CELEBRATING QUEER CULTURE

Meet Sigi Moonlight

a youthful East Asian drag king stands with his hands together in front of his chest. He is captured sideways onto the camera. He wears a white shirt with balck waistcoat and black jeans with black sequin detailing. He has a thin moustache and black hair with bleach blonde streak worn in a long side quiff.

We’re very excited that drag king Sigi Moonlight, will be performing at The Kingdom Come: Queer Future Edition in Sheffield next month.

You might remember him from our online discussion with Festival of Debate last year, Drag Beyond the Binary, or if you’re a long term Andro and Eve fan, you might have seen him on our stages in 2018!

Ahead of The Kingdom Come, we caught up with him. As somewhat of a chameleon in the drag scene, we thought we’d dig a bit deeper and find out more about this amazing artist!

1. We first had you perform in Sheffield in 2018. How did you get into drag?

I always used to play the male roles at the all girls’ schools I went to, and that was my first approach to performing masculinity and being on stage. I didn’t perform for a while after that. Even though I loved being on the stage, I never felt any of the castings mirrored my gender or racial identity.

Then in 2017, I saw my first ever drag king, johnsmith, who just happened to be performing in Leeds where I used to live. That was when it clicked. I took part in your king workshop led by Adam All and Apple Derrieres a month later and that’s where Sigi Moonlight was born. Shortly following that I came third in Man Up! drag king competition at The Glory, East London and it swiftly took off from there; it felt like I was meant to have been doing this all along.

an East Asian drag king, Sigi Moonlight strums a small banjo onstage. He wears a red shirt and black trousers and has short black hair with a bleach blonde streak at the front
Sigi Moonlight Performing at The Kingdom Come, 2018

2. Can you tell us about the character of Sigi and how you approach your drag performances?

My drag name is a play on Ziggy Stardust and it’s an expression of everything that’s gone a bit wrong with masculinity. Sigi was born in 2017, the same year that Donald Trump became the POTUS, and to me that spelled the beginning of the end for humanity. Just like Ziggy Stardust, Sigi is a bit of an alien sent to earth, an empty vessel who embodies different types of masculinity in order to shine a light on the weird and terrifying extremes it has reached. My “Siginature” (excuse the pun) style is taking an overtly darkly masculine character and flipping it on its head to reveal a softer, more feminine interior in the form of striptease and comedy.

3. We last caught up with you in a Festival of Debate Q&A in May 2021, what have you been up to since then?

I’ve since joined PECS Drag King Collective, graduated from drama school, got an agent, starred in an HBO series, played on a West End stage, performed in a lead role in Mulan Rouge at The Vaults in Waterloo, and been on a Netflix tour with drag race queens performing at venues across the UK promoting new forms of drag to audiences who’ve never seen a drag king before!

4. You’re part of the Bitten Peach collective. Can you tell us a bit about that, and what you enjoy about performing with them?

The Bitten Peach is the UK’s only Queer Pan-Asian Performer Collective aiming to address the balance of Asian performers on lineups in cabaret and live performance spaces as well as showcase the excellence of Asian talent on the drag and cabaret scene. I have performed in as well as hosted shows with them since they were formed in 2019.

The best thing about performing with The Bitten Peach is the strong sense of community and identity that is served up to make each and every show really special and heartfelt. It doesn’t just feel like any old “gig”; everyone is committed to performing and preparing well, and the spirit in our rehearsals and final shows is very apparent. I also love our outside social occasions like hot pot dinners and sports day events. It feels like being part of one big loving family! I’ll next be appearing in The Bitten Peach Halloween Whodunnit Show on Wednesday 19th October at The Pleasance Theatre in Islington… keep an eye on their socials for tickets!

Drag King Sigi Moonlight, a slim East Asian masc guy is pictured bearing his teeth in a fierce grimmace. He wears a white shirt with royal blue satin waist corset and dark blue brocade jacket with gold embellishments including spiked studs on the right shoulder. He also wears grey brocade trousers and dark round sunglasses. His hair is black with a white streak and styled into a side quiff.
Sigi Moonlight, who loves a 1950’s or 1960’s rebel! Credit – Captured by Corrine

5. What or who inspires you either in the world of drag or queer performance or any arts and culture?

I look to the aesthetic styles of the 50s and 60s for many of my own fashion sense, poses and direction in my photoshoots and acts. The film rebels, Marlon Brando, Montgomery Clift and James Dean, are and will forever be my idols when it comes to style and eschewing the boundaries between masculine and feminine performance onstage and onscreen. In terms of drag artists, I am in awe of the make up talents of Landon Cider, the prop and costume making skills of Oedipussi Rex and Marnie Scarlet, the charisma and voice of LoUis CYfer and Beau Jangles, and the clowning wonders of Fancy Chance. However, I’m also very amazed by the upcoming drag king talent who have emerged the last couple of years.

6. What would you like to see or make happen as part of a hopeful queer future?A mainstream show on a worldwide platform that rivals RuPaul but welcomes and celebrates drag kings. There are more and more talented kings on the scene each year, so I hope it’s only a matter of time before we enter the mainstream.

You can catch Sigi Moonlight along with our amazing line up of drag kings at The Kingdom Come #6 on Thursday 6 October. Grab your tickets now!

Follow Sigi Moonlight on Instagram @sigimoonlight or on Facebook.

Drag King Workshops Online

Next week we’re producing our first online version of our drag king workshops, and collaborating with Christian Adore to do so.

This 3 week course is designed to give participants tools needed to make an original drag character, and have some fun exploring what can be done with them! This short video gives you a good idea of what the workshops will involve and a sense of what Christian Adore is all about!

 

Workshops take place at 7.30pm GMT on the 8th, 15th and 22nd July. We might not be physically gathering in Sheffield, but there’ll be plenty Yorkshire charm!

Booking for each workshop closes at 10am the day before in order that participants have time to prepare the materials they need and get the Zoom link from us.

Sliding scale tickets available and free bursaries for those with restrictive incomes. Contact us if you’d like a free place. Or book now to get in on all the fun!

 

So What Have We Been up To?

Happy LGBT+ History Month! Its been very busy the last 6 months at Andro & Eve, so we thought it was high time we gave you all an update on what’s been going on!

In November we hosted our first Drag King Workshop Weekend in collaboration with award winning drag king Louis Cyfer, and founder of the Women’s Comedy Network, Natalie Diddams at our partner venue, Theatre Deli Sheffield. (Sidenote: Go support their fundraiser to support this brilliant indie arts space!)

13 participants from across the North of England and the Midlands joined us to learn skills in makeup, character development, gender as performance and creating comedic material, with an informal sharing at the end of the weekend. Feedback from participants was very positive, and we gained a lot of insight into what worked, and where we could push this talent development further. Comments from participants included;

‘I liked the thought, love and organisation that went into the weekend, it was wonderful. I felt very safe and cared for’.

‘I learnt it’s okay to take time and to take up space’.

Jason Andrew treated us to some vogue dance at Cast.

A few days after our Drag King Weekender we headed over to Cast in Doncaster for our first Donny event, A Reyt Northern edition of queer cabaret, A Reyt Queer Do. Louis Cyfer was back for hosting duties with performances by House of Ghetto’s Jason Andrew, and up and coming talents, Ding Frisby, Spent Reznor and Donny Lad. An audience of 60 people turned out and we were thrilled with the support, and to meet so many new faces. There was a lot of laughter in the room that night, and the 6 weeks of outreach work in the run up to the event clearly paid off. Thanks to Cast for their support in developing our audience! Doncaster folk commented

‘Thanks for an amazing night, it made hump day bright and beautiful’.

Rapper Bad Lay – Dee

We rounded off November with a big queer party and cabaret back at Theatre Deli with A Reyt Queer Do 5. This ‘Shine Like a Diamond’ edition was hosted by non – binary rapper Bad Lay Dee with performances by poet Maz Hedgehog, theatre maker Victoria Firth and drag kings Sveto Slava and Dickhead Dave Debonair. DJ Chardine Taylor – Stone from punk band Big Joanie ensured everyone got a chance to raise the roof once the performances were done.

In January we collaborated with DocFest to produce a cosy film screening at Yellow Arch. We chose to screen the brilliant documentary SILVANA, about Swedish rapper Silvana Imam, after seeing this film at Doc/Fest in 2018. The film follows Imam’s rise to fame, her experience as an immigrant in Sweden and new romance with Swedish lesbian pop star, Beatrice Eli. Cake and cosy vibes were enjoyed by all, and we think it’s is fair to say most of the audience fell hard for this lesbian power duo!

Silvana Imam and Beatrice Eli giving face

In between running all these events we successfully recruited a new Assistant Producer, Emma, who brings with her a wealth of marketing and event experience. We’ve also had some fab new volunteers join the team and been recruiting a new board of directors (more news on that coming soon) and planning our events for 2020.

Currently, Andro & Eve is featured in a new exhibition to celebrate LGBT+ History Month at Sheffield’s Central Library. It’s great to see this sort of visibility and recognition, especially at a time when mainstream media seems intent on sowing division between different communities.

We’re also gearing up for our biggest drag king cabaret to date, The Kingdom Come on 21st March at Abbeydale Picture House. It’s going to be a special Under the Sea Edition! Hosted by star on the rise Christian Adore and featuring a line up of ridiculously hot and talented drag kings, its going to be a night to remember.

Christian Adore is headed to Sheffield. Hold onto your hats!

We’re forever grateful for those in our community who have gone before, making space for the LGBT+ community to come together, and are proud to be continuing this work. But we know only too well how precarious the creation of queer friendly spaces are. Want to support your LGBT+ community now and help us continue this work? Then nab a ticket and come feel the mer love at The Kingdom Come! See you then!

A special thanks to all those who continue to support our work, giving their time, money or expertise to help us grow, and Arts Council England for funding much of the work of the last 6 months.

KW x

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