Experience Drag

Join us for a conversation that is a critical exploration of how the queer community utilizes drag as an artistic platform.

We will host a panel discussion featuring a local Drag King and Drag Queen, both alumni of UC Berkeley. The event aims to engage in an insightful panel discussion on topics including an introduction to drag (defining key terms and concepts), the specific dynamics of drag within the Bay Area, the international perspectives of drag, and opportunities to experience drag in the Bay Area. We intend to facilitate audience engagement by inviting attendees to submit their questions in writing during the talk. These questions will be reviewed and selected for discussion. To culminate the event, both panelists will deliver a performance.

Meet our panelists:

LOTUS BOY (Ze/Zir, He/Him, They/Them)

|TikTok |Instagram| @Kinglotusboy

Is a transgender, unapologetically disabled, neurodivergent, and chronically illUSTRIOUS Chinese-American drag king and anti-disciplinary artist based in occupied Lisjan Ohlone Land (Oakland, CA). Ze explores gender fluidity, accessibility, sustainability, joy, and healing from trauma through the mediums of poetry, lipsync, ancestral movement (qigong and tai chi), monologue, and original music. With every performance, he aims to evoke the audience to learn—or unlearn—something about themselves and the world around them. In 2023, LOTUS BOY won San Francisco Drag King of the Year. LOTUS BOY is on the Board of Directors for Oaklash, the Bay Area's drag festival; the Drag & Spirituality Summit; and the SPM Disability Justice Fund, which funds disability justice initiatives led by BIPOC. When not onstage, LOTUS BOY also brings drag and gender exploration workshops to high schools and universities in the Bay Area.

PHOEBE CAKES (She/Her in drag, Indifferent out of Drag)

|Instagram|YouTube|@shehaslayers

Is an award-winning dilettante, polyamorous renaissance woman, and misunderstood interdisciplinary storyteller. A poet at heart, hallmarks of her style include referentiality, irreverence, sex-positivity, and melodrama. In drag, Phoebe hosts the monthly drag show Cake Hole in Berkeley, she hosts the Bay Area-focused drag interview podcast In My Crumble Opinion, she is a founding member of the culture-forward drag troupe FiliPINX, and she has consistently won Best Talent in competition. Out of drag as Robert Andrew Perez, he authored the collection of poetry, “the field”, from Omnidawn, which was nominated for the Northern California Book Award, he cowrote the film Stone|Fruit that was featured at over 9 film festivals, and he also hosts trivia at a pizza place. Phoebe lives on occupied Ohlone Land (East Oakland) with his reactive dog, Icarus, and Icarus’s two other daddies.

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International House @ihouseberkely

If you have any questions, please contact us at [email protected].

Host or Publisher Center for Intercultural Leadership and Programs