IDKE Archives

Some more pics from IDKE 10 in columbus

2009-02-28T13:11:00.001-05:00

Hi folks:

Here is a link to some more lovely pictures from IDKE 10:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/kurzawaphotography/sets/72157608981060497/

Enjoy!
Donna Troka

T-shirts from past IDKEs

2008-06-17T19:53:00.003-04:00

I've left past IDKEs with lots of great things...ideas, new ways of seeing, contacts, etc., and not to mention T-shirts! Looking forward to IDKE.X

GendeRevolution from IDKE Chicago

Howdy from IDKE Austin

IDKE X - website is live

2008-05-05T16:36:00.002-04:00

thought this would be good to pass along
-------

Hello everybody,
Just wanted to let you all know that the IDKE X
site is up at http://www.idkex.com

This is a work in progress so please bear with me if
info is missing or links don't work.

GALLERY:
We are working on the History section of the site
where a gallery of past IDKE photos can be placed.
If any of you have any images from Dragdom, Showcase,
Brunch or hanging out with your friends during IDKE
weekends over the past 10 years please send them to:
cieloproductions@ yahoo.com
200 dpi .jpeg 3 x 5 inch images should be fine.
Oh yeah and please send RGB (color images) B&W works
too...just make sure to convert CMYK images to RGB to
save on file size.

Thanks guys and I look forward to the build up and
weekend of X!
Kingly Regards,
Ken

IDKE Yearbook on Facebook

2008-04-26T20:05:00.002-04:00

I was cleaning out my inbox, and found this message from Flare that I thought would be good to pass along...

Hello everyone

If you go to Facebook and Search Idke Johnson (which is the code name for IDKE Yearbook) http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1054750742

I have created a spot full of photo albums to start a yearbook. Each album contains a category (never missed an IDKE, created something at IDKE, Key Note Speaker, etc.). I've attached the list for all non-facebook users.

If you would like to join as a friend that would be great. If you would like to add a head shot of yourself to the project please email me at
idkeyearbook@gmail.com

Please forward to all lovers and participants of IDKE. If you think a new album should be created just let me know.

thank you
Drag King Flare

some of dj's photos from IDKE 9- Vancouver

2008-04-07T21:52:00.006-04:00

I can't believe I have not posted some of these already.
Sorry yall. Here goes:

Picture of some Board members after a breakfast meeting:

Left to Right: Sammy (Vancouver), dd (Austin, Texas), Erin (Columbus, Ohio), Jodi (Portland), Mel (Oakland), Kentucky Fried Woman (Oakland), Kristin (Winnipeg)
Kneeling in front: Julie (Columbus, Ohio) & Donna (Atlanta, Georgia)

And here is one of some kids from Portland:

Austin REPRESENT:

Trouble from Toronto:

And some sparkly west coast tap:

there you go. enjoy!

From idke.7 (winnipeg)

2008-04-04T13:33:00.003-04:00

Mementos

2007-12-22T17:48:00.000-05:00

I ran across these and thought I'd share in preparation for the new year, and IDKE's 10th celebration!

idke8 photos are up!

2006-12-31T00:10:00.000-05:00

hi folks,
enjoy.
love, heywood.

IDKE.8 - Get Your Politics Off Your T-Shirt

2006-11-22T10:50:00.000-05:00

This and other IDKE.8 related posts are on my own blog, with more to come, but for now DJ Love asked that I re-post it here, and I wanted to oblige.
---------------------
From the IDKE.8 (Austin, TX) website:

GET YOUR POLITICS OFF YOUR T-SHIRT: RADICALLY CHARGING PERFORMANCE (Room 3.128 - Sinclair), 2:00 Â 3:00, Nicole Garneau

Are you a drag king who is pissed off about how things are running? Do you want to put your acts in the service of social or political change? What do you want your drag performances to SAY? Get your politics off your T-shirt and work on integrating deeper levels of content into your performances. As a form of performance that utilizes the human body, especially the gendered/genderqueer/queer body, drag kinging could be called inherently political artwork. But what are our messages? How do we use our performances as a strategy for creating the world we want to live in? How do we actually practice and perform that world on stage? Engage in lively discussion and participate in exercises designed to generate new performance material with politically charged content. This workshop is for anyone who is interested in using their performance to combat oppression and fight for liberation.

About the facilitator:
Nicole Garneau was born in Chicago, IL , in 1970. In 1993-94, Nicole worked as an actor in the Theatre of Moscow South-West, performing in Russian. Since returning to Chicago, she has built an interdisciplinary performance practice of site-specific, movement-based solo and collaborative performance art that often addresses a political issue; text-based works; percussive music, singing, and gender performance. In 2005, Nicole created HEAT:05, a durational art project in which she performed every day of the year in order to mark 10 years since the 1995 Chicago heat wave disaster. For 10 years, Nicole has worked closely with Insight Arts, an arts organization located in the East Rogers Park neighborhood of Chicago that is dedicated to increasing access to cultural work that promotes social justice and defends human rights. Nicole's work is informed by feminism; struggle against white supremacy; the politics of the female body; sexuality; spirituality; violence against women and children; the prison-industrial complex; the death penalty; her experiences living and working in Moscow, Russia; and the 1995 Chicago heat wave disaster. She is interested in creating performance and visual artwork that is directly political, critically conscious, and community building. For more information, please visit www.nicolegarneau.com.

See the whole page of IDKE.8 Conference Sessions

I think that out of the four IDKEs that I've attended (including IDKE.8), theconferencee organized by the Austin dragsters is my overall favorite. (Maybe when I have more time later I'll post about some of the other session highlights from conferences past.)

Before I even got to the room the session was being held in, I admired its starting premise. Rather than starting with the debate about whether or not politics should be incorporated into drag, "Get Your Politics Off Your T-Shirt" begins instead by asking how can we better integrate our political messages into performance. (While I fully recognize that it is important to continue having conversations about the place of politics in performance--after all, on this point we certainly do not all agree--it was nice to also be able to have the kind of discussion Garneau facilitated which takes that conversation to another level.)

Despite having a room practically (if not in reality) filled to capacity, Garneau quickly got to business--we did a quick (okay, well so it wasn't all that quick since there were so many of us) go-around of introductions and what drew us to the session. After that Garneau offered us a quick introduction where she referenced someone and a theater/performance theory/concept of theirs, but I can't recall it at the moment and don't have my notes in front of me... (Hmm...I think she also offered to email something out to participants...I should double-check with her.)

In any case, she then asked the attendees to shout out some of the various political concerns that we currently have--I remember being slightly surprised at what was and wasn't mentioned through this call and response. (I think that there were three or four different issues that we tackled, but again I can't recall them all...but my group was assigned the topic of same-sex marriage.)

Once we had a sampling of political messages that we wanted to portray, we assembled into smaller groups and were charged with the task of creating atableaua vivant of sorts depicting our topic. We had about five minutes to discuss how we wanted to construct our tableau, to actually do it, and then to review the tableau created by our fellow group mates.

It all happened very fast, and while I'm sure that we could have easily taken more time to discuss the issue, to share how group members understood and felt about the issue, and to brainstorm possible ways of depicting it, it was also really amazing to not have that time and to still be able to create a scene with anembeddedd political message. Having to do such quick work showed me that timely inclusion of such political incorporation is possible.

The discussions that we had afterwards about what people saw in particular positions and gestures of our performance made for interesting and enlightening dialogue. I liked this aspect of being both audience and performer, and having the space to talk about ourselves in both roles.

It also felt especially good to use our bodies/move in the course of a conference session. Talk about audience participation and active involvement!

It would have been amazing to see what else we all would have come up with given more time...definitely the kind of conference session I hope to see again at future IDKEs.

article on idke 8

2006-11-10T22:20:00.000-05:00

check it out:

http://www.statesman.com/search/content/news/stories/local/10/22/22drag.html

IDKE 8 Austin-sunday brunch

2006-11-02T16:02:00.000-05:00

woody on the guitar at the brunch:

kfw & jake danger, emcees at the brunch:

some of the austin crew and some of the board:

here are the austin cuties giving cherry a tiara and wand to say thanks for her hard work:

here is scott turner schofield saying something about the number three:

IDKE 8 Austin-saturday

2006-11-02T15:44:00.000-05:00

picture of the some of the board members after our saturday morning meeting.

back row L to R: dante, kentucky fried woman, mel, cody, julie, quid
middle row L to R: jodi, kristin, rain, alana
front row: me and ken

here is a cute pic of tamale and johnny t, the emcees for the showcase:

pictures from dragdom

2006-11-02T15:28:00.000-05:00

i just want to get these pictures from dragdom up. when i have time later, i will add commentary.

quid and mariah:

this/that way and jolie:

jodi bon jodi and me:

mel, tanner, venus envy and me:

jr stranger (my brother from another mother), johnny t. and me:

i will post pictures from saturday and sunday next

IDKE 8 Movie

2006-11-01T22:26:00.000-05:00

Click To Play

Just for fun, a little slideshow/movie of IDKE 8.

Ooops, there is no sound...a mistake on my part. I'll try to fix it and repost.
Sorry

DKurinal

2006-11-01T19:35:00.000-05:00

One of my favorite pictures from Austin!

dj's post-IDKE 8 friday conference

2006-10-31T19:45:00.000-05:00

*here is a post from my personal blog. i would love any corrections, comments or suggestions. thanks yall*

happy halloween yall. get yerself a beverage, this is a long ass post.

i am so sorry it has taken me nearly two weeks to post about IDKE 8 in Austin.
i always have such a hard time getting back into the swing of things and work and life have been more hectic than usual.
so lets get to it. i am going to do this day by day. that is the only way it is manageable for me.
in my last post, you will find the pictures i took on thursday at the meet and great. they are mostly of the folks i was staying with, so i am not going to re-post them here. overally, the meet and greet was fun. we had a few drinks and went home fairly early b/c folks had to be at work the next day and i knew that friday was going to be a full day for me.

so the first thing i attended on friday was the "butch on butch" panel put on by amber billey, debbie linn and sam bryer from chicago. we had a problem parking, so we got there late, but luckily they were just finishing up introductions. you were basically supposed to say your name and one word (or phrase) that you thought of when you thought of butch. i said "hot."

the room was really full with folks sitting on the floor and crowding in. what i was most taken by was the generational diversity of the group. walking into the room, the first thing i saw was a number of what i would call "old school" butches or studs, you know the folks who fought the fight long before i even figured out i was queer. that felt really good. i was also really excited that there was a discussion of the difference between "stud" and "butch" and how race and culture influence the understanding of those two words. one person, from st. louis (maybe?) said something like "look, i am 36 years old and i still identify as a stud, butch is something i aspire to be one day, its a process." i just liked the way that s/he articulated a history that many of us forget. overall it was a very lively discussion. i also liked this one younger person who talked about working in a deli with other liberal and/or queer types and how because s/he is the most "butch looking" person there, folks expect hir to take out the trash and shit. just a nice way to talk about the expectations of masculinity. it was a rich discussion. i am glad i went.

after that, i went to the "making history: documenting our performance cultures & communities" panel by julie applegate, christa (simon) and alana kumbier. it was interesting to hear all the projects that have been done and are being done by folks to save all the memories created both at IDKE and in their own communities. they passed out this great little zine that is a wonderful "how to" archive your own work. they also let us know about a blog that you can post to. its address is:

www.idkearchives.blogspot.com

they asked that folks cross post their posts about IDKE 8 there. i plan to. i missed a good part of the end of the talk b/c i was helping this random woman with her two adorable twin babies. i forget their names by now, but they were about 7 months old and girls and adorable. one was skinnier and very wiggly and one was chubbier and more chill. when the wiggly one got REAL wiggly and sort of loud, i asked the mom if she needed help occupying the chill one (who started to get a little not so chill) so all hell wouldn't break loose. she handed me chillbaby and she immediately became mesmerized by my long luxurious locks (read: my stringy greasy straight hair) and my chin. with my help, the mom lady (who was from austin) was able to stay through most of the panel. we bid our adieus outside the room when the babies really started fussing. so many people asked me if those were my babies. i was like "nope, i was just an instant nanny."

If you have any questions about archiving, please contact one or all of the following people:

Julie Applegate/Jake Wakeman: vespadyke@yahoo.com
Alana Kumbier/Redrider: dragarchivist@yahoo.com
Christa Orth/Simon LeBongo: christamae@yahoo.com

they are smart folks and they can help you.

after that i had lunch and hung out a bit with my new friend jodi bon jodi who is on the idke board. then i headed to the film shorts. some of my favorites were:

1. "the sea calls us home" by annie simpson- because trevor endeavor was in it. hot.

2. "les maladventures de zut-alors" by jeanne stern- the whole thing is about these two sort of party blower sock puppets. fucking ingenious and hilarious.

3. "miggy n lil" by bug davidson-weird but engaging film about this butcher who falls for this femmey hustler girl. i am not sure i completely "got it" but you should check it out.

4. "lez side story" by hedia maron & faye driscoll- also HIlarious. fruits. queers. dancing. chains. a must see for the whole family.

the last thing i did on friday was facilitate the race caucus. now this was requested by jolie harris last year at winnipeg and i said i was interested then. so for the last few months six of us (jolie harris, dd chandler? cummings?, sand chang, mel corn, matt richardson and myself) have been discussing how to best organize a race caucus at IDKE. we decided that splitting into affinity groups based on racial identity for the first thirty minutes and then spending the next thirty minutes together as an entire group was best. each group had a set of questions they were to discuss.

Topics for the people of color affinity group:
• How do we use our performances to explore race? What does that look like, and why is it important?
• As audience members and performers, when have we been offended? When have we decided to leave spaces because of fucked up race politics on and/or off stage? How have we confronted others who participate in the offensive performance, or if we haven't, what are the barriers?
• What does being "colorblind" mean? Is it possible?
• Is it okay for people of color to appropriate music by people of color from a different racial group? How does power play into this?
What is the difference between impersonation and interpretation? Can a performer responsibly and respectfully do cross-racial performances?
------------------------------------------------------------

Topics for the white affinity group:
• Why do we adopt racial tropes/stereotypes in our performances? What are the alternatives?
• What does being “colorblind” mean? Is it possible?
• How can white people use gender/drag performance to intentionally explore race? What does it look like? Why is it important?
• If we see someone in our troupe or on stage doing a performance that makes us uncomfortable because of the race issues involved, what can we do about it?
What is the difference between impersonation and interpretation? Can a performer responsibly and respectfully do cross-racial performances?

now first of all, i thought we would have MAYBE 25 people at this session. while it was scheduled when nothing else was scheduled, i figured it was the end of the day and really i thought not that many folks care to talk about race, racism and how both intersect with IDKE. i was wrong. we had probably between 75 and 100 people there. and lots of them were white folks (something i also didn't expect).

mel and i facilitated the white affinity group. it went pretty well. there were a lot more people than we anticipated, so i did not have enough handouts and i think that it may have been easier to handle and hear if we broke into two groups of white people. the feedback i got privately from some of the folks in the group was that as facilitators, we should have taken those particpants who said problematic things to task. i think they were probably right and i am trying to figure out a way to incorporate more of a "talk back" structure when we do this again. i do think that most of the things i did not agree with that were said, were in some way addressed by other members of the white affinity group, so that, to me, is good, but i agree that sometimes, things that may be hurtful or violent to others sometimes need to be identified as such by the folks facilitating.

the most interesting thing (to me) of the "coming back together" part was the number of white people in the room who vocalized how they felt tension in the room. i didn't feel the tension, but i think if people did, its a good thing. i think the tension is that "uncomfortable-ness" that we white folks have when our race privilege is exposed. to me, that tension was a sign of transformation. of movement. so i welcome it.

a lot of the participants thanked us as facilitators for putting on the caucus and said they were really glad it has become an institutionalized part of the conference. while it was exhausting and frustrating at some points, i mostly felt exhiliarated and blessed to be amongst so many amazing people who were willing to engage in hard discussions about race, racism, power and privilege. i felt humbled and proud to be a part of the IDKE community.

ok this has gotten way too long and i have to head out to meet someone for drinks. i am going to have to post about dragdom tomorrow. there will be pictures, i promise.

IDKE8 on YouTube

2006-10-25T13:14:00.000-04:00

A UT Austin student did a segment about IDKE8. Here it is on YouTube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rzr9uRQTs3s

IDKE Dragdom Video: Sordid Collective

2006-10-23T19:25:00.000-04:00

Click to Play

clip from dragdom

Let the collecting begin!

2006-10-16T14:48:00.000-04:00

Welcome to the first post to the IDKE Archives. This blog will serve as a depository for photos, videos, pictures, stories about the International Drag Kingcommunity Extravaganza. IDKE was founded in October 1999 in Columbus, Ohio and was envisioned as an international gathering of drag king enthusiasts from all over the world. The first event featured performances from 25 drag kings and other gender bending performers from all over North America.

Since the first year of the event, IDKE has travelled to Minneapolis, Chicago, Winnipeg and now to Austin for IDKE 8.
This blog will be an experiment in community archiving, so start by posting comments with your email address and you will recieve an invitation to join the blog community and will be able to post your own stories of IDKE.

Welcome aboard.