Have your cupcake and eat it too « The Queerist: Blog

February

Have your cupcake and eat it too

Miasia performing at Cupcake Cabaret II

Cupcake Cabaret, an ongoing performance series curated by Bevin Branlandingham, debuts its third show this Sunday (Feb 7, 2010) in Brooklyn. In addition to producing CupCab, Bevin also publishes a blog www.queerfatfemme.com and a podcast www.femme-cast.com. She shares her thoughts with us on the past, present and future of Cupcake Cabaret.

What is Cupcake Cabaret?
Cupcake Cabaret is a variety show celebrating the radical act of self-love. I’ve had people read written work, performance poetry, monologues, performance art, burlesque, belly dance, song, play the accordion and a lot of really flamboyant costumes. Soon it will include film and multimedia performance.

For Cupcake Cabaret this weekend, New York performance artist Glenn Marla is performing a monologue and a heartbreaking drag piece inspired by the death of Mama Cass. Atlanta Burlesque Superstar Vagina Jenkins is doing a mix of classic and updated burlesque. New York and SF based writer Lorelei Lee is reading a work about her experience in the porn industry. Sequinette is performing femme drag about Dolly Parton and self-love in a literal way. I am reading a love letter to queer fat femme friends who are no longer in my life.

And what was your inspiration for the first show?
I was doing a lot of performing with artists who had some sort of marginalized identity–race, size, dis/ability, class, sexuality, age, religion–and were clearly gaining a lot of strength and esteem from these things. My art work centers around furthering my life goal of making the world safe for people to love themselves regardless of their differences. I believe loving yourself despite what society tells you is a radical act. I decided to curate a show around the idea of self-love.

The name Cupcake Cabaret was inspired by my first piece of performance art specifically about how I started to learn to love myself.

Does each performance of CupCab have a theme, a motto or a moral?
The theme of all of the performances is that it is extremely hard to love yourself but that doing it is the ultimate triumph. So far the groupings of artists have been people curated from my wish list of performers with no real theme to it. My next show is going to be around parent issues–the death of a parent, parental identities, parental neglect.

You’ve curated CupCab in both NY and SF. Have you noticed a difference in your audiences or how you’ve been received?

The San Francisco show was curated in collaboration with my wonderful friend and artist Gina deVries [http://queershoulder.tumblr.com/]. We had a much bigger turn-out because we combined forces and were able to use a theater space at the San Francisco Center for Sex and Culture. Plus, it is never 20 degrees in San Francisco and it was at the New York premiere.

I think the audience reaction has a lot to do with the tone of the show. I have been curating shows for years (I began as a drag troupe producer in Philadelphia in 2001) and noticed that the tone of San Francisco was a lot darker than I intended. I decided from then on to be diligent about including dance, burlesque or drag in every show. I think the multiplicity of genres really helps to leave the audience on a high note.

If you could have anyone you wanted (living, dead, or undead, if that’s how you roll), to perform in your show, who would it be and why?
Oh, Queerist, you have tapped my dream! I would LOVE to have a heroes show. Cathy Opie doing a slideshow of her photography and talking about her experience in S/M and becoming a queer parent. Justin Bond and Our Lady J performing pretty much anything. Dorothy Allison performing a piece from her one-woman show “Two or Three Things I Know For Sure”. Jewelle Gomez performing a piece of the “Gilda Stories” for the stage. Amber Hollibaugh reading an essay from her extremely relevant, heartbreaking and powerful book “My Dangerous Desires: A Queer Girl Dreaming Her Way Home”. Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni reading a short story.

And, of course, Dolly Parton and Miss Piggy. Maybe zombie June Carter and Johnny Cash.

Cupcakes are the new _________
must-have accessory.

What are you looking for in potential performers, and do they have to be queer identified?

They do NOT have to be queer identified. I just happen to be a queer performance artist and so that is who I roll with. (There are a couple of straight artists I’ve been trying to get to New York to perform, but that hasn’t worked out yet.) I want people who have a marginalized identity, work that relates to it in some way and that celebrates self-love. The work I curate is always well-executed and entertaining. I generally like humor and whimsy as well.

Any plans to take CupCab on the road?
Yes! I have been wanting to curate a Cupcake Cabaret tour for a long time. I will definitely bring it to San Francisco again, likely in late May or early June. I am also trying to book in Vancouver, Seattle and Portland around that time. I’m also writing for some grants to get a pink RV so that the tour can be in style.

The venue I work with in Brooklyn is called Collect Pond, which is a community theater space in a big loft in Williamsburg. Other than the amazing baked goods they provide they also video tape the show for free. I am working ever so slowly on producing segments from Cupcake Cabaret on my video podcast. It’s my hope to not leave Cupcake Cabaret just in the theater – the people who need the message most likely aren’t located in New York City or downtown San Francisco.