Drag Open Mic At Cafe Rasasvada Creates Unique Art Community

On a Sunday eve, the not so happening parts of Hyderabad City in Nanakramguda has seen a drag event for the very first time. A newly opened queer-friendly space Café Rasasvada (Pronounced Rasa- swadha) has hosted a Queer open mic for the very first time. Curated by Dragvanti and Humans of Nirvana this open mic was intent to articulate and bring hidden art which people wanted to present in this evening. More than 100 people turned up to be a part of this event and around 7 people performed in the event ranging from Poetry to Stan-up, Music, Drag, Storytelling, Erotic Poetry and socializing.

The performance line up started with Patruni dressing up in drag and singing folk songs of multiple languages such as Hindi, Telugu, Bihari, Awadhi and English. The drag persona Suffocated art specimen was quite an anchor to attach the crowd. It was a deliberate performance to move into space in drag to keep the eyeballs turning and then start with the event. The songs chosen were having multiple flavours of issues such as caste bias, being in Closet, women rights, devotional and surrendering to the creator.

Following the performance, Xen a visual artist shared her poem about an erotic expression which made the entire audience think and retrospect the idea of eroticism. There were two musical performances by Pavan and Sai where the former played a wonderful song on Ukelele and sang some wonderful tunes of Hindi music. Pavan also entertained the audience with his wonderful comic sense with his Stand-up performance. The event followed with poems by Ragavendra Chivukulla and an import singing by Hyderabad based Stylist Aniket Shah followed by stories shared by the other audiences

Ace Telugu Actor and former Bigboss contestant Kireeti Damaraju was a part of the event and shared his thoughts on the importance of cultivating new communities with places like Rasasvada. Founder of Humans of Nirvana, Bhagi Sravani added that she indeed believes that there should be more spaces and clubs welcoming the incredible art of drag and treat it as an Art form without any stigma or prejudice. As places are opening, they should ensure to include everyone to make Hyderabad most inclusive city.

Patruni Sastry the founder of Dragvanti stressed the importance of spaces for drag and how it can help this new artform flourish like in Bangalore and Delhi. They also pointed out on supporting Local artists and drag queens as that is how we can build a city of acceptance.

The event ended with a vote of thanks given by Arunima Raghavan owner of Café Rasasvada for all the audience who attended the event and made it successful.