Pageant Queer

The unlikely marriage of contemporary performance art and the church has a rich history in New York City. From Danspace Project at St. Marks Church in the Bowery to Judson Dance Theatre, religious institutions have often offered a safe artistic home to queer artists. The newly renovated Brooklyn Studios for Dance continues this legacy in its home at the historic Cadman Congregational Church in Clinton Hill. Founded by Pepper Fajan last May, BKSD will host a night of queer performance with The Pageant of St. Sebastian on Saturday, May 7. We recently sat down with curator Arla Berman (Brooklyn drag king Oliver Fist) to speak about the evening.

It’s a cabaret/variety show with dancers, musicians, drag performers, etc. all performing works that are inspired by the figure of St. Sebastian. I just recently became aware of St. Sebastian, who has been called history’s first queer icon, or the Patron Saint of Queers. He’s the most depicted religious icon after Jesus and Mary, which is fascinating.

Queer people have used St. Sebastian as a quasi-secret code word since the Italian Renaissance. At the time, a wealthy patron might hire an artist to paint Sebastian under the guise of religious iconography with the understanding that he was really getting a male nude in exchange. So the secular tradition of this icon was to be shaped and molded by the queer community for their own purposes.

I’m excited to do something that pays homage to such an incredibly rich historic figure. I think it gives us a sense of pride as queer people to know that queers have been around forever, and that we’ve always been producing incredible works of art, and that in a way we’re unstoppable and irrepressible. I want to share that sense of pride that I get when I think about the legacy of St. Sebastian with other people in that very special space.