Last weekend was an exciting one in the world of queer performance as it marked the opening of the 4th installment of LaMama Squirts, a performance series featuring emerging queer talent curated and hosted by Dan Fishback. The series features an eclectic group of performers showcasing new work, among them, Banjela Davis, the funny and sardonic host of Legends Statements and Stars, a queer talk show that features unknown queer talent as daily guests, wrapped in funny and relevant commentary around the current state of our community and politics. The show develops over six segments as part of the weekly Squirts program lineup and was independently created and produced by Zach Frater and a team of friends and supporters.
I sit down with Zach, who identifies as Banjela’s cousin, to talk about the creation of the character and the drive and inspiration behind the show. You can check out Episode 2 at the end of the interview!
Photography by Christian Cisneros (@cisnegros) & Cristóbal Guerra (@farifos)
“…Banjela is less of a drag character and more of this ‘round the way chick with a little knowledge to spit and a few gripes with the way things are. Basically me as a girl.”
Cristóbal Guerra: So, tell me a bit about how Banjela Davis was born…
Zach Frater: Banjela came out of…well originally it was a joke because somebody asked me to do a reading at this bar in Park Slope about drag and I wanted to kind of poke fun at this idea of a drag queen giving an academic talk and I also wanted to incorporate my own message so I named her Banjela as in “banjee.” To me she is very much part of this generation – she is very much into social media, she reads Tumblr, she is basically a modern-day Angela Davis but from Brooklyn. At the beginning it was all about black politics I was inspired by people like Sister Souljah and of course the actual Black Panthers, but I also was looking at blaxploitation films and a lot of hip hop artists like Da Brat and Eve who I think gave a lot of androgynous looks that inspired me. Because I am broke I knew I wouldn’t be able to afford pads and hair and a lot of the extras so I decided I was just gonna rock the natural look which so far I am very pleased with. I wore my own natural hair and just bought clothes that fit my body and let it be what it is to me, Banjela is less of a drag character and more of this ‘round the way chick with a little knowledge to spit and a few gripes with the way things are. Basically me as a girl.
CG: What about the roster of artists featured on her show? “The undersung and the overhyped” from DJ’s to performers to dog-walkers, it’s pretty diverse, how did the selection occur?
ZF: The whole point of Legends Statements & Stars was to highlight diverse artists on the queer spectrum. The idea was to create a platform for young queer artists, the first place I looked to find the artists were my friends who do all types of shit. For the sake of the live taping I tried to limit the roster to performance artists but I kept those terms pretty loose because to me it’s more interesting when you see something unexpected. People hear performance and they think you’re going to have a singer, but I would love to have a pole dancer or a busker just somebody you wouldn’t think to interview. Moving forward I would love to have people with a little more I’ll say “street cred” as in there’s levels to this s*** . It’s legends statements and stars…I want to interview all of them. I want the show to be such that you watch one week for Harmonica Sunbeam and then it’s some gay club musician from Jersey you never heard of.
CG: La Mama itself is also a great platform for emerging queer talent, how did this collaboration come about? What was the process like of developing Banjela’s show alongside the Squirts line up?
ZF: Dan Fishback pretty much just came up to me; we had worked together on the Miss Krayola Pageant so he was already familiar with Banjela and where she wanted to go. Working on this alongside the Squirts cast was amazing, everybody has been super into each other’s work and really supportive. We met once a month and shared our progress on our individual pieces and we would always follow it up with a decompressor where we invited past Squirts performers and guests of this year to drink and eat and meet with us. I think because we’re all doing something so completely different that it reduces the competitive atmosphere and makes it more about how we can each be the best “we.” Maybe it’s premature but I think we achieved that.
CG: Did you work with a team? Solo? What was the experience like for you.
ZF: Developing the show was not easy, basically I started off taking classes at Manhattan Neighborhood Network in studio production so I learned to use the cameras and switchboard in the studio. Initially one of the girls in my class was going to be our co-producer but then things got weird so we didn’t do that. The music and the set and the visuals I did myself but it took a community to actually make this happen. I invited friends to rehearsals to show them what we were working on and to see if it was funny to our peers (which I honestly did not think would be at La Mama). I was definitely more concerned with making them laugh than anything, later on in the game, I posted about the show and Kaimi, who at the time was just another person on the gram, was raving about Banjela and how much he liked the name. At that point we were looking for a producer and he seemed like the perfect person because he had studied broadcast journalism and also because he looks good which is very important on TV. So I wrote a part for him and he ended up becoming the announcer for the show. Honestly we all help each other; Charles came with me look to look for shoes and helped with my makeup, my boyfriend gave me all these clothes to wear from his job, and Kaimi filled in all the loose ends he even bought me accessories and took me to the salon. It was just a huge group effort and I could not have done it without such an amazing support system.
CG: Banjela seems very aware and hilariously critical of queer “radical douchebaggery” and “white trifle.” How much do the politics of community and race influence the work?
ZF: Yeah I mean that was always kind of the point, Banjela came about at a time when I was getting a little disillusioned with the whole radical queer scene which started to feel a suffocating. I was walking on eggshells, but still invested in the politics of it so instead of removing myself entirely I decided to flip it and poke fun at this whole situation where we have trigger warnings for almost anything and every week there is a march, but it’s also about me. I wrote a monologue for squirts about growing up not knowing I was black which was really vulnerable, but also something I like to joke about. Banjela definitely is kind of an outlet for my own racial anxieties, she is a miserable mulatto after all.
CG: We’ve seen Banjela as host of the Miss Krayola back in 2014, an intergenerational pageant for drag newcomers. That was a really interesting event! Any places we can see more of Banjela on stage for 2016? And how can we keep up with you?
ZF: Well after Squirts I want to compile all the footage and edit it into a little promo for Legends, Statements & Stars. As for live performance, Banjela as a concept is relatively new and I definitely hope to keep growing as a performer. This year Squirts is amazing exposure for me and is making me think that this is something I might actually want to chase. The high of performing, letting my inner thoughts come to light and exploring the feminine side of myself…that has always been there.
keep up with my stunts on IG @gammafag
Video by Yunique Palmer:
————————-
Squirts will be presented at La Mama Experimental Theater Club
January 15 – January 24, 2016
Fridays & Saturdays at 10pm, Sundays at 6pm
The Club @ LaMama | 74a East 4th Street (3rd Floor), NYC
Click here for tickets and more info
