On Friday, 17th May 2019, Afroqueer Podcast held its first ever Live Recording event at a packed venue in Nairobi, Kenya.
We started the day off at the FitCliqueAfrica space with an Afrikan yoga and meditation session, followed by a shame burning and community fire ceremony. This was a space that was curated to make attendees feel warm, loved and refreshed. It set the vibe to what was a night filled with positive energy and vibrations.
Simultaneously, we had the Kiki in Kenya photo exhibition showing. Kiki is a subculture of voguing. Once a social gathering for young men of color in New York at health outreach programs where they received HIV prevention counseling, it is now a formal creative expression with a ballroom scene. In Kenya, Kiki is an underground culture reimagined and practiced by the Ishtar Dolls, a community of gender non-conforming performers who have embraced and Kenyanized this form of expression, as part of their engagement with global black cultural resistance.
None on Record brought the Ishtar Dolls and Twiggy Pucci Garçon – the internationally renowned gatekeeper of ballroom culture, a consultant on the TV show Pose, and the co-writer of the film Kiki – together for a day of learning, sharing, and growth. The photo exhibition was a culmination of what happened after this.
At 7 pm, the live storytelling session began and we heard coming out stories from 6 Queer storytellers whose experiences were diverse. The stories resonated with the crowd and having them shared on the International Day against Homophobia, Biphobia, and Transphobia gave this event an elevated plane.
After this everyone was free to mingle and shop from Queer vendors who’d set up stalls for the night, with awesome music from the DJs of the night.
