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.
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.
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 dance – 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!
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!
The crowd enjoyed the show. Credit – Emily Obeng
Angel Blaque jumping for joy – Credit Misha Warren
Next month we launch our new zine CENTRE, with a special online event, REYT QUEER NIGHT IN, to bring our community together. And of course queer culture will be served up front and centre!
Darren Pritchard
Part of our offer is a Vogue dance workshop with Mama Ghetto aka Darren Pritchard. Darren is a performer, choreographer, producer and director. He is also a celebrated Vogue performer and Mother of the House of Ghetto Manchester. We’re thrilled he can join us to teach some Vogue moves and flair via Zoom!
Darren says ‘Vogue is important to me, because it embraces my love of dance, my love of QTIPOC culture and allows me to be me and who ever else I want to be. Through the ballroom culture as a Mother I have seen people grow and develop and do things they thought they could never do’.
Manchester’s House of Ghetto have made their name in the Manchester Vogue ball scene with tight choreography performed solely by Black female dancers. House of Ghetto also feature in documentary ‘Deep in Vogue‘, which examines the North West’s Vogue ball scene, and which premiered at BFI Flare in 2019. Darren has produced Vogue Balls throughout the UK including Manchester’s first Black Pride Vogue Ball as part of 2019’s Manchester Pride. Read more about the House of Ghetto and Darren here.
Christian Adore will be leading a PARTY EYES makeup workshop! Photo. Ndrika Anyika.
Our REYT QUEER NIGHT IN is about having fun with your community, so before getting your vogue on with Mama Ghetto, we’re encouraging you to join drag star Christian Adore with his ‘Party Eye’s’ makeup workshop, for all genders. Because remember, makeup has *no* gender! Its bound to be an irreverent and joyful way to get ready for your queer party at home!
DJ Xzan will be performing a live DJ set!
Finally, we’re super excited that DJ Xzan, will be performing a live DJ set 9 – 11pm bringing the party direct to your front room. They’ll be playing a high energy set with plenty queer pop party anthems to help you share in the queer joy. DJ Xzan aka Xandice Armah is an open format DJ from London and co founder of Gal Pals, the LGBTQ+ dance party centring womxn and excellent pop music. Xzan has supported the likes of Big Freedia, JD Samson, Anna Clavi, MNEK and Mabel, as well as playing at Glastonbury on the Sisterhood Stage.
All those who pre order a copy of CENTRE will get sent a link to the DJ set for free, but if you want to join us from 7pm, you’ll need to get your ticket via Tickets For Good. Sliding scale prices to suit all budgets are available! We hope you can join us on the 10th October, serving your best party looks, and bask in the queer joy!
CENTRE will be available on our online shop for pre sale on the 1st October and posted out around REYT QUEER NIGHT IN on 10th October. The zine is a collaboration with artist Okocha Obasi and created using Arts Council England’s COVID-19 Emergency Funding.
We are sorry to say we will not be returning to host live, in – person events until Spring 2021 at the earliest. We have taken this decision in light of the ongoing situation with COVID-19 and the need to plan ahead as best we can.
As a queer – led social enterprise, which means we put people before profit, and care of the most vulnerable and marginalised at our heart, we cannot see a scenario in which we can bring properly safe and inclusive events to our community until next year. We know many of you, like us, are struggling with anxiety about returning to any sort of normal, and we recognise that we need to adapt.
We have spoken at length with our partner venues about the measures in place to maintain social distancing, and keep audiences and workers safe. Sadly, the capacities allowed in venues would in no way enable us to cover the costs of producing the events we have become known for. We also have the health and wellbeing of our artists, staff team and volunteers to consider. A Reyt Queer Do and The Kingdom Come are meant to be joyous and cosy events. We would rather wait and bring these events back when it feels much safer to do so. Right now, we couldn’t in good faith, host live events indoors when so many people are still shielding, or taking extra precautions to protect those around them.
The crowd at A Reyt Queer Do 3, no social distancing needed back in 2019.
Under lockdown we are proud to have continued to support queer artists, delivering a range of creative activity and developing talent in the North of England. It’s been been wonderful to see new and familiar faces at our online workshops. We will be applying for more funding to continue to adapt our offer during these challenging times.
We know this has been a tough time for so many. We plan both to continue to offer online and remote activity, and take time to develop the organisation. We may start hosting in person workshops in Spring 2021, but we also realise there are many unknowns.
We’ve got plenty plans in the pipeline and will share those with you as soon as we can. If you’d like to support our work you can do so by donating via our website. Your support ensures we can continue to support LGBTQ+ artists in these difficult times.
Our new zine, CENTRE, will be launching in October, so make sure you’ve signed up to our newsletter to be the first to get your hands on a copy and hear about a special online event to mark the occasion.
We can’t wait to return with a bang when it is safe to do so. Till then, we hope you can join us online soon.
If you’ve booked for one of our events before, you’ll know we offer tickets on a sliding scale to ensure our events stay as accessible as possible. This is made possible through generous donations from the public when buying tickets, and support we receive from grant funding.
In recognition of the fact that many people’s income levels are changeable at the moment and the fact our events for the next 6 months will be online, we’ve adapted our prices for our upcoming events.
We will have three ticket bands on sale for our upcoming workshops. General, Low Income, and Solidarity. Buying a Solidarity ticket helps contribute to our Pay it Forward ticket fund, ensuring we can continue to provide cheaper and free tickets to those who need them in future. We’re very grateful to those who buy these tickets. You can also add a contribution to this fund when buying tickets.
In recognition of the fact that many who will identify with the ‘Unwaged‘ descriptors *may* be able to afford the ‘Low Income‘ ticket, and to keep things simple, we have just one ‘Low Income‘ option. However, if this price prevents you from being able to attend our workshops, we are offering free bursaries to those in restrictive financial circumstances. Visit the ticket website to find out more.
We are very excited to be back to offering creative opportunities to access queer culture and we look forward to welcoming you to an online event soon!
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.
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!
It is with deep sadness and heartbreak that we announce the cancellation of The Kingdom Come 6 which was due to take place on Saturday 21 March at Abbeydale Picture House. This event, which would have been our 21st event, is the first event we have cancelled in our 4-year history. We do this in response to the escalation of the coronavirus and its impact on our wider community.
As a queer-led social enterprise, which means we put people before profit, and care of the most vulnerable and marginalised at our heart, we felt we must take action on this matter. By cancelling this event we can potentially reduce the amount of people contracting coronavirus, limit the impact of the coronavirus on our already strained NHS, and reduce the impact on public health workers.
As a small organisation with a staff team of one person alongside our team of volunteers, we cannot in good conscience put the health of our team, our artists, or wider community at risk. The board of Andro & Eve have consulted with our team and with our contacts in the arts and business community. This collective decision is not one we have taken lightly, or without much heartache.
Much of that pain comes from the fact that we know what the Andro & Eve events mean to our community, as well as to our artists. We send our love and solidarity to those already affected by coronavirus.
Everyone who bought a ticket is of course entitled to a refund, but if you can afford to, we’d ask you to consider your ticket a donation to help support our vision to bring queer arts and culture to South Yorkshire. Cancelling this event puts our financial security as an organisation at risk.
We rely on our big events such as The Kingdom Come to financially support the running of the organisation the rest of the year. Also, we are well aware of the pressures on freelancers at this time, and this will help us ensure that we can reimburse our artists and crew for fees they will lose, and in recognition for all the hard work they have already put into this event.
If anyone would like to support us at this extremely challenging time, you can by heading to Tickets for Good and buying a ticket for The Kingdom Come, before the 21st March. You can also add a contribution to our Pay it Forward Ticket fund there too. Your donation will be used to ensure we come back stronger and better than ever at a later date.
All those who have bought a ticket for The Kingdom Come will receive a discount on tickets for our next event; we will send a discount code to the email you used to book with, on announcement of the next event. We very much appreciate the support and trust you have placed in us. Details on refunds will also be sent to the email used to book with on Tickets for Good. Alternatively, please email hello@androandeve.com for more information.
We wish to thank our partner venues, Abbeydale Picture House and Theatre Deli Sheffield for their support and guidance in this difficult time. Independent venues and businesses in Sheffield will be at real risk of closure as we move through this health crisis. If you can also donate money towards Theatre Deli Sheffield or Abbeydale Picture House, you can do so via these links.
Finally, over the coming days we will be sharing resources to support our community. If you have any questions or have seen any useful links or resources, we are happy to promote.
For now, Queercare have some excellent resources available including this Google Form if you are in need of extra support at this time.
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.
On the 16th February 2019 we came to parrrrty at Theatre Deli Sheffield with A Reyt Queer Do: Electric Dreams Edition. This queer party was hosted by Louis Cyfer with queer performance from new acts including drag kings Jamie Pizazz and King Kitt and also featured drag star on the rise, Christian Adore. Hearing the whole audience join in with Louis Cyfer’s rendition of Bohemian Rhapsody was blummin brilliant.
The crowd did not disappoint with outfits to keep your eyes popping for days, some full 80’s glam / punk / new romantic / pop realness, others dragged it up to the nines. After the queer performance (and plenty cake, courtesy of Kelham Island Kitchen), Chardine Taylor Stone ramped up the sound and the sparkly dance floor was full.
Louis Cyfer
Huge thanks to all the performers for bringing such talent and energy, to Theatre Deli for their support of our work and being lovely hosts and to Chardine Taylor Stone for the tunes. We’re eternally appreciative of our fantastic volunteers, without who, our night’s would not be the same, and of course those who came and shared in the queer joy, creating such a fab night for everyone. Until next time!
This week we hosted a QUEER HUB, in order to get feedback and ideas for an exciting programme of queer arts events that we’re planning. It was a really creative and useful session, and we’re really grateful to those that gave their time to contribute.
We also want to hear from people who have not yet attended one of our events. AND we’d love to hear from an even wider range of our audience. We’ve created a short online survey, to help us shape a programme of queer arts events, and we’d love to hear from you!
Head to this link to fill it out, it should only take 5 – 10 minutes and then you get the satisfaction of checking tick boxes and completing a task… Just us that likes that? Surely not! Seriously though, being responsive to our community is important to us. We really appreciate any feedback you can give.
Thanks very much!
Want to see more drag kings? Or are you all about a cosy film night? Or both?! Tell us!
We’ve been planning this for some time, and we’re totally thrilled to reveal our new Andro and Eve logo!
While we loved our old logo, we spent summer 2017 reflecting on Andro and Eve and one of the things we realised was how much we love our name. It felt like we needed to make more of it within our ‘brand’ and so we played with lots of ideas to do this, and realised we had to get rid of the old logo image.
Although we liked that quiff and lips picture, itsometimes wasn’t clear what they represented, for example, when the curving lines were rotated on a badge, which wasn’t ideal. By losing this image, we also show Andro and Eve is for everyone, regardless of what hair – style you choose to wear!
But mostly we’re serious about Andro and Eve. This is our grown up logo for the next phase of Andro and Eve. It represents our dedication to seriously fun, inclusive, queer events and making them happen regularly. Watch this space, follow us on social media, or sign up to our mailing list, for more announcements about our future plans soon!
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