Let The City’s Hippest Drag Show Come to Your Living Room

Yeah, we’re stuck at home. But so are our favourite non-binary drag performers. And we’ve got a little thing called the internet to bring us all together. Drag collective The Darlings—made up of Vancouver’s PM, Rose Butch, Continental Breakfast and Maiden China—took inspiration from our isolation to craft a new long-form show specifically for streaming.”All of our performance work was halted and rather than recoil, we wanted to produce something that could help keep people inspired during this highly stressful circumstance,” explains Continental Breakfast.

The multi-disciplinary, non-binary quartet is responding to the idea of confinement, and bringing that into costume and movement. “Viewers can expect a visual representation of the ups and downs we can go through when we are confined,” Continental says. “The pleasantries that exist, swiftly followed by the melancholy of isolation. It’s a hugely vulnerable situation, and what’s so unique about it is that the majority of the planet is on the same page.”

Will they be missing the energy the comes from a live audience? Sure. But there may be some advantage to performing in a smaller space to a digital audience. “The fact that we are streaming allows us to explore a new space we’ve never performed in,” says Continental. No matter how big or small the space, it will offer a completely dynamic setting which we normally build imaginatively. We have a lot of aesthetic control in a smaller space and we think it will portray very beautifully.”

It’s in these strange times that artists are truly stepping up to bring joy and comfort. “We feel as though this is a moment in time where people are faced with realizing how important art is to them. When trapped in a room, we all resort to outlets like music, film, dance, and literature,” says Continental. “Drag, theatre, and performance art often become docile and forgotten in crisis. We wanted a way for people to still be able to support us as artists, as we support them as an audience deprived of social luxury.”

Catch the show on Facebook Live on March 29 (“The format is an experiment, and our priority is to make it as accessible as we can,” they say), and the group is suggesting a donation of $10 to watch and support… though as usual, “tips are always encouraged.”

The Darlings
Quarantine-Friendly Live Online Broadcast
Facebook Live
March 29, 2020, 9:00 p.m.