Queer performing arts festival returns to Columbus with shows at District West, Slammers

Columbus-born Fierce! International Queer Performing Arts Festival will celebrate its 10th anniversary this year with a weekend of shows Thursday through Sunday at Slammers and the District West show club.

In 2011, Fierce! founder and Columbus native Andrea Varela was in Madison, Wisconsin, on tour with “Sinfully Yours” burlesque show when she realized, after six years of doing burlesque, that there was a gap in performance opportunities for herself and other LGBTQ+ performers.

At the time, she thought, “There’s really nothing for queer folks. There’s a burlesque festival in every state of the country, but nothing specifically for queer (performers).”

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So, in 2013, Varela — who performs under the name Viva Valezz! — launched Fierce!, the “only traveling LGBTQ+ performing arts festival in the world,” Varela, 57, wrote in a press release.

The Ohio State University alum initially launched Fierce! as a burlesque festival for LGBTQ+ performers. However, she quickly realized that her co-performers wanted to venture beyond the burlesque genre.

“We immediately had a lot of drag king performers, and they felt compelled to integrate striptease into their drag acts,” Varela said.

“I reassured them, 'You don’t have to take your clothes off to be in the festival.'"

So, she re-branded the event to include all types of performers, including singers, dancers, burlesque performers and drag artists. This year, the travelling cast will feature 70 LGBTQ+ identifying performers — women, men and nonbinary — from all over the United States and Canada.

Varela is producing the 10th anniversary events with help from fellow Columbus-based performers “Butterfly” and “Neoma Day Echo” — both of whom perform in Varela’s other venture: Velvet Hearts!, a queer burlesque troupe with casts in Columbus and Pittsburgh.

From the get-go, Varela prioritized making her festival affordable and bringing the event to different cities around the country to allow LGBTQ+ individuals from all backgrounds to enjoy the show and even apply to be a part of the cast.

Varela said she wanted the festival to be inclusive of “every flavor of queer” and “incorporate every gender identity, every race, every ability (and) try to make it accessible because so much of the queer community identifies as so many different things. We want to honor every walk of queer life.”

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The festival founder ventured into the performing arts in 1998, when she began professional belly dancing at Habeeba’s Belly Dancing Studio on the Northwest Side. She naturally transitioned to doing burlesque in 2007, when she found that the art form allowed her to embrace her queer sexuality in a way she felt society never allowed her to.

Varela said burlesque enabled her to “express all of my self, my true self — the sexual parts of me, the queer parts of me, the artistic parts of me. ... As queer folks, we can’t do that all the time. Our sexuality is part of what a lot of mainstream folks don’t like to see. (Burlesque is) a way for us to express ourselves, be free and share that together.”

New to this year’s lineup is a Legacy Elderqueer Celebration, taking place Sunday at District West, 145 N. 5th St., to honor Varela and four other festival performers ages 50 and older. The festival will kick off with a free opening night party at Slammers, 202 E. Long St., at 8 p.m. on Thursday.

For the full lineup, visit fiercequeerperformingartsfest.com. General admission tickets are $20 per show at District West, and can be purchased online at districtwest614.com. Each show will feature different performers, acts and emcees. Table packages are also available.

gtucker@dispatch.com

@tucker0527

This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Fierce! festival brings burlesque, drag to District West, Slammers