Quick n’ Dirty Residency & Cabaret 2024

KAJOL (he/she) is a drag creative who came to life at Pride Berlin in 2017. Named after the 90's bollywood actress, KAJOL is a storyteller, live singer & lip sync performer. She delves into her theatre education and professional experience to bring a big dose of camp and stupidity into her drag performances. This allows her to tell difficult stories through the lens of humour. Outside of drag, Keith Fernandez is a professional theatre maker, performer, director and dramaturg. He has an active community practice entitled Sustainable Opulence - reimaging what drag can look like through a sustainable lens. Through this project he has engaged the drag community in considering how they can bring, reuse, upcycling, skill sharing and environmental consciousness into their drag practice. She is currently working on an original piece of theatre based on her South Asian identity that engages with drag, South Asian dance forms, projection design, musical theatre and lipsync. You can find her on instagram @queerkajol (Photo by Chris Lau)

Proud Urban IndigiQueer Anishinaabe Kwe, who’s home territory is Sagamok Anishnawbek First Nations located on the north shore of Lake Huron. D.B. along with her comedy sisters founded Manifest Destiny’s Child Comedy Collective in 2017. While with MDC she has taken the stage for events like The Toronto International Film Festival, Royal Ontario Museum’s Friday Night Live, and Art Gallery of Ontario’s First Thursday. D.B. has curated comedy shows for the Comedy is Art festival and tours with Got Land Comedy. D.B.'s comedy is rooted in her Indigeneity, focuses on making fun of colonization, misogyny and racism, just enough to make white men uncomfortable.

D.B. has graced the cover of the NOW magazine’s 2021 Love Your Body issue, D.B.'s alter ego, Madame Ode’Miin Surprise founded IndigiBabes Burlesque collective with a goal to celebrate Indigenous Bodies, reclaim sexuality and sensuality that is rooted in Indigenous ways of Knowing and being. As well as creating spaces to celebrate and showcase Indigenous, brilliance, joy and success. IndigiBabes Burlesque was founded on the belief that everyone is sacred and sexy. Madame Ode’Minn Surprise along with the IndigiBabes focus on changing the narrative of Indigenous Women and 2 Spirit People. IndigiBabes Burlesque is taking Toronto by storm! Madame Ode’Miin Surprise and the IndigiBabes Burlesque have taken the stage at the Nogojiwanong Indigenous Fringe Festival, Toronto Indigenous Arts Festival, Indigenous Fashion Arts Festival, 2 Spirit Cabaret, Pride Toronto and the 34th and 35th annual Weesageechak Begins to Dance.

Instagram: @db.mcleod

Oliver Twirl - Drag Monarch (they/them) - Born on Treaty 6 land and currently planted in Treaty 7 territory: Small in stature, and with a Publicly-Funded Flat Chest: this performer twirls around the spectrum in search of the best parts of all genders. Disabled and dreaming of a flesh suit that doesn't hurt all the time: it’s Oliver Twirl!

Oliver is a disabled non-binary performer and playwright creating queer art whenever possible. They have Mennonite ancestry from their mothers side, and their father was adopted into a Dutch Catholic family. Raised on the stage, they have performed and worked with various professional and amateur companies including Gwaandak Theatre, Incendiary Festival, Theatre Calgary, Arts Commons, Play Between Your Thighs, Fake Mustache Drag Troupe, Rosebud Theatre, and MCS Theatre. They have been writing since they were young and have recently begun dreaming about disabled happiness and queer love being freely represented in art.

SPLAT aka Eish Van Wieren is a white (Dutch/UK) trans-nonbinary transdisciplinary theatre practitioner, performer, playwright, mask maker and costumer currently based in Tkarón:to/Toronto. They are an IATSE 873 permit in the costume department. The wonders of plants, animals and magic, along with the horror of their dysmorphia, inform their creation of creatures, stories and masks. They are interested in using the wonderful to explore the terrible. Eish integrates full face masks, movement and design into their work to explore transness, mess, queer temporality and transformation. Eish is passionate about staging trans/queer stories while building teams that reflect the stories on stage. They've performed in cabarets, gendered performance shows, and as a performance artist across the country.

Eish holds an MFA in performance creation, is an alumni of Playwright’s Workshop Montreal Young Creator’s Unit 2021-2022, Tarragon Theatre’s Extended Young Playwriting Unit 2021, Nightwood Innovators 2022-2023 and Factory Theatre’s Playwriting TEPS cohort. Their work has been supported by the Canada Council, Toronto Arts Council, Ontario Arts Council, Theatre Outre, Buddies in Bad Times, Playwright’s Workshop Montreal, Canadian Stage, Swallow-a-Bicycle, Nightwood Theatre, Factory Theatre and more. In August 2023 they studied mask making and physical theatre with Berlin based company Familie Flöz with generous support from the Canada Council. You can find Eish on Instagram @splatbonfitz_productions

Tygr Willy is Canada's Them Fatale, recently has been featured in such productions as; Kreative Council’s Kreative Kulture, Indigibabes Burlesque, East King Production’s Kings & Classics, Cabaret Calgary, Satine Rielle’s Zodiak Burlesque, Sugar Holiday’s Sugar Shack, and Buddies in Bad Time’s Queer Pride Weekend and New Year Eve nights! They toured with their ‘sisters’ Gei Ping Hohl and Sophie Stiquée in their drag girl group 'The Rice Queens' in Calgary and Ottawa.

Tyler J Sloane – They/Them. As an Anishinaabe (Oji-cree), Chinese, White mixed race Non-binary artist, their work emphasises marginalised voices with an intrinsic intersectional lens and artistic framework. As a trans racial adoptee growing up in a predominantly white community, their desire to represent the beauty of experiencing racialization and queerness to translate it through stories and artistry is inherent.

Select Theatre credits; My Sister's Rage (Tarragon Theatre); Crystalize (Caminos Festival 2019 - Aluna Theatre); Switch the Village (the Switch Collective); Youth/Elder's Project (Buddies in Bad Times); Select Film credits; Everland (Dance Made in Canada, Guelph Dance Screen Dance Series 2023); Club Kid Alley (ImagineNative 2023); 1 Queen 5 Queers – Season 2: Episode 7, Season 1: Episode 5 and Episode 8 (Crave); Exploring the Mental Health Journeys of Young Asian-Canadians – Episode 3: 'Tyler J Sloane - Surviving to Thriving' (VICE);

They are currently participating as a Fellow in Why Not Theatre's ThisGen: PROVOKE Producing Fellowship. Beyond, Tyler is a multi-disciplinary artist with a focus in Performance (Performance Art, Burlesque and Drag under the stage name Tygr Willy), Media Arts (Photography and Videography), and Visual Arts (Mural Art, Watercolour, Mixed Media). They premiered an installation (Club Kid Alley) in the ‘Transforming Grief: Loss and Togetherness in COVID-19 Pandemic’ exhibition with the city of Toronto, and are currently a participant in the ArtworxTO: Skills for Creative Entrepreneurship Program. Moreover, they recently displayed their 2-Spirit/Indigiqueer photography series 'Light Our Bodies' at Toronto Fringe Festival’s Visual Arts Gallery this past summer. They are set to reignite their show/party Thirst Nation this coming fall 2023/spring 2024 and recently screened their short film Club Kid Alley at ImagineNative in October.