Homo's Got Talent>
Pants-off
Dance-off Presents. 7/10 in Willamette Week
>Bubbling up from the Underground. 6/10. Portland Mercury
Pants-Off Dance-Off Presents
Homo's Got Talent
July 15th, 2010 by
Caitlin
Giddings. Willamette Week
After
the flurry of gayness that composed last month’s Pride
festivities, the queer community is all rested up and ready to roll out
a roster of events for the rest of summer. On Saturday, July 31, Pants Off
Productions brings you the second annual Homo’s
Got Talent Dance-Off Competition at the Jupiter Hotel Courtyard.
There can be only one Top Homo Dancer, and registered acts
from all over the city will compete for the title and prizes. America’s
Got Talent may have already eliminated both its Portland contestants,
but local homos are still duking it out on the dance floor while emcee
Max Voltage and celebrity judges preside over it all.
Watch the Art School Drop-outs show how they captured last year’s
title, bring your most vigorous popping and locking for the audience
dance-off, or shake your ass at the after-party. Last year’s
competition featured “acro-balance superheroes, choreographed yo-yoing,
dinosaur tango, pony-prancing, whip-cream & twinkie debauchery,”
according to the press release, so clearly Pants Off Productions are
not taking this “talent” thing lightly.
Jupiter Hotel Courtyard, 800 E Burnside St. Saturday, July 31, 7
pm. $10 advance. $15 door, 21+. 
photo credit:
Bloodhound photography. Homo's Got Talent
2010. Left to right: Kaj-Anne Pepper, Judges Mr Charming, Sea Man &
Sossity, Feyonce
Bubbling up from the
Underground: Radical Queer Performers Infiltrate the Mainstream
You wouldn't expect one of Portland's wildest performance artists to
sing the praises of
reality television. But in the world of Kaj-anne Pepper, nothing is
predictable."I thought I was gonna hate RuPaul's Drag Race, but I
love
it," he says. "It makes drag queens look cool, because they're on TV.
It brings an awareness and a popularity to the craft and the hard work
that goes into it." After several years of genderfucking with Rose City
audiences,
Pepper, 25, is diversifying his repertoire by collaborating with local
choreographers Linda Austin and Tahni Holt. This fall he'll co-direct Ordo
Virtutum,
a 12th century morality play by German mystic Hildegard of Bingen. It's
all a far cry from his days with Sissyboy, Portland's infamous "shock
drag" troupe that performed in bars before he was even old enough to
legally drink booze. "I would just walk in," Pepper says. "People don't
question a 5' 4" drag queen with a giant pink mullet and a hand knife."
RuPaul isn't the only pop culture figure on his mind. Last month
Pepper was crowned "Miss Thing" at a competition where he presented an
homage to Lady Gaga—albeit with mixed feelings. "It's really important
for that kind of creativity to get injected
into the mainstream," Pepper says. "What bothers me is that it's
becoming commodified. It's the process in which culture steals from
queers and trannies and faggots, and then we have to take it right
back."
Drag kings Max Voltage, 28, and Jodi Bon Jodi, 32, are also doing
their part to provide a platform for outspoken performers. They formed
Pants-Off Productions (pantsoffpdx.com)
to present wildly diverse monthly talent contests. So far, the shows
have attracted Spandex-clad ribbon dancers, a dyke fisting a
watermelon, and a musician playing an accordion while singing, "Do you
take it in the ass?" Next up for Pants-Off is the second annual Homo's
Got Talent, a
campy dance-off competition featuring a panel of "celebrity judges," on
July 31 at the Jupiter Hotel. Once again, blame it on the phenomenon of
reality television. "So You Think You Can Dance is one of my
favorite shows," Voltage admits. "I'm really excited to see pop culture
psyched about dance."
Jenny Hoyston is trying a different approach to shaking up the
scene. After moving here from San Francisco a couple of years ago, the
visual artist/musician (of Erase Errata fame) was surprised at the
"one-dimensional" nature of most queer events. She soon joined forces
with fellow multi-hyphenate Sarah Faith Gottesdiener (the Gay
Deceivers) to curate gatherings where experimental musicians, visual
artists, and performance artists could commingle. "We would like to
normalize being queer in the art world and not be ghettoized," says
Hoyston, 37. Their next event, Menz Room, will feature CJ and the Dolls
and other
gender-bending performers on Friday, June 18, at Rotture. Although it's
been challenging, Hoyston hopes the parties continue to draw a diverse
crowd. "Portland has surprised me how segregated it is between queer and
straight and between gay men and lesbians," she says. "There's a huge
queer family here, and I don't think they want to hear 'We Are Family'
every night."
That's precisely where Airick Heater comes into the picture. He's the
mastermind behind Blow Pony (blowpony.com),
an
infamous monthly bacchanal created as an antidote to the "shallow
and boring and repetitive" music heard at most gay bars. At Blow Pony,
you're more likely to find a tattooed transguy dancing to Dolly Parton
than a buff gym rat posturing to Cher.
"I made it a point to make sure that this party would be open to
everybody," says Heater, 41. "It's not an agenda, but it's about more
than getting trashed. It's about liberating yourself and your
sexuality."