LGBTQ events – Andro & Eve

A REYT QUEER EXTRAVAGANZA: OUR BIGGEST PARTY EVER!

25th October 202223rd August 2022 by androandeve

a group of three black performers strike poses on a catwalk. The person in the centre wears a gold dress and has gold paper flowing from their body.

We showed Leadmill how to really throw a party this July with our biggest event ever – A Reyt Queer Extravaganza!

An evening packed with lewks, lipsyncing and crazy choreography, our artists and fantastic audience made it a night to remember.

Legendary MC Rikki Beadle-Blair kicked off proceedings in full bridal couture, and served powerful looks and even more powerful laughs throughout the night.

Rikki Beadle-Blair, a black man, stands at the front of the stage with his hands outstretched. He's wearing a classic long white wedding dress and veil — _{Host Rikki Beadle-Blair stunned in bridal couture} *_{– Credit Emily Obeng}*

After weeks of exploring queer dance and movement, Sheffield’s very own Forgeous made their debut bringing style, vogue, attitude and queer joy to the catwalk.

*_{Forgeous made their debut. Credit – Misha Warren}*

Jaws were seen dropping as South Yorkshire legends Bi Polar, King Confuza, Ivy Alexander, Ditzy O Darlin, Northern powerhouses Val Qaeda, Kaan Ghetto, incredible singer/rapper Meduulla and the unstoppable House of Noir and House of Blaque – stunned with impressive looks, walks and tracks in categories from Turn a Lewk to Queer Kink to Lipsync.

Vyn Noir stands holding a big beach bag. They wear a pink latex swimsuit, long black PVC platforms, a sailors hat and they hold a multi coloured giant beach ball — _{Yvn Noir kept it cool – Credit Emily Obeng}

Overseeing the evening was our judges – Stuart, Claud Cunningham and Heather Paterson who gave 10s across the board to our performers.

*_{Stuart – one of the judges – Credit Misha Warren}*

Tasty vegan cake, merch and a slightly more chilled vibe was found in room 2. There, our audience could take a breather, have a chinwag, meet our fantastic volunteers and try to stop themselves buying all of our badges!

And the whole crowd looked incredible of course – were we ever in any doubt?

_{Party goers enjoyed a danc}*_{e – Credit Misha Warren}*

We’re so grateful to all of you who came down and made A Reyt Queer Extravaganza our biggest event ever. Getting together in a huge party, seeing the support for the artists and being in a room full of love and joy with 300 people made the night truly magical!

Drag queen Ivy Alexander kneels on a catwalk under bright golden lights. Ivy is a plus sized queen with big blonde wig and wears a blue sequin bodysuit — *_{Ivy Alexander performs onstage at A Reyt Queer Extravaganza. Credit – Misha Warren}*

And a huge shoutout to our fantastic volunteers (who really are the glue that holds everything together), our incredible audience and to our partners The Civic, Barnsley and funder Arts Council England – their support made this event possible!

Keen for more? Get tickets to The Kingdom Come #6 NOW!

a crowd of people in a dark room look upon a stage out of shot — *_{The crowd enjoyed the show. Credit – Emily Obeng}*

Angel Blaque leaps onstage under pink lighting. Angel is a Black, femme with pink braids wearing a pale crop top and cute flared mini skirt with chunky white trainers. — *_{Angel Blaque jumping for joy – Credit Misha Warren}*

Staying Queer during COVID-19

28th May 202028th May 2020 by androandeve

We’re happy to announce that we have received Emergency Funding* from Arts Council England to help keep us going and provide a programme of online and remote activity over the next 6 months.

Since cancelling our last event in March owing to COVID-19, we’ve been working hard to adapt to the new climate. We’ve also been trying not to panic at the possibility that the sort of live events we create *may* not be safe to organise until 2021. Our future looked, at best, risky. For that reason we’ve reached out to queer artists in order to generate a programme of activity that will support and uplift our community through these challenging times.

This funding enables us to continue our talent development strand for emerging artists. This will compromise both online workshops for complete beginners led by drag king and musical improv expert, Christian Adore, and a more in depth ‘Cabaret College’ for acts wanting to push their skills and learn how to devise their own material. The latter will be led by actor, writer and drag star Lucy Jane Parkinson, aka Louis CyFer.

A suited drag king with long hair and moustache looks directly into the camera — Christian Adore will lead ‘Drag king workshops’ for beginners

Alongside the talent development, we realise there is a need to connect with and hear the voices of the wider LGBTQ+ community and queer artists. To do this we will be creating a special zine both as a documentation of this strange time and a way to connect that does not rely on digital technology. This project will be led on by Leeds -based artist Okocha Obasi in collaboration with emerging producer Emma Bentley – Fox.

The zine will feature the voices of queer writers and artists alongside work submitted by members of the community who want to share their thoughts / dreams / ideas. We’ll print and distribute and launch with a special online launch party featuring queer performers and DJ set for indoor dancing. Along with this programme the funding will help us redevelop our website, and support staff time to ready the organisation for next steps.

We’re very thankful that we can continue to provide unique opportunities to ‘come together’ through queer culture and look forward to connecting with you all again. We’re also aware, however, that there are many great people and organisations that did not get this funding. It is one of the reasons why we will continue to make our work as accessible as possible and centre those otherwise marginalised.

In the meantime, we have set up a donation form on our website. All donations directly support our work in supporting queer artists and our community. We don’t know when we’ll be able to physically be in the same space again, (though currently we have no plans for physical events until beyond October). Your support ensures that when we can return to physical events, we’ll be back better than ever before.

Want to be the first to find out more about the above projects and opportunities? Sign up to our newsletter now!

Team Andro & Eve x

** Funding received – £10,900.

Calling Kings of the North!

16th October 2017 by androandeve

We’re VERY excited to announce we’ll be bringing Drag Kings to Sheffield before 2017 is out! But this time we want to program some fresh talent! Have you got a Drag King act you can’t wait to share with the world? Are you fairly new to drag and want to test out an act in front of a very friendly and supportive audience? Calling all Yorkshire / Northern / East Midlands based drag kings. This is your chance to perform at a new night organised by Andro and Eve. Just drop us a line using the contact form on this website before 25th October 2017 and we’ll be in touch to share more information. Thanks!

If you’re one of the folks who has attended our already very popular drag king night The Kingdom Come you’ll definitely be interested in this new night. Announcements about what we’re planning coming very soon! You can sign up to our mailing list (using our contact form) to be the first to hear this and plenty other updates!

Featured images by Ndrika Anyika.

rsz__v3a8600 — *Could you be the next Romeo De La Cruz? Or Adam All?*

Gender Troubles: The Butches

15th December 2016 by natalie@rainbowwebservices.co.uk

We’re really pleased to announce our next event: a one off screening of Gender Troubles: The Butches, a new documentary by Lisa Plourde.

We saw this film at SQIFF in October and wrote about it here for Now Then. Mostly we loved this film for its warmth, humour and honesty. There are plenty stereotypes of butch women out there, and the interviews with butch identified women in this film show us that there’s a lot more to this identity than we’re led to believe. It made us smile plenty too!

Alongside the main feature there’ll be a showing of The Test Shot, a photo documentary project about transmasculine style. We found out about The Test Shot through Transforming Cinema, and loved the style inspiration so much we wanted to share it with our audience.

We’re also very excited to announce that we’ll be screening the short film Switching Teams by local filmmaker and Roller Derby player, Taylor Le Fin. Their film, produced by EDEN film, is a documentation of their journey in finding the gender identity that felt right to them, and the way their community supported this journey.

We design these smaller events with women identified, non – binary and transmasculine people in mind. We do this in order to make space for a group often not specifically catered for in the wider cultural scene. Our larger events are for everyone but with smaller capacities we feel we feel it is important to only invite women, non – binary and trans people to events, to ensure women and marginalised queer identities feel celebrated. This may change in future, but for now, its what we do, and we appreciate the support of the wider community in respecting this ethos.

This event is about celebrating and finding common ground between queer identities, while sharing cake, hot beverages and a cosy space. And of course there’ll be a few typically Andro and Eve activities to keep everyone amused. So we hope to see you there, at Café 9, on January 27th. Tickets are available here!

A REYT QUEER EXTRAVAGANZA: OUR BIGGEST PARTY EVER!

Staying Queer during COVID-19

Calling Kings of the North!

Gender Troubles: The Butches

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