The Darlings and Chimerik offer up ARCHIVE, June 16 and 17
With new-media holographic projection and other high-tech effects, this is not your “typical” drag show
The Darlings.
The Darlings and Chimerik 似不像 Collective present ARCHIVE on June 16 and 17 at The Birdhouse at 8 pm (pre-show at 7 pm)
IT’S NOT A “typical” drag show, if there were such a thing, but rather a retro multimedia drag performance with new-media holographic projection, motion capture, sculpture, and live visual work. In other words, ARCHIVE is unlike anything else out there on the arts scene.
The piece is an experimental retrospective exhibition of new, retooled, and reimagined works by the multidisciplinary, non-binary drag collective the Darlings in its first-ever collaboration with Chimerik 似不像 Collective. It also includes an archive of costumes, props, and more, all to explore queer and trans people’s lived experiences as well as the artists’ individual and shared memories.
Chimerik 似不像 Collective has members Sammy Chien, Caroline MacCaull, Jasmine Liaw, and Vanka Salim, as collaborators on Archive. The entire creative team is 100 percent queer and 90 percent people of colour. The Darlings is an iconic local drag group—consisting of Rose Butch, Maiden China, P.M., and Continental Breakfast—which has been advocating for queer culture and diversity in Vancouver. Similarly, the Birdhouse (Eastside Studios) has been one of the main proponents of the queer and drag scene in the last decade, Chien says. Music is by Stefan Seslija.
“I am very honoured to bring Chimerik in to collaborate with them [The Darlings] on this project, which will be quite a gamechanger for the local queer community,” Chien tells Stir. “The stories behind the Darlings are very moving—lots of personal struggles as queer-identified humans growing up in the Western heteronormative society. There are lots of meaningful childhood memories being queer; the kind of fear, rejection, and or the kind of imagination we held in our bodies. Through dance, movement, text and
drag performances, stories are shared and experienced.”
Artistically, Chien says, the show leans toward DIY cabaret style but with higher tech new media art. “It’s a very interesting mix of retro DIY queer vibe and multimedia interactive new media art integrated together,” Chien says. “There will be more DIY exhibition of the Darlings' archive of work in the space as well before and after the performance.”
More information is here.
