Fashion

Bird La Bird - Bird Club

By Friction ⋅ January 8, 2009 ⋅  Email This Post ⋅  Print This Post ⋅ Post a comment

Bird Pride 2007 Photo by Alexar, Banner by Lucas and Bird
Placards by Alexar and Bird, Decorations by Shanti and Bird

Bird La Bird is the brains behind Bird Club. Bird Club is a performance space which puts queer femininity in centre stage irrespective of gender, sexual orientation or body appendages. You can live the Bird Club experience monthly every second Thursday at the Bethnal Green Working Men’s Club. Friction interviews Bird La Bird the curator and performance artist behind Bird Club

What is the Bird Club story?
Bird Club has morphed several times since we hatched in 2006. Bird Club started as a comedy act with Maria Rosa Young (Dyke Marilyn) and myself. We created Birdie characters to both subvert the stereotypes of Femmes but also to send ourselves up. We didn’t want to take ourselves or debates over identity politics too seriously.

I want to use Bird Club as a vehicle to bring together and promote artists, performers and designers. The fifth rule of Bird Club is “Anyone can be a Bird”. Wearing frilly knickers should not be dependent on what’s in them.  When I hear the word “real” before any category of person whether it’s woman, lesbian or femme I head for the hills. If you’ve ever been told you’re not “real” you’ll probably like Bird Club.

What makes Bird Club different to all the other burlesque acts out there?
What I do as Bird la Bird draws on music hall, punk, film and comedy rather than Burlesque.

Burlesque is an art form that’s been useful for many Femme performers as a way to break the drag king/masculine dominance of the queer stage. However the Burlesque scene tends to be very white. Why not have a retro scene that celebrates Rocksteady as well as Rockabilly? How about 50s Bollywood as well as Hollywood? Oh and the class snobbery really gets on my titties as well.

Bird Club is post-femme and post burlesque. However I do  hope that many of the more challenging neo-burlesque performers will come and join us on the perch.

Isn’t femininity over-represented in queer and straight worlds?
What’s interesting to examine which femininity is acceptable and which isn’t. This isn’t just about gender and sexuality it’s also about class, race and disability. I’m interested in how femininity is both demonized and highly prized.

There’s a lot of anxiety within feminism, queer and gender queer culture about expressing binary genders. While we’re right to challenge repression and enforcement of gender norms we also seem to have created a fear of being “normal”.  This can leave many femmes, transwomen, straight feminine feminists and lady transvestites feeling like we’re puppets of the Patriarchy by doing what feels good for us. Yet again it is putting politics before pleasure and that’s not very helpful to anyone.

How do you create something truly British in terms of language around gender and performance?
I want Bird Club to have a British flavour like Fish ‘n’ Chips.

I love slang, old fashioned gender nouns that are outside man / woman / male /female. Some people are perplexed by Bird Club and some of the language I use. I love it. So what if things aren’t instantly knowable and recognizable.  It’s good to have a bit of mystery. The debate round identity is way too earnest. Slang can mess it all up and bring a bit of irreverence, camp and cheekiness.

I also think colloquial words around gender that are white and working class are often assumed to be sexist and racist. The word Bird is definitely used in a derogatory way, but it’s not the whole story. I’m fascinated that birds and women are linked in language. I can’t think of another creature I’d rather be compared to than one with the power of flight.

What is your take on merchandising/branding the feminine?
This is something that’s very dear to me cos I do graphics as well as performance art. I love playing with imagery inspired by celebrity magazines, perfume, aftershave ads and fashion magazines.

Bird Club features lots of Birds of different species. I love the Bird Club banner which was a collaboration with textile artist Lucas McKenna. I want to get away from the pink for Femme/Black for Butch division. We need to move beyond this and find more interesting ways of expressing gender play visually. I love the work that the Butch is Beautiful crew are doing in Paris. They have the most interesting butch graphics I’ve seen in a long time.

To me style is at the heart of butch femme expression, so butch femme design work should reflect that deeply aesthetic and stylized sensibility, anything less is a disservice.

What has Bird Club got to say about Butch/Femme that hasn’t been said before?
I’m interested in post Butch/Femme and what happens when players themselves question and rewrite the roles.

I find the hostile reaction many non-players have towards butch/femme enthusiasts fascinating. I can’t think of another consensual sexual activity that has so much scorn and derision poured on it. I’m fascinated why many people find it so threatening and I’d like to see if that anxiety can be played with.

Is Bird Club art or activism?
It’s art, but art as in artiste rather than artist. Activism sometimes, but with a very heavy dose of humour, camp and surrealism. The most activist event Bird Club has organized was Bird Pride. That brought lots of the ladies together on the streets which hadn’t happened in London before.

A lot of activism revolves around consensus and community building. While this is essential to furthering many political causes they don’t necessarily make a good environment for making art or expressing very individualistic opinions.

I want the club to be a space where radical ladies can express themselves. There’s no reason why it can’t move between the street and the stage or dancefloor.

Tags: Bethnal Green Working Men's Club, Bird Club, Bird la Bird, Butch and femme, performance