COMMUNITY ONE BLOG
Passion Fruit: Club Kidz Alley: 2022 Rainbow Grants Recipient
Over the coming weeks we’re sharing the 39 stories of our 2022 Rainbow Grants recipients! All of these deserving projects are receiving critical grant funding as a result of your generous donations to Community One Foundation. Read more and support these projects where you can! If you’d like to see more work like this supported in our community, please consider donating to Community One!
FOUNDATION GRANT (available for up to $7,500 and are open to registered charities or groups trusteed by a registered charity)
Passion Fruit: Club Kid Alley is an arts and culture homage to the 90’s era of Queer Club Kid culture told through the artistry of Video, Drag, Music, and Immersive Performance. Presented through a short film and a Queer Sex-Positive Arts Event Experience by Torontian racialized queer Nightlife artists.
Passion Fruit originated in the early winter of 2019 with an expressed goal of providing a queer, all-gender positive artistic space for all Toronto community members lead by and for racialized queer artists.
The original collective comprised of Babia Majora, Halal Bae, DJ Kai, Imogen Quest, Keropatra, Luis, Mango Lassi, Rhinestone Chickadee, Tifa Wine, and Tygr Willy (Ty). As a self-funded project, the collective experienced a varying array of challenges creatively, artistically, and collaboratively, all the while continuing the heart of their goal. There they produced their first event Passion Fruit: Welcome to the Jungle in February 2019, transforming Glad Day Bookshop into an artistic immersive jungle with drag performances by Halal Bae and Mango Lassi, Burlesque performance by Imogen Quest, and guest artist Myst Milano. Come July of that same year, the collective transformed the bar formerly known as Club 120, for an Alien Invasion event space. Passion Fruit: Alien Invasion provided a Drag performance by Halal Bae, go-go pop-up performances by Babia Majora and Luis, and special guest artist Chippy Non-stop. For Alien Invasion they held a costume competition for the attendees to immerse themselves in the intergalactic experience. By February of 2020, the collective had shifted to being lead by Tygr Willy and Halal Bae, with collective members consisting of; Bom Bae, DJ Kai, DISCORAPHY/Raphael Sanchez, Luis, and Rhinestone Chickadee. This event, Passion Fruit: 2084, a thematic commentary on surveillance and such cultural and community references to Big Brother, LGBT surveillance, Police Brutality, and Advocacy for the collective’s respective identities incorporated: Halal Bae and Bom Bae performing respectively, with guest artists; Bliptor (Invited guest DJ, unable to attend), JORD CAMP (event support), and Sofia Fly (guest DJ).
Since the pandemic hit Toronto’s Queer community, as well as the world, many venues and spaces are disappearing that had once fostered racialized performers, promoters, and DJs. The need for spaces for folks of colour that are Queer, Arts, and Sex-Positive is incredibly crucial. Now, navigating the lessening of COVID restrictions, the collective has plans to present Passion Fruit: Club Kid Alley as a homage to the graffiti culture of Toronto combined with the queer culture of Club Kids and Toronto’s queer nightlife.
On August 13, the collective will be screening their new short film at Glad Day Bookshop at 10:30 p.m. If you would like to attend, please email to register here.
Short Film Description:
What does a night of debauchery look like for the esteemed Drag, Burlesque, and Club Kids of Toronto? Let Bom Bae guide you through as the queers get ready for a night of debauchary at the club kid manor (Spadina Museum).
Featuring Passion Fruit collective: Bom Bae, Kuya Atay, RAPHY, and Tygr Willy. Join them alongside ‘Club Kid Alley’ guest performers Babia Majora and Calypso Cosmic with cameos from Toronto legends; DeVery Bess, CoQetesh Fetish, Gay Jesus, and Ocean La’Vodka Giovanni.
Get more info about the event by clicking here.