The Fellini in Bilbao’s little drag oasis
First, the questions for the uninitiated. Do the gender and sexual orientation of each person have anything to do with this artistic expression? What are the main characteristics of a drag number and a drag show? The movement drag queen lives a second youth thanks to cinema and, especially television, which have turned this artistic current relegated to the underground into a more commercial phenomenon. Its genesis is little known and dates back to the time of the famous Stonewall riots of 1969, the pub located in the New York neighborhood of greenwich village which was the catalyst for LGBTI movement in the world.
In 1977, Barcelona hosted the first demonstration in the State for the rights of the collective. The chronicles relate how the police ended up dispersing a group of trans women and transvestites with sticks at the height of guttersin the first section of Las Ramblas. Franco had died, but the ideological corpus of Francoism was still very much alive among the police forces.
Its etymological origin is a regular source of debate, but it could respond to the initials dressed as a girl (dressed as a girl) or even dressed as a girl (dressed looking like a girl). marsha p thompson was a trans and drag activist who had a very prominent role in the first march of the Gay pride. She founded the organization STAR (Revolucionarias Activistas Travestidas Callejeras) and his figure is well remembered and appreciated in the renewed LGTBI activism. One of her lapidary phrases was: “We’ve treated each other like shit all these years, right? Now it’s our turn!”
Associated with nightlife and the cabaret world, a new generation seems to have taken over with the help of social networks, where they have made their activity visible. After many years in the doldrums, the LGTBI community began to take an interest in the drag scene thanks to the reality show ‘RuPaul’s Drag Race’. The program began to be broadcast about ten years ago and in its recent Spanish version it has enjoyed a very wide following, catapulting new drag queens to stardom (Drag Sethlas, Xtravaganza Star, Samantha Ballentines) and bringing fresh air to the movement.
After the bad drink of the pandemicthe current scene has been reinforced with the pull of the Atresmedia reality show ‘Drag Race Spain’, which seeks “the best superstar to drag through a race of challenges”. Every week, the contestants pass different tests proposed by the team before being eliminated and “thus managing to be crowned the winner.”
Old and new drag exponents
Bilbao It’s a little drag oasis Basque Country. There is not much to choose from, according to the sources consulted, but its main representatives are still at the foot of the canyon after 20 and 30 years. april rose was the winner of the last edition of the drag gala in the Biscayan capital, organized by Bilbao Bizkaia Harro, and held on June 17 on the stage of El Arenal. “April is fun and upbeat, but also a little crazy,” she said. Jara Tubet in Deia, a young make-up artist from Getxo who, at 24 years of age, came in second place. After conquering the crown, April Rose (her name comes from the combination of her birth month and her love for roses) left a resounding title: “I want to make visible that trans women also do drag.”
When asier bilbaoowner of the Key nightclub in the village (Kristo kalea, 13), started with his drag shows Tubet was not even born. The Bilbao Drag Queen It can’t be understood without him, who has been stirring up the drag scene since 1992 with his own show or with other protagonists who defy all kinds of rules. Yogurinha Borovamore than 13,000 followers in your account instagramwas the star guest last Saturday, October 29, in a performance that anticipated the night of Hallowe’en.
The Fellini they doubled in badulake: They took the stage on October 28 and repeated three days later on the most terrifying night of the year. The Bilbao venue has seen the evolution of the theater company up close, which emerged in the second half of the 1990s. The quartet made up of Nagore Gore, Caprichossi Potxaperta, jeyxi spaghetti either The new one Y Barbara Kaldo makes a very fun drag. The Fellini claim ingenuity to entertain the public. “Our show is a succession of playing musical numbers that we turn around and take out the funniest part combined with improvisation at the microphone,” they say.
the movie ‘The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert’ (1994)awarded with the Oscar for best costume design and which recounts the adventures of three transsexual cabaret artists, was the fuse that lit the career of Las Fellini. 18 years later, they are a cabaret and drag nightclub with their scathing commentary mixed with the pop hits of yesterday and today. They perform on Fridays in the Badulake room with the classic drag ingredients: performance, humor and vindication. In this scene that arose in the underground and genuinely stuck to street level, politics is also made. The social and political messages are continuous in the shows or through social networks.
The call ‘Trans Law’, which gets entangled in the Congress of Deputies and does not finish starting, is one of the main hands of the sector because, they understand, it expands rights and “it does not hurt anyone.” Asier Bilbao published on his Instagram account a “little cry” of support for the regulations to be able to “live with respect and decision”. “We are very critical, because we come from cabaret, which is based on social criticism,” he explained in Deia Nagore Gore. Bárbara Kaldo, who has been in Las Fellini for five years, believes that the group “has broken many moulds.”
The Fellini multiply through all kinds of fronts and platforms. They not only perform in their fetish room, but use Youtube as one more tool to publicize their work and spread their message. The ‘Rosaura’ web series It is still in force and is advancing unstoppably towards chapter 100, which will mark the end of his adventure; Nagore Gore news is the window to the news of the collective and in its videos serious topics such as the fight against cancer alternate with the most elementary entertainment. Bilbao transformism has remained alive, to a large extent, thanks to Las Fellini; a group that has undergone changes in its formation, overcome several crises and that is facing a new world in which the series of Netflix They seem to have improved the evening shows.
La Otxoa: The eternal return of an icon
jose antonio nielfa (Bilbao, 1947), better known as La Otxoa, left the Bilbao nightlife in January 2017. He sold his bar in the Lersundi street -a regular stop for celebrities and the most diverse celebrities for four decades- at a time when the hustle and bustle was constant and the town also breathed in the dark. This drag queen, hotelier and tireless figure of the show who dreamed of playing in the Athletic (where else?) became the first great transvestite of the State. under the wig The Otxoa revolutionized the Aste Nagusia from 1979 with the hymn to sexual freedom ‘Release’.
The lyrics of his most popular song (more than 17,000 reproductions in Spotify) goes like this: “Free yourself, free yourself, / being a sissy is not a crime. / I don’t shut it up and cry out. / Free yourself, free yourself, / if you’re alive and you’re not dead / please your body /. Take the air your banner, you don’t want to hide it / and that a bad lightning strikes the one who doesn’t want to swallow. I know why it will be”. It is estimated that in the leaden years of the Transition, La Otxoa brought together 60,000 people on the streets of Bilbao for a live performance. A mythical legend had been forged.
The artist, born in the St. Francis Streethas posted about 20 albums; the last of them ‘With much… pride’It was published in 2018. The most important song of his career, as La Otxoa has recognized, is the disco ‘Who stole my freedom’. With a style halfway between Camel Y Alaska, once again embraces the concept of sexual freedom from an affective and heartfelt perspective. Another LGTBI anthem. At 18 years old, in full Franco dictatorship, when he had not yet created his famous alter ego, José Antonio Nielfa was arrested in a macro-raid against the gay community. He stepped foot in the Barcelona prison of The model. “They took us to the Burgos prison, spending the night in Zaragoza, Palencia, Carabanchel… We made a Way of the Cross. They arrested us in March 1968 and we appeared in El Mayo frances. I always tell it, because of the difference,” he said in Deia.
That experience marked him for life. The determining figure of him in the bubbly night of Bilbao on horseback between the 70s and 80s. The musical show ‘Bilbao Bilbao’ was the icing on the cake for this shy self-confessed to carve out a well-deserved reputation for entrepreneur and have a good time without any modesty or remorse. Politics, rights and freedoms, hedonism and the fight for normalization: everything was put in the same bag. “The first period was impressive: an all against Franco. What the polimilis did seemed like works of art, although later they ended up being a drama. We are a generation that has had a bad time at different times.” The Otxoa appears when one least expects it: on October 9, it participated in the proclamation of the Pinta Alavesa Bean Fair. He sang ‘Free Yourself’, of course.