A night to celebrate queer Pride

To mark the last day of this year’s LGBTQ+ Pride Month, the Delhi-based Performers’ Consortium is putting together a special event at the What A Comic Show café in Greater Kailash-II on 30 June. Called What A Pride Night, the event will exhibit queer narratives from comics as well as illustrations, and showcase performances by queer-identifying performance artists.

“The event will be a safe space for the community to come together," says psychologist, queer activist, poet and Performers’ Consortium founder Divya Dureja. “We’re taking care of every aspect to ensure that there’s no scope for discrimination."

While the focus is on celebrating the Indian LGBTQ+ community, Dureja says they also aim to use the performance stage as a protest ground. “Some places in the world look at Pride as a victory lap, because they’ve won their rights," she says. “In others, like India, Pride is still a march. We still have a lot of issues to tackle from the legal point of view and the recognition point of view."

Some of those issues will be highlighted by Dureja’s performance, a spoken word and rap set in collaboration with DJ Lush Lata. The two have also curated a special “queer-ified" DJ set that will be accompanied by live visual storytelling. Joining them in the line-up for the night is Bengaluru-based trans femme and drag queen Randy Scarhol, whose performance will aim to shed light on what it means to be a trans person in India.

“It will be a fun performance, but I’ll also focus on how—in a very brown, desi context—trans people are used," says Scarhol. “In the heteronormative world, being femme and being queer is seen as comedy. Our lives are reduced to punchlines for straight and cis-gender people."

What A Pride Night will take place at What A Comic Show in Greater Kailash-II, Delhi, from 9pm. Cover charge, ₹ 300.