Participants Recruitment
With the global popularity of RuPaul’s Drag Race, drag has increasingly become mainstreamed and even commercialised. But is RuPaul the only legitimate and visible form of drag culture in the world today?And what are the other existing and emerging drag forms and traditions? If we acknowledge the existence of different drag traditions around the world (such as the pantomime tradition in the UK and the cross-dressing tradition in Chinese operas), how can drag be performed differently and understood in a truly global and decolonised sense? If we recognise the communitarian and activist functions of drag, how can drag be used productively to empower Asian and queer communities?
Drag不只有浮夸妆容和夸张表演这一种呈现形式！Drag其实也可以是我们每个人探索身份认同和自我表达的一种有效方式。Drag也不只存在于欧美文化中，回看中国的传统戏剧，变装表演有着悠久的历史。京剧里的“男旦”为男扮女装的表演者，电影《霸王别姬》讲述的便是男旦程蝶衣的故事，而越剧，粤剧，黄梅戏等剧种中经常出现女扮男装角色。有些角色有着强烈的酷儿和跨儿元素。
作为交叉身份的酷儿，我们能如何在去殖民化和去西方中心主义的角度去重新理解变装表演？我们能如何使用变装表演这种艺术形式来赋能我们自身，亚洲酷儿社群甚至为LGBTQ+平权运动出一份力？
Project Duration: 2nd June 2023 - 4th July 2023 Live performance: 30 June 2023 Application Deadline: 25th May, 2023 Contact: queerchinauk@gmail.com Application Form: Click Here The project is supported by the University of Nottingham in collaboration with Queer China UK to connect academic research to society and to empower minority communities.
Drag up! Queers! 拽起来，酷儿们！
A FREE decolonising drag performance-making project is calling for participants to join in this journey of exploring gender, sexuality and identity.
谁在「拽起来！」？Who is running 「Drag up!」?
DR. HONGWEI BAO（HE/HIS）
Project Leader
Associate Professor in Media Studies, University of Nottingham.Hongwei’sresearch is primarily concerned with how media relate to issues of gender, sexuality and identity, and how they participate in community building, empowerment of minority groups, and grassroots mobilisation. It also considers how media and contemporary culture respond to a postsocialist world dominated by neoliberal ideologies, and how socialist and democratic forms of community cultures and social forms are lived and experienced in everyday lives and social movements.
FJ（SHE/THEY）
Co-director and facilitator
a QAF theatre maker, a socially engaged art practitioner.
Their Drag persona 404 not found(she/her) embodies oppressed female figures in contemporary Chinese society, had her Debut act The Chained Bird at RVT in 2022.
They are going to tell the story of two queer Chinese students blurring the boundaries of gender, intimacy and more with their theatre project TANA this year on EdinburgFringe.
FJ（SHE/THEY）
Co-director and facilitator
a QAF theatre maker, a socially engaged art practitioner.
Their Drag persona 404 not found(she/her) embodies oppressed female figures in contemporary Chinese society, had her Debut act The Chained Bird at RVT in 2022.
They are going to tell the story of two queer Chinese students blurring the boundaries of gender, intimacy and more with their theatre project TANA this year on EdinburgFringe.
QIUYAN（SHE/HER）
Co-director
8 years of experience in activism, community building and empowerment. She established Queer China UK after realising the intersectional invisibility of the Chinese LGBTQ+ diaspora community. In recent years, Qiuyan has curated many interesting projects with her lovely community including Queer Chinese Art Festival, queering Chinatown zine making workshops and Decolonising queer tour in Chinese at the British Museum.
Special Guests:
Will Dai is a Beijing native who makes their home in the Shanghai queer underground. They are an LGBTQ+ community organizer, a DJ, musician, designer and visual artist. They are a member of the queer screen culture collective CINEMQ. Every weekend, they transform into Dai Nasty, their drag personality, turning hot looks, hot tricks, and hot tunes around the city.
Matthew Baren is a British filmmaker and queer community organiser based in Shanghai. He is a co-founder of CINEMQ, an underground queer cinema collective promoting a broader awareness of queer film, and generating discussion on LGBTQ+ experience and perspectives in China through screen culture. In 2018, he directed the documentary Extravaganza, which goes behind the scenes of a groundbreaking Shanghai drag show.
更多活跃于英国和中国的艺术家将会加入嘉宾阵容，敬请期待！
More guests will be announced, so stay tuned!
*参与者以志愿者的身份参与项目，在诺丁汉大学的支持下我们不向参与者收取任何活动费用， 并有8磅/天的交通补贴。
*Participation in the project will be on a voluntary basis, is FREE of charge and there will be £8/DAY TRAVEL ALLOWENCE with the support of University of Nottingham.
*所有工作坊中产出的艺术成果及作品受到知识共享许可协议的保护，按照参与者指定方式进行署名。
*All the artworks produced at the workshops will be on a Creative Commons licence, with the creators’ names credited.
Drag Up! Showcase
We had the Drag Up! showcase on 30th June, 8pm-9.30pm The Common Press E2 6DG (@thecommonpress_ ) groundfloor.
Get yourself immersed in a decolonising, creative, and very personal but political show with our 7 performers from Drag Up! Project. In Drag Up! the participants started from reflecting on western-centered Drag Culture, exploring how drag can be an artistic language for their personal narratives as a Chinese queer person. They’ve been working, sharing, learning from each other inside and outside of the project, come to join this journey!
Tianyi
“万人都要将火熄灭 我一人独将此火高高举起 ” – 海子，《祖国（或以梦为马）》
‘’The mass desires to put out this fire I hold it high alone‘’- Hai Zi, Motherland, or Dream as a Horse
Lin
「疯，癫」
「Mad in China」
Yash Zhang
Drag Name: Yellow Banana
‘’Asshole, I am not your baby‘’ by 挂在盒子上
Matt
The Return of Chang’e 嫦娥 the Moon Goddess
“I’m the light every night in your world
Are you ready to watch me be legendary?
‘Cuz I’m ultra-luminary “
– Ultraluminary, Over the Moon
Mild Peril
We celebrate sex work and sex workers. We do not celebrate those who hurt us, who threaten us, who restrict us of our ability to speak out for ourselves. To see recognition, empathy and personhood. They would remove us from history if they could. They would fuck and throw away what they should respect. Because that’s all we ask for, RESPECT.
‘’And look at the two of us in sympathy
with everything we see
I never want anything, it’s easy
you buy whatever I need
But look at my hopes, look at my dreams
the currency we’ve spent
I love you, you pay my rent
I love you, you pay my rent‘’
– Rent, Pet Shop Boys
Dawn
Dawn’s performance is loosely based on the historical Chinese character, 花木兰 Hua Mulan, a famous female warrior who lived in the 5th century CE and defended China against northern nomadic invaders.
In this brief performance elements of ancient poetry, traditional Chinese opera, Chinese martial arts and traditional Chinese dance have been used to portray both the “masculine” and “feminine” aspects of this famous heroine. Dawn used “Iseul Umran” as her drag name for this performance, the name “Umran” is the Xianbei version of the name “Mulan”, reflecting the fact that Mulan was most likely of mixed Han Chinese and Xianbei ancestry and heritage.
“雄兔脚扑朔，雌兔眼迷离；双兔傍地走，安能辨我是雄雌？”
-《木兰辞》
“The male rabbit hops and skips on the ground;
The female rabbit winks and blinks around.
When two rabbits hop side by side,
How can one tells male from female?”
– The Mulan Ballad
Yabin
Drag Name: Ishi Flatland
Ishi Flatland 是其种族的最后一个幸存者。从2D世界来到3D世界，TA不得不模仿新世界的人如何生活，如何走路，说话，behave，以及要适应新世界既定的规则。
Ishi Flatland is the last survivor of their race. From the 2D world to the 3D world, they have to imitate how people in the new world live, how to walk, talk, behave, and to adapt to the established rules of the new world.
Contact
queerchinauk@gmail.com
Queer Chinese Art Festival 