Diasporic Dynasty decolonizes the arts with events like Behold Us, a virtual burlesque showcase, to October 22
The new Vancouver performance collective champions and elevates BIPOC stories
Nerdlesque performer Androsia Wilde is a member of the newly formed BIPOC performance collective Diasporic Dynasty. Photo by Chelsey Stuyt
Diasporic Dynasty’s debut show, Behold Us, is streaming by donation until October 22, with donations going to support the BIPOC organization mission to decolonize and revolutionize stages.
VANCOUVER HAS A new performance collective made up exclusively of members of the BIPOC community. And you can catch Diasporic Dynasty’s debut show, Behold Us, until October 22.
The online performance, which is streaming by donation, is a burlesque showcase that premiered earlier this month and was supported by KW studios. It features a full cast BIPOC Performers and a 98-percent BIPOC crew, says Diasporic Dynasty member Androsia Wilde.
“We’re creating a new performance standard in the city where all-white casts and crews are no longer the norm, and BIPOC performers are no longer being used as diversity tokens on an imaginary checklist,” Wilde tells Stir. “This year has been extraordinarily difficult to simply exist as a Black, Indigenous, or Person of Colour in spaces where we see more and more continue to uphold and enforce colonialist, white supremacist, and patriarchal attitudes and systems.”
Wilde, who’s originally from Paradise Island, a small island in the Bahamas above New Providence, where Nassau is located, moved to Vancouver to study illustration at Emily Carr University of Art + Design and graduated with a BFA in Visual Arts in 2012. She’s gone on to pursue burlesque, a form she was drawn to because of the freedom it allows her to reinvent herself and embrace her authentic self on-stage. Wilde predominantly performs nerdlesque, which celebrates and pokes fun at pop-culture franchises and characters.
“When I take the stage as a character, I get to embody that role and feel their stories run through me,” says Wilde, whose first role was as Lando Calrissian on Geekenders’ Star Wars burlesque parodies. “As a Black performer, that holds extra weight for me, so naturally I tend to prefer playing Black figures in pop-culture because I want their stories to be hyper-visible and not just relegated to the sidelines as they tend to be in media.”
Wilde explains that with the racial awakening that spiked in light of the murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and Regis Korchinski-Paquet (to name just a few), conversations about racial injustices hit a fever-pitch, even in small communities. The Vancouver burlesque scene was no different. The Vancouver International Burlesque Festival, for example, mounted a discussion called Centering Black Voices this past summer. Wilde was a member of the panel, along with five other Black performers who were invited to plainly address their experiences to the broader community.
“Of course, with only a handful of us in an overwhelmingly white community, we’ve talked amongst ourselves before about creating shows that catered to and centered us as performers in our own right, but this particular occasion really lit a fire under our collective butts to actually make something happen, pandemic be damned,” Wilde says. “Diasporic Dynasty was essentially born from that blend of righteous rage and need for a space that was actually safe for us.”
Members of Diasporic Dynasty come from the city’s burlesque and drag communities and range from those working behind the scenes (including Fera Day Cage, Linnea Antos, and Viktoria Court) to supporters. Performers include Lilac Lust, current president of the Vancouver International Burlesque Festival; Scarlet Delirium of the all-Indigenous troupe Virago Nation; and Roxy Reverie, who coproduced the debut showcase. Sparkle Plenty, who’s also of Virago Nation, hosts Behold Us.
Roxy Reverie is a member of Diasporic Dynasty. Photo by Chantal Laurie
Wilde, meanwhile, also teaches a movement class called Island Gyal Fit at the Vancouver Burlesque Centre, with sessions every Sunday in November. The conditioning- and endurance-based class is inspired by the music and festivals of the Caribbean.
She says that story informs all of her work, something that she draws form her Bahamian culture.
“I think that we are some of the best storytellers in the world,” Wilde says. “Our storytelling skills infuse everything we do, from our song lyrics to our visual-art practices.
“I also believe that our African heritage holds the ancestral blueprint of that love of stories,” she says. “Dance and song were the way that culture and traditions were preserved and passed on, and as their descendants we take those stories and we transform them, give them new life and new meaning….That's the other beautiful thing about burlesque as an art form for me. It introduced another way for me to tell a story, and I am so grateful for it.”
Donations to Diasporic Dynasty’s Behold Us go toward the organization and its mission to revolutionize and decolonize stages and spaces.
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