Events

Olympia (2003)
18.30-22.00 (Runnung time 60 minutes, looped) Grand Entrance
Reworking Edouard Manet's iconic image of desire and modernity, artist George Chakravarthi  complicates the original work filming himself as 'Olympia', a sexually ambiguous figure, dark, transfixed and oblivious to his/her 'white', 'male' servant. The tension between the two figures is further filled with ambiguity, suggesting emotions of, love, hate, lust and obsession.

DJ MR MADAM
18.30-21.50 Grand Entrance
Every song has a story as MR MADAM plays tunes nicked from your big sister’s record collection and half remembered songs from those black and white movies you saw on the telly, 50 pence tat from the flea market, Oxfam show stoppers, half remembered club tunes from Do Do's to Taboo, the Bat Cave to Kinkys and a 12'' or two from the summer of love… There will also be an opportunity to make special musical requests. 

Queer Interventionist Soap Box
18.30-21.45 Grand Entrance
ACT UP!  OUTRAGE! Queer political intervention and activism lives at the V&A! Interventionist Soap Box invites a selection of artists to make a contemporary statement through short performance. Each reflects on Queer history, culture, politics, experience and life now.

18.30 Michael Twaits presents Stonewall: In homage to and a reminder of Queer roots - from the riots at the Stonewall Pub in New York to radical drag.  Dedicated to all friends of Dorothy.

19.00 Hilda Eusébio presents Queer Oracle: The Perfect Apocalypse!: As Armageddon approaches, this performance doesn’t waste any time in proclaiming the inescapable destiny that awaits us all.  The Word will be merciless in its revelation of whose souls shall be saved and whose shall not.  For there shall be weeping, wailing and gnashing of teeth...there shall be laughing and loving intensely... there shall be dancing and drinking.  The End is nigh.  Thank God, we had it coming…

19.30 Ryan Ormonde presents The Gay Gene: Ryan has cut up 1970's texts on queer theory and argot and arranged them corresponding to DNA sequencing to finally reveal The Gay Gene. For the performance he will embody The Gay Gene as a splitting, screaming, shrieking headache.

20.00 Brian Dawn Chalkley presents Manifesto of a Tranny: The Manifesto is performed live by Dawn and was written in homage to all Transvestites. The Manifesto attempts to expose the often, harsh reality of being a transvestite in a big city late at night through humour, tragedy and pathos.

20.30 Thom Shaw: A community spirit-rousing sing-along and reaction to homophobic reggae lyrics, featuring batty grinding and deluxe costuming.

21.00 Celine Hispiche/LA CELINE presents Polari Banter: Conjouring up an historical whirlwind with music and comical lyrics, Celine  brings you the modern day female William Hogarth.  Using history as her platform, come join her on a walk down the modern day Gin Lane.  Tonight be transported to London in the 60s and hear a classic Polari banter song.  

21.30 Dickie Beau presents Some kind of Candy Coloured Clown Man: Dickie Beau , in the guise of a crestfallen candy-coloured clownman, sings Ain’t Got No as a heartfelt lament … until the realisation that he has, in fact, “got life” – this realisation leads to the intervention of an inner activist dressed in black like a cat burglar/assassin, who emerges from within the clown to resolve the sentiment of the song as a newly empowered figure.

Cruising for Art
18.30-21.45 (Performances run between 3 and 5 minutes) Starting Point in Gallery 47b
Curated by Brian Lobel, Cruising for Art is a series of intimate performances which playfully explore the practice of cottaging and personal encounters in public space.  Your handkerchief is your ticket to one of the various one-on-one performances by some of London’s leading performers.  If you see someone with a matching handkerchief, eye contact, a smile, your wink may start a wild journey, a tender moment or an intimate conversation.  Wink at someone who is not one of the performers and, who knows, you may still make meaningful contact with a stranger?  Artists include Eirini Kartsaki, Russell Harris,  Mamoru Iriguchi, Liz Rosenfeld, Benjamin Sebastian, Johanna Linsley & Jan Mertens, arkem, Rachel Mars .

Places are limited. Handkerchiefs will be distributed on a timed basis. Some of the performances contain adult content. Questions about specific content can be gained in Gallery 47b. 

Oscar Wilde’s Lecture to Arts Students
19.30 & 20.10 (Performances run for 30 minutes) Lecture Theatre
Acclaimed writer and performer Christopher Green  thoughtfully reconsiders Oscar Wilde's extraordinary and prophetic Lecture to Arts Students.  Written in 1883 the talk provides a tantalising deconstruction of the role if beauty in modern life.  This lecture will explore the contemporary parallels within Wilde's aesthetic whilst pondering the question of ‘how would Oscar Wilde deal with a Powerpoint presentation?'.

Places are limited and are on a first come first served basis. 

The Great Stromboli presents…Masculinity: Truth or Bear?
18.30-21.30 (Performances run for approximately 20 minutes) Morris Room, Cafe
Hurry, hurry! Step this way to see the butchest sights in the land.  There are tall ones, there are short ones, there are thin ones, there are fat ones; and they are all inside in their full masculine glory - or are they?   Do you think you know what butch is? Do you think you understand truly what masculinity is?
Come and join in as we explore masculine stereotypes, fact or fable, male or female, and find your inner butch! We’ve got the show if you’ve got the time. 

Audience participation encouraged, contains themes and images of an adult nature which may be unsuitable for under 12’s. Places are limited.  Please sign up at the event. 

Queer Courtesan by Qasim Riza Shaheen
18.45-21.15 (Performances run for approximately 1 minute) Norfolk House Music Room, via Gallery 21
"Repeating the name of the beloved I have become the beloved myself. Whom shall I call the beloved now?" Babha Bulleh Shah (1680-1757). This intimate, voyeuristic one-on-one performance plays out the relationship between dance and seduction. View this dance through a two way mirror and be lured and seduced through expression and gesture. Selecting music from the vinyl collections of the artist and his father, a rich and at times incongruous mix of Hindi and Western, classical and pop, you decide the sound track for this one minute affair. 

Places are limited.  Please sign up at the event. Not suitable for persons under the age of 18.  Further information on the content of this event can be gained at the entrance to Gallery 21. 

Unacknowledged Acts of Desire by Scrawny Cat Theatre Company
19.15 & 20.30 (Performance runs for approximately 45 minutes) Paintings Gallery 82
Two women walk from art into life and play out their story between shadow and light. Have they lived their lives together or is that still to come? How has what exists between them marked them and coloured their worlds? Join Scrawny Cat Theatre Company as they take visitors on a journey, reinterpreting the spurned, torturous lost love depicted in a number of paintings in the gallery. Follow this tale as it playfully brings to life two Victorian women pining for a female rather than male lover.

Places are limited. Free tickets are available from the Information Desk in the Grand Entrance from 18.00.

David’s Gender Queer Life Drawing Class
Lectures at 19.30 and 20.30 (Lectures run for approximately 40 minutes) Sculpture Gallery 22
Join artist and performer David Hoyle and V&A sculpture curator Amy Mechowski in an exploration of gender construction in sculpture by looking at both 'masculine' and 'feminine' nude forms.  Life drawing classes will take place in company with their discussions throughout the evening.
This event involves discussion around gender and sexuality.

Materials are provided.  Places are limited, please sign up at the event.

The Lovers and Fighters Convention (2009)
19.00 & 20.15 (Running time: 66 minutes) Hocchauser Auditorium, Sackler Centre
Introduced by Director Mike Wyeld and members of the cast, this documentary  tells the story of one night at London's legendary Transfabulous Arts Festival. Directed by Royal Television Society Award winner Mike Wyeld, the film stars Jason Elvis Barker, Jet Moon, Ingo, Dr Jane, Tom O'Tottenham and Josephine Wilson - London Queer cabaret favourites seen regularly at the Royal Vauxhall Tavern and elsewhere.

Places are limited. Free tickets are available from the Grand Entrance Information Desk from 18.00. 
This film contains adult themes of gender and sexuality and is not suitable to persons under the age of 18. 

Kinky Gerlinky (2002)
18.30–21.45 (Running time 101 mins, looped) Sackler Lunch Room 1
Kinky Gerlinky was the biggest, most fabulous and stylish nightclub London has ever seen. Making A Scene pays homage to the venue with a dedicated space, full bar and screening of artist Dick Jewell’s  documentary, edited from over 200 hours shot on 21 nights that fully conveys the experience of a night out at the club. A fleeting phenomenon by nature, club culture is rarely recorded in any depth. This documentary provides the opportunity for a taste of the legendary club in its, glamour, excess, self-expression and fun.

Certificate 18.  This film contains mature adult themes of gender and sexuality.

Talks & Discussions

Hear curators offer alternative readings of objects, explore the histories of those who made them and look at the way sexual identity informs the way we interpret the past.

Jack Coles Queer Choreography
19.00 (approximately 20 minutes) West Room, Gallery 76
Keith Lodwick, Assistant Curator of Theatre and Performance surveys the work of queer American dancer and choreographer Jack Cole. The father of American jazz dance, Coles work includes the iconic Jayne Russell number Aint There Anyone Here For Love, one of Hollywood’s most explicitly suggestive homoerotic scenes produced under the years of the Hays Motion Picture Code. 

Places are limited. Free tickets are available from the Information Desk in the Grand Entrance from 18.00.

After Punk
19.30 (approximately 20 minutes) West Room, Gallery 76
Oliver Winchester, Assistant Curator of the forthcoming V&A exhibition Postmodernism: Style and Subversion 1970-1990 looks at Londons early 80s queer culture and the links that were forged between fashion, performance, dance, film and nightlife in a radically playful shift in the capitals cultural landscape.

Places are limited. Free tickets are available from the Information Desk in the Grand Entrance from 18.00.

Let’s Face the Music and Riot         
20.00 (approximately 15 minutes) West Room, Gallery 76
Three voices recall the heady AIDS activism of the late twentieth-century. One voice belongs to the right-wing press, another to the film-maker Derek Jarman, and the third to a boy freshly arrived in Soho.

Places are limited. Free tickets are available from the Information Desk in the Grand Entrance from 18.00.

Clothes maketh the Man?
20.00 (approximately 20 minutes) Fashion, Gallery 40
Join Christopher Breward, widely published Fashion historian and Head of Research at the V&A as he offers his own reflections on sexual identity, museum curating and the significance of clothing past and present.

Please meet at the entrance to Gallery 40, in Gallery 47a.

Women loving women
20.30 (approximately 20 minutes) West Room, Gallery 76       
Listen to Royal College of Art doctoral student Shehnaz Suterwalla as she explores how passions and politics fostered women's love and loving (or gyn-affection) at the Greenham Common Peace Camp in the early 1980s, and how a separatist, second wave feminism informed the lives of those in the radical women-only community.

Places are limited. Free tickets are available from the Information Desk in the Grand Entrance from 18.00.

Pride Legacy Project gratefully acknowledges the support of Arts Council England.

With special thanks also to Simon Casson at Duckie www.duckie.co.uk and Alice Martin.

With thanks to Mike Sperlinger, LUX www.lux.org.uk