The Colours of Drag
Soroya Marchelle , a London-based drag artist talked about her newly established drag house , Haus of Melanin , the reasons for its formation , her experience as a POC drag artist , and the issues within the queer art community , in an interview with Aga Malik .
Congratulations on your new drag house , Haus of Melanin . How did that come about ?
Oh my God , thank you ! There are so many reasons . First of all , I still feel like people of colour are underrepresented on the drag scene . On so many drag shows . London may seem to be getting better , but the big corporations and big companies are still doing drag shows with the line-up of twenty cis white men . And this isn ’ t good enough . So me and other POC performers keep calling it out .
Last year I started running the all POC shows at the Dalston Superstore , called More Melanin . It was just celebrating POC artists , having POC DJs , performers , go-go dancers , and it ’ s kind of grown into this thing . Then last October , so this has been in the works for a long time , me and my mates thought : “ I suppose we could make a drag house .” There aren ’ t really any drag houses in London , so we could create an all POC drag house and call ourselves the Haus of Melanin . We can do our own brunches , we ’ ll run our own shows , we ’ ll book each other for different gigs . We will manage ourselves and take ownership of our own bookings . We ’ ll take up space at the venues we are performing at . It ’ s like , sorry , we can ’ t have any more cis white people on the show because the Haus of Melanin is here .
Was that important to you and to other members to create a house like that ?
Collaboratively , we just wanted to take up more space . It ’ s just nice being able to have our own residency shows , places where it ’ s just the Haus of Melanin . We can invite other POC artists to come and step in because we ’ re not available for every gig . It ’ s really important that we ’ re taking up space as POC people , creating stable venues and claiming the shows .
“ We can ’ t have any more cis white people on the show because the House of Melanin is here .”
Image : Soroya Marchelle
54 SLEUTH ISSUE 4