THE ART OF AVANT DRAG

The Art of Avant Drag examines Drag's expansive nature, going beyond the binary Drag of Kings and Queens to focus on everything in between—Drag Slugs, Drag Skunks, Drag Cars, and Drag Punks. Through a series of performance exercises alongside theoretical readings, the class will engage with critical Drag that challenges societal norms. We will explore queer theorists and drag artists who subvert and debunk normative logic and narrative, reading the texts, “The White to Be Angry: Vaginal Davis’s Terrorist Drag,” by José Esteban Muñoz’s, chapters from Halberstram’s “The Queer Art of Failure” and Muñoz’s “Cruising Utopia: The Then And There of Queer Futurity”.​  Alongside these readings, the class will guide students the practical steps to create and develop their own Drag personas. Using performance techniques that center on clowning, (non-)acting, "low art," Trash, free-writing, pop, lip-syncing, Camp, and embodied movement exercises, students will explore various approaches to making Drag. The class will culminate in a presentation of the students' final Drag creations. By the end of this course, students will gain a historical understanding of Drag, as well as be fully immersed in the creative process of making a Drag persona.
THIS CLASS IS AVAILABLE IN PERSON
​AT ABRONS ARTS CENTER:
466 Grand Street, NY, NY

THURSDAYS 6-8 PM EST
April 3rd - 24th, 2025
4 sessions +
culminating share out on Wednesday, April 30th
$250 Tuition
BIPOC/trans/disabled sliding scale available
50% low income discount available
+ $25 non-refundable registration fee

INSTRUCTOR

Reed Rushes is a British-American performance artist based in Queens, New York. Their multimedia practice centers on queer fantasy. Using Drag, movement, video, and both found and self-made objects, they deconstruct the boundaries between human bodies, emotional affect, and objects. As Exeunt Magazine notes, “defying the boundaries of skin, enacting solidarity instead,” they explore queer modes of connection and world-building. In 2018, Rushes won Europe’s largest Drag King competition “brilliantly subverting extreme masculinity” (The Guardian). Their work has been shown at The Park Avenue Armory, Performance Space New York, BOFFO and Art Omi. They are a 2025 Queer Art Fellow.
Image credit : Elyse Mertz
This program is supported through a Cultural Development Fund grant from the New York Department of Cultural Affairs.
Our classes are made possible by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature.