Lucy Gellman Photos
Sylvia Heart.
Sylvia Heart was rocking it at center stage, squaring a yellow-bustiered chest toward the audience as Pink’s “This Used to Be A Fun House”, came fabulously to life, blaring through the speakers.
A trio of evil — but impeccably dressed — clowns danced wildly around the stage, crumbling to the ground at so much as Heart’s elongated, dominant finger. Heart took advantage of the moment, drawing her long fingers before her face as Pink announced a countdown.
Nine. Eight. Seven. Six. Five.
Heart walked closer to the back of the stage, sinking to hear knees as she crawled in and out from under the dancers’ spread legs.
Four. Three. Two. One. Fun.
Antonio.
Kadeem Devaron Wallace.
This came from the final rehearsal for Escapade: An Unusual Experience, a cabaret, dragstravaganza, and “big dance party” organized and directed by Elm City dancer Luis Antonio. The show — which features local performers Kendra Fiercex, Jessy Griz, Sylvia Heart, Kiki Lucia, Kellie Ann Lynch, Tiana Maxim Rose, Kenny Supreme, Radia Rose, and Kadeem Devaron Wallace, and is very much a tribute to the late Sassie Saltimbocca — will be held at Lyric Hall Friday at 7 p.m. and Saturday night at 5 and 8 p.m. To find out more about tickets, click here.
Antonio.
In a little over an hour, “Escapade” plays off of freak- and drag-show histories from the 1920s to today, beginning with a sort of time machine sequence that dislodges performers from their present and catapults them back to the past. Antonio’s choice of “oldies” by Ella Fitzgerald, Nina Simone, and Peggy Lee fill the air — and the stage — as dancers in and out of drag match the women’s vocal gymnastics with their moves, flirting with history and nostalgia as they move across the stage. More recent songs like “River Deep Mountain High,” which Antonio performs with his cousin against a video backdrop of him and Sassy dancing, is both infectiously upbeat and achingly sad, as if you must pinch yourself at the end to remember that Saltimbocca isn’t dancing right alongside them. A piece performed by Lynch, co-founder and artistic director of the Elm City Dance Collective, in partial drag feels timeless, as does one by the very talented Griz.
It’s not all nostalgia and memory, though. Pink and Florence & The Machine jolt the audience back into the present, and so do the performers immersed in the music, tilting toward exuberance with their every move (and there are a lot of them). There are jazzy interludes, breathtaking aerials, and smacking, funhouse fun.
Tiana Maxim Rose.
Radia Rose.
For Antonio, who secured the venue after a chance conversation with Lyric Hall’s owner, John Cavaliere, the show “is a celebration of life, a celebration of being who you are … about accepting yourself in the past and the present.” It lets Antonio pay homage to Saltimbocca, with whom he did two years of Vaudeville Frolics at the Bijou in Bridgeport, while spreading his own artistic wings in a new way. That starts with the ensemble, a group he knows through performances, parties, and networks of friends, and with the venue, which he insists really is the “best small stage in New Haven.”
“I was in Australia a couple of summers ago — I saw a drag show that had choreography, props, visuals” he said, “And I was like: ‘oh my god! New Haven needs this! I should bring this to New Haven!”
“From the moment I walked in here, I felt inspired,” he added. “It’s so unique, it’s unlike any other theater you’ve ever been to. When you walk in, you feel like you’re walking into a timepiece, you’re walking into the past. It’s like you’re being transported.”
Kendra Fiercex.
Kiki Lucia.
Since coming up with the idea, Antonio has wanted to produce a show that’s faithful to the richness of drag culture. Not only are many of the costumes from Saltimbocca’s closet, lending a layer of total intimacy to the show, but “Escapade” itself is careful to honor and highlight the venerable traditions — and intricacies — of drag performance that, as Lucia pointed out, might not be as readily on display at a midnight drag show at Partners.
“Sassie will always be on the stage. It became a reality,” he said.
That reality won’t just come alive this weekend, he added. Because he sees the show as “a work in progress,” Antonio will be debuting a “crisper” version in February, with another possible after that. Elm Citizens can count themselves lucky: people are saying that winter is finally going to settle in, and this show might be enough to keep the whole city warm.
