In the Glorious Church of Holy Fierceness with Odidiva - Thank You
The thing is about being a DragDiva is that one has a way of looking at the world a little differently. Call it coming from the left field; call it living on the edge of society looking in. They say art imitates life or maybe an artist reflects her environment and sees it from her point of view, tweaking it a little, conjuring up a mirage of how things should be, can be…will be.
That’s what it felt like on Monday night, 26 October 2009, in Rosie’s, performing to a group of well-wishers, admirers, curious accidental tourists and connoisseurs of art, culture, lovers of girly boys and the avant garde.
It was a mixed breed of Cape Town’s top upcoming fine artists, curators, performance artists, designers, their hangers on, students, rent boys, journalists, socialites, black diamonds, yuppies, old money and the nouveau riche, civil servants, hospitality staff, a couple of South American hippies documenting the Diva’s transformation, dedication and communion with her congregation of a myriad of races, nationalities, flavours and spices; a celebration.
Not just of Odidiva’s birthday but of a Cape Town that is not the headline of division and regression but a melting pot of inclusivity and open-minded creativity.
My show is yet untitled, a blank canvas, illustrated by music and poetry, leaving carte blanche to the ambiance, the temperance of the audience and the venue, Rosie’s, to colour the chemistry of Odidiva’s exuberance in performance.
Odidiva, her show, is entertainment, entertainment on the level of crowd pleasing abstract art that has the juice, the “gees”, the “gut spa” and the audacity of courage, to inform, educate and instigate thought and creativity.
“This is my church…”
Declared the opening lines of the debut single of dance music group, Faithless.
“…In my house they only play House music, God is a D.J. and Larry Levin is his name…”
Added Odidiva, paraphrasing an infamous House music anthem, Faithless and referencing one of the founding Trinity of modern dance music that includes "The Godfather" Frankie Knuckles and "The Holy Spirit" Marshall Jefferson. All three divinely anointed by God: two of them Gay with Shades of Blackness and one of them: Jewish. A formidable cocktail.
The influences of Odidiva are vast and varied but the New York City of the late seventies and early eighties is life blood of her creation.
It began on Fire Island, but the true inspiration was the creation of Paradise Garage, the eponymous and mythical Garden of Good and Evil that bore the Lost Children who’s Drag Houses created the Balls that would lead to Madonna’s iconic homage, Vogue.
This is the Paradise Garage that allowed a guerrilla graffiti artist named, Keith Haring, to infect and decorate its walls like the virus that would soon overwhelm its patrons and kill him and most of them as the world stood, unhelpful, in shocked denial.
It was here at Paradise Garage nightclubbing that Grace Jones became a One Man Show decorated by Haring. It is here Madonna found the Fontainebleau of her musical career. Where Andy Warhol warmed to Basquet and Disco Divas, Donna Summer, Sister Sledge, and Chaka Khan resurrected their careers. Paradise Garage was Paradise Lost and Found, a place where “avant garde” was the norm and the birthplace of Black Gay Culture, respected as the pioneering force it has remained, in modern popular culture.
So Odidiva opens her show with the showstopper, You’re Gonna Love Me, from the Broadway Hit musical, Dreamgirls. Dreamgirls is an unsubtle “fictitious” telling of the story of Diana Ross and The Supremes, the selling of soul for the monetary wealth of being mainstream, “crossing over”.
It’s a tour d’ force of a song, that if sung with the right amount of dramatic pleading and technical vocal adherence to a slow burning crescendo, results in spontaneous explosions of applause and a finale of standing ovations in evangelical bacchanalian cries.
All Musicals Queens know that this song, “And I am Telling You” created for Jennifer Holiday, who personified and created the character Effie, gifted Miss Holiday a Tony Award, and every actress that has followed in her large footsteps since, showering them with glory.
It still boggles my mind why no one saw the Oscar was inevitably going to Jennifer Hudson. The song is iconic, one of the greats of the Great White Way; in what is possibly the most successful all black cast Broadway production of all time.
What astounds one even more is why this hugely successful production has never been recreated by our powerful, knowledgeable and financial savvy theatre producers, in this majority dark skinned nation of ours.
With the box office clout of its international theatrical reputation and the cinematic tour d’ force starring some of the greatest African Entertainers; Eddie Murphy, Oscar winner Jamie Foxx and pop Superstar diva Beyonce Knowles, how is it possible it has not been reincarnated in South Africa, like Chicago after its winning adaptation to film?
“We’re part of the same place, we’re part of same soul, we both share the same mind, we both see through the same eyes….”
I refrained these (self styled)lyrics throughout my performance, as if affirming our very presence together, exorcising our troubled past.
Here was a man in a dress, camping it up, satirising a complex and twisted existence, giving a spoon fool of sugar to our deepest and sometimes darkest thoughts and making them universal. Making us a part of a whole greater than the prejudices of oneself, ones chosen, particular community; striving to create a new space for communion and communication.
In that small space, of kitsch African meets Italian gilded décor, a dream deferred was renewed. Or maybe it was the culmination of a long struggle for acceptance and unity in diversity, finally beginning to show its hand.
Declaring that a so called “Black Gay Bar” owned by a so called “White” Gay Jew of Lithuanian ancestry, managed by a cute petite “Black Male Gay” of the townships and served by a mix of Coloured and Black straight, bi-sexual or gay men, is more than worthy of its place in the our Pink Village.
The night of Monday 26 October 2009 with ODIDIVA @ Rosie’s set the bar on the seamless interweaving of the demographics of colour, creed, creativity, fabulosity and integrity being possible, available, tangible and enjoyable in this beautiful city of Cape Town. I am proud to say I performed for this ideal but should-become-the-norm congregation, of pilgrims, merchants, diviners, alchemists, circus freaks and their admirers; my friends and family.
Maybe they all know,
“Black Don’t Crack, Cause Crack is Wack!”
Or maybe they know that we don’t have to believe to receive blessings, but just have the courage to love unconditionally, selflessly.
Quoting a Nick Cave hymn the Diva likes to sometimes sing,
“I don’t believe in the existence of Angels, but looking at you I wonder if that’s true,
If I did I would summon them together to light your path to walk like Christ in grace and love and guide you into my arms, Ole Lord, Into My Arms, and Ole Lord …Into My Arms.”
My arms were full, overflowing and I thank thee and all of ye for an ingloriously humbling and fulfilling celebration of life, love and laughter.
“We have Faith in Poison….”
Wrote Arthur Rimbaud in Morning of Drunken Rapture,
“We will live our lives completely everyday….”
I can almost finish it by paraphrasing the Christian prayer books,
“For we partake of one bread and one blood”
That’s what it felt like on Monday night, 26 October 2009, in Rosie’s, performing to a group of well-wishers, admirers, curious accidental tourists and connoisseurs of art, culture, lovers of girly boys and the avant garde.
It was a mixed breed of Cape Town’s top upcoming fine artists, curators, performance artists, designers, their hangers on, students, rent boys, journalists, socialites, black diamonds, yuppies, old money and the nouveau riche, civil servants, hospitality staff, a couple of South American hippies documenting the Diva’s transformation, dedication and communion with her congregation of a myriad of races, nationalities, flavours and spices; a celebration.
Not just of Odidiva’s birthday but of a Cape Town that is not the headline of division and regression but a melting pot of inclusivity and open-minded creativity.
My show is yet untitled, a blank canvas, illustrated by music and poetry, leaving carte blanche to the ambiance, the temperance of the audience and the venue, Rosie’s, to colour the chemistry of Odidiva’s exuberance in performance.
Odidiva, her show, is entertainment, entertainment on the level of crowd pleasing abstract art that has the juice, the “gees”, the “gut spa” and the audacity of courage, to inform, educate and instigate thought and creativity.
“This is my church…”
Declared the opening lines of the debut single of dance music group, Faithless.
“…In my house they only play House music, God is a D.J. and Larry Levin is his name…”
Added Odidiva, paraphrasing an infamous House music anthem, Faithless and referencing one of the founding Trinity of modern dance music that includes "The Godfather" Frankie Knuckles and "The Holy Spirit" Marshall Jefferson. All three divinely anointed by God: two of them Gay with Shades of Blackness and one of them: Jewish. A formidable cocktail.
The influences of Odidiva are vast and varied but the New York City of the late seventies and early eighties is life blood of her creation.
It began on Fire Island, but the true inspiration was the creation of Paradise Garage, the eponymous and mythical Garden of Good and Evil that bore the Lost Children who’s Drag Houses created the Balls that would lead to Madonna’s iconic homage, Vogue.
This is the Paradise Garage that allowed a guerrilla graffiti artist named, Keith Haring, to infect and decorate its walls like the virus that would soon overwhelm its patrons and kill him and most of them as the world stood, unhelpful, in shocked denial.
It was here at Paradise Garage nightclubbing that Grace Jones became a One Man Show decorated by Haring. It is here Madonna found the Fontainebleau of her musical career. Where Andy Warhol warmed to Basquet and Disco Divas, Donna Summer, Sister Sledge, and Chaka Khan resurrected their careers. Paradise Garage was Paradise Lost and Found, a place where “avant garde” was the norm and the birthplace of Black Gay Culture, respected as the pioneering force it has remained, in modern popular culture.
So Odidiva opens her show with the showstopper, You’re Gonna Love Me, from the Broadway Hit musical, Dreamgirls. Dreamgirls is an unsubtle “fictitious” telling of the story of Diana Ross and The Supremes, the selling of soul for the monetary wealth of being mainstream, “crossing over”.
It’s a tour d’ force of a song, that if sung with the right amount of dramatic pleading and technical vocal adherence to a slow burning crescendo, results in spontaneous explosions of applause and a finale of standing ovations in evangelical bacchanalian cries.
All Musicals Queens know that this song, “And I am Telling You” created for Jennifer Holiday, who personified and created the character Effie, gifted Miss Holiday a Tony Award, and every actress that has followed in her large footsteps since, showering them with glory.
It still boggles my mind why no one saw the Oscar was inevitably going to Jennifer Hudson. The song is iconic, one of the greats of the Great White Way; in what is possibly the most successful all black cast Broadway production of all time.
What astounds one even more is why this hugely successful production has never been recreated by our powerful, knowledgeable and financial savvy theatre producers, in this majority dark skinned nation of ours.
With the box office clout of its international theatrical reputation and the cinematic tour d’ force starring some of the greatest African Entertainers; Eddie Murphy, Oscar winner Jamie Foxx and pop Superstar diva Beyonce Knowles, how is it possible it has not been reincarnated in South Africa, like Chicago after its winning adaptation to film?
“We’re part of the same place, we’re part of same soul, we both share the same mind, we both see through the same eyes….”
I refrained these (self styled)lyrics throughout my performance, as if affirming our very presence together, exorcising our troubled past.
Here was a man in a dress, camping it up, satirising a complex and twisted existence, giving a spoon fool of sugar to our deepest and sometimes darkest thoughts and making them universal. Making us a part of a whole greater than the prejudices of oneself, ones chosen, particular community; striving to create a new space for communion and communication.
In that small space, of kitsch African meets Italian gilded décor, a dream deferred was renewed. Or maybe it was the culmination of a long struggle for acceptance and unity in diversity, finally beginning to show its hand.
Declaring that a so called “Black Gay Bar” owned by a so called “White” Gay Jew of Lithuanian ancestry, managed by a cute petite “Black Male Gay” of the townships and served by a mix of Coloured and Black straight, bi-sexual or gay men, is more than worthy of its place in the our Pink Village.
The night of Monday 26 October 2009 with ODIDIVA @ Rosie’s set the bar on the seamless interweaving of the demographics of colour, creed, creativity, fabulosity and integrity being possible, available, tangible and enjoyable in this beautiful city of Cape Town. I am proud to say I performed for this ideal but should-become-the-norm congregation, of pilgrims, merchants, diviners, alchemists, circus freaks and their admirers; my friends and family.
Maybe they all know,
“Black Don’t Crack, Cause Crack is Wack!”
Or maybe they know that we don’t have to believe to receive blessings, but just have the courage to love unconditionally, selflessly.
Quoting a Nick Cave hymn the Diva likes to sometimes sing,
“I don’t believe in the existence of Angels, but looking at you I wonder if that’s true,
If I did I would summon them together to light your path to walk like Christ in grace and love and guide you into my arms, Ole Lord, Into My Arms, and Ole Lord …Into My Arms.”
My arms were full, overflowing and I thank thee and all of ye for an ingloriously humbling and fulfilling celebration of life, love and laughter.
“We have Faith in Poison….”
Wrote Arthur Rimbaud in Morning of Drunken Rapture,
“We will live our lives completely everyday….”
I can almost finish it by paraphrasing the Christian prayer books,
“For we partake of one bread and one blood”
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