By Aubrey F. Burghardt
On October 20, DiverseWorks gave us, the city’s queer community, a generous gift—the “Bayou City Be All: A Night of Performance, Fashion, and Music Beyond the Gender Binary.” The two-part event, promoted as a community-driven project, commemorated the vibrant and unapologetic art, culture, and tunes stewarded and crafted by our own gender non-conforming, genderqueer, and non-binary makers.
The Be All, while not a true ball in form (more on that later), successfully elevated and celebrated Houston’s vibrant LGBTQIA+ scene, all while supplying a symbolic vitrine for queer artists to display their art in a safe space and among supporters. The event featured productions from eight performance artists and two collectives: Black TM, B.Ames with Pebbles, Tania Breton, Junior Fernandez, Giusi and Jojo, iPOCA Collective, Jazmin Jett, Angel Lartigue, Isaac Reyes, and Y2K.
The nonprofit contemporary arts institution—with the help of an eight-person core community advisory board, countless volunteers, and a cornucopia of artists who stratify the unfastening of heteronormative society—has done it again. And by “it,” I mean really, truly pushed society’s preconceived notions on what’s for who and who is for what. It’s important to note that DiverseWorks, while not specifically a LGBTQ+ institution, has historically been (without any desire for community affirmation) an advocate platform for hosting dialogues and surveys regarding our LGBTQ+ art jurisdiction. DiverseWorks has and is doing the emotional labor—the academic research, the exploration, and the table setting, cooking, cleaning, serving, and hosting for all of us. Now let’s sit down and eat. Which is, by the way, exactly what we did at part one of the Be All—the Gender Buffet.
A week before the Be All, all were invited to gather in a gallery at MATCH to convene, meet new people, see friends, and to have a group discussion on the gender binary, non-binary identities, and the varieties that exist on the gender spectrum. What transpired was a healthy but intense conversation: we dissected the adversities of intersectional identities and the descriptors that cross-pollinate our understanding of identity. We, as a group, were asked to unpack contingent conversations of how gender non-conformity actually looks, feels, and exists. Our takeaways: it is a celebration of authenticity. Of unapologetic awareness and social progress. Of acceptance.
Attendees at the Gender Buffet. Photo: Courtesy DiverseWorks.
The actual Be All was a flurried fete of pulsating, positive, and contagious energy. All of this exceptional talent—sardined into a diverse spectrum of performances led by regional celebrities in the arts, including DJ HYPERFEMME and emcee B. AMES—had the old Walter’s on Naylor, now run by Sharespace, reinvigorated with a new life. The free event was made to be completely welcoming and accessible—contraceptives and HIV and STI testing information were littered in candy bowls, strewn across every surface in the transformed warehouse space; there were clearly marked gender-neutral bathrooms available; and fabulous colors filled the room.
Isaac Reyes performs “El Sueño” at the Bayou City Be All. Photo: Disha Khakheria, Courtesy of DiverseWorks
The performance that particularly took my breath away was Isaac Reyes’ “El Sueño,” which featured music by Rene Dupere. As Reyes entered the room dressed in a ruffled contrasting bodysuit, I anticipated a titillating drag serenade. But then, as they began lip syncing to a vibrato–toned ballad, a paper chandelier, complete with a pulley system, began to dance in a reverse-marionette fashion alongside them. Reyes and the towering figure moved in a back-and-forth rhythm of give-and-take in what was the most entrancing tango I’ve ever witnessed.
So I’m sure you’re wondering, if this was a celebration, a party of dancing and music, why was it not called a “ball?” The process of naming the event itself was one of listening, learning, and evolving, according to Ashley DeHoyos, curator at DiverseWorks. “I’m bi and, as a friend once said to me, queer and questioning,” DeHoyos says. “[I’m] new to the Houston community and to Houston’s queer culture. Bayou City Be All was a community event and part of the curatorial process was to develop a community advisory committee to really get a representation of Houston’s queer and non-binary community at the table. [The name evolved from] ‘Ball’ to ‘B’all’ to ‘Be All.’ The Bayou City Be All, while a success, wasn’t perfect in nature.”
“The name changes came from community input, a series of conversations, listening, and emails questioning cultural appropriation to determine what a ‘ball’ was and what ‘ball’ meant,” DeHoyos continues. “Also, there was a lot of pivoting. The biggest thing that happened was really understanding the importance of clear context and clear language. ‘Ball’ has different meanings in different spaces. In the non-profit [world], ‘ball’ is synonymous with ‘gala’ or ‘fundraiser.’ When we add queer/gender non-conforming context, it [relates to] notions of underground ball scenes, [made] more mainstream by the film Paris is Burning, and more recently, the TV show Pose, [and that is something] I had to navigate with the advisory committee. Asking questions like ‘Why does this matter?’ ‘Who is this project for?’ And ‘what does the terminology really mean?’”
DiverseWorks deserves a round of applause for its first incarnation of Bayou City Be All. While arguably imperfect, it is events like these that push the needle forward for non-binary and gender non-conforming performers. As local non-binary artist Traci Thiebaud so eloquently said in their performance of Cell Lust late last year: “It hurts no one but tradition to change the way we label things.”
“All of these individuals need other bookings,” DeHoyos adds. “So many queer, non-binary, gender non-conforming, and trans artists need spaces that consider their existence in totality.”
