WorkMORE! 10: Gaggle Royale
Sunday July 24, 2021
Produced by OX
The most recent installation of the WorkMORE! Series (a 15-year program) served over 40 artists as they worked collaboratively in 5 teams to develop performances to win a pageant. Unlike most pageants they were paid for their time throughout the process, and met for monthly workshops and skill-sharing programming. WorkMORE brings together intergenerational voices across all stages of their performance careers to build community and activate audiences in SOMA and beyond.
With:
Amoura Teese, Angel Food Cakes, Beef Cakes, Boites Moore, Camillle Tow, Delilah Befierce, Heaven On Earth, Hera Wynn, Jeremy Jones, Jaunnina Million, Cheetah Biscotti, La Chucha, Lisa Frankenstein, Tito Soto, Micahtron, Phoebe Cakes, Sally Limon, Tyson Check-In, Rebel Kings of Oakland, Rolling with the Homos, Port Bar, Kina Blue Revue.
WorkMORE! is a commissioning platform that brings together drag and queer artists in new collaborative constellations. Over the course of 15 years it’s taken shape as a curatorial residencey, a film festival, performance installations, and site specific performance. WorkMORE! seeks to strengthen queer and drag community through collaborative art practice, and expanding the queer traditional art form of drag.
From 48 Hills, By Marke B.
One of the most rewarding and provocative projects on the local arts scene has been the WorkMORE! performance series, which “brings artists together in new collaborative constellations.” This usually takes the form of pairing drag performers with artists from other fields to see how drag intersects with and expands upon other forms of expression—choreography, drama, visual arts, fashion design, clowns.
But WorkMORE! mistressmind VivvyAnne ForeverMore is a wily minx—beyond the brilliantly unexpected collaborations that have resulted, she has thrown film festivals, political statements, odd locales, and other delightful curveballs into the mix. (Full disclosure: I paired up with Anna Conda for a WorkMORE! back in 2010 to transform Ke$ha’s “Don’t Stop” into an oil-drenched screed against fracking.)
Now, Vivvy is kicking the WorkMORE! concept up a notch into totally bonkers territory: Gaggle Royale (Sun/24 at DNA Lounge) is a drag pageant pitting entire queer clubs/drag crews against other queer clubs/drag crews to compete in a kind of Drag Race squared—and what looks to be an unforgettable show.
“It’s an extension of the WorkMORE! goal we’re bringing together new drag performance groups to create something new,” Vivvy tells me. “Plus, you get all the glamour and dazzle of a pageant, because they’re competing. So it’s meta meta meta.I don’t think there’s been a battle of the clubs before and I have no idea what to expect.”
Speaking of that RuPaul show, Vivvy is earnest that the local scene can dish up thrills with the best of them. “Our drag scene gets so little representation in whatever you want to think of as the mainstream,” she says. “There’s so much incredible talent here. This is our twisted and fun way to showcase it, in the best San Francisco tradition.”
Each club or crew sends a champion or team of champions to represent them. “There are two categories, talent and presentation—which is basically the equivalent of an evening gown competition, or what you want the world to see you as. Contestants are judged on the values of technical prowess, overall presentation, and ‘Living the Dream,'” Vivvy says.
Some of the inspired pairings and entrants? The rowdy Rebel Kings of Oakland compete against all-Black drag show Reparations, fabulous Rollin’ with the Homos rollerskating crew sends forth the House of Cakes as champions, Seanie’s Angels of Port Bar in Oakland takes on Cheetah Biscotti from Kind of Blue Revue.
WorkMORE! was created with generous support from the San Francisco Arts Commission, California Arts Council and grants for the Arts.