlesque Tribute to Stephen King, hosted by Geekenders at the Rio Theatre on March 25. Both shows are heavily influenced by nostalgic fiction, and hope to draw crowds seeking the familiar, anew.
"With B-Roll, the best shows are usually the ones that are from the middle-millennial- age- range childhood, or our teen years,” Tank says. "We've really figured out that cartoony stuff that you don't usually see in a drag show is the best."
Tank has held seven B-Roll shows to date. He started the event with his boyfriend, Xavier De Salaberry, eight months ago, with the help of entertainer Samantha Mack, who got them their slot at the Penthouse on the last Monday of every month; drag artist Jane Smoker, who was brought on as a host; and Sarah Watson, who is the stage manager for every show.
The first show that Tank and De Salaberry put on was inspired by the movie Kill Bill. Since then, they have riffed on the likes of Harry Potter, Pokemon, and Batman. Tank selects a drag performer from the city to play each role he has in mind, and his selections are based on the persona that the performer has created for themselves.
“If people think they're funny, I want to put them in a funny role. Or, I want to do the complete opposite and be like, ‘Look, they can do this, too,’” Tank says. “We usually typecast it a bit.”
Tank believes that fiction influences performance artists by providing inspiration to take their performance to another level. “It puts almost a different layer of expectations or goals for your performance, where you want to create that level of amazement,” he says. “In a drag show specifically, people don’t want to see just stuff that happened – they want to see a fantasy, they want to see an exaggerated idea.”
The Geekenders also see fiction as a source of inspiration, according to performer and troupe artistic director Fairlith Harvey. Their Stephen King burlesque tribute show aims to use burlesque to deconstruct fear.
“Burlesque came from parody in the late 1800s, and the really cool thing about the Stephen King show is we're deconstructing what people find scary,” Harvey says.
According to Harvey, the show is hoping to draw in crowds who have maybe never experienced burlesque before. “We like to call it gateway burlesque,” she says.
The show will feature tributes to several popular Stephen King stories, such as It, Cujo, The Shining, Misery, Christine, and a few less popular stories such as “The Lonesome Death of Johnny Barrel” from Creepshow.
“It's gonna be quite a show,” Harvey says, with a laugh. “There's one number from a short story I've never even heard of, so there will be something for all Stephen King fans." Harvey assures that the show may not necessarily be too scary, but she is positive it will be really weird.
“I think it will challenge people to find sexuality in what they're watching,” she says. “Burlesque isn't there to give you a sexual thrill in the same way that stripping is. Burlesque is meant to make you think and hopefully challenge your idea of what [you think] is sexy."
And, like the B-Roll crew, Geekenders also believe that people love seeing things that they have previously connect with.
“Nostalgia is really powerful for people,” Harvey says. “If they have a pop-culture reference they can connect a performance with, they have their entire experience with that thing to inform their reaction to it."
