As a small, nondescript bar off Regent St in Redfern began to fill up, I didn’t know what to expect. A dingy room set the scene: curtains drawn, lights down low. The walls were covered in a cacophonic display of art, mirrors, and, in one extreme instance, the back half of a gazelle; a welcome bohemian respite from the bustle of the digital age. This was the Bearded Tit, a queer bar nestled in inner-city Sydney, with a heavy focus on community and performance. With regular trivia evenings, queer performances (known as ‘Queerbourhood’) and their iconic Sad Dyke Sundays, there was a clear focus on nurturing the queer community, and supporting queer art.
I had come here at the last second, invited by a friend who was knee-deep in the Sydney art scene. I didn’t know what would happen, but I knew it would be good.
The lights dimmed and the MC finished the Acknowledgement of Country, before announcing “A Diabolical Kala-ma-tia-no A one woman Dionysian mystery Complete with permanent erection! She asks that you get up and dance, doll.” A gorgeous, glitzy, three horned devil sprang from the shadows at the back of the room. Weaving their way through the crowd, performer Yoland Frost was adorned in an exquisite horned headpiece, draped in scraps of cloth, with a magnificent monstrous phallus on display. She enraptured the crowd, fluidly dancing through them, enchanting and affronting to the delight of all. As the sounds of prominent Greek singer Stelios Kazantzidis filled the room, Frost delivered a magnetic celebration of queerness, cultural heritage, and the joy of being free.
There were five acts in total, with performers Yolanda Frost, Izzy Ashido, Dia Spice, Richard Tanumi, and Betty Grumble all presenting their own interpretations upon the idea of what a ‘Beastie’ was. My personal highlight of the evening saw performer Izzy Ashido don a fantastical feathered headpiece, with a jagged beak and dark red maw jutting from beneath a bleached white bundle of feathers. They were alien and glorious, alternating between an effortlessly fluid motion in one moment, and a jerky, staccato motion the next. Paired with an asymmetric, haunting piece of music, Ashido created the feeling of something both ethereal and dangerous, of being uneasy in one’s own body. I felt confronted by something both deeply personal and utterly alien.
Beasties concluded with a celebratory display of bodily acceptance from performer Bettie Grumble. Beginning the piece fully covered, Grumble disrobed further and further as the music progressed, with the final item removed being her mask. The piece concluded with a then fully nude figure wildly dancing across the stage in a cacophony of movement, performing a ‘lip sync’ with their vagina, before covering it in blood red paint. It was a surreal experience, and something I have never witnessed before.
The costumes were made up of detritus lying around director and curator Alli Wolf’s studio. The figures are made-up monsters, both in the metaphorical sense of their own nonexistence, but also in the physical truth of their own amalgamation from spare items. It went further than that, though. In a way, the detritus came, not just from the costumes themselves, but also from the people who wear them.
Through the assemblages we were constantly shown flashes of skin, taut muscles, exposed torsos. As much as the congealed masks and cobbled-together clothing pieces had the feeling of something out of place, so too did the bodies replicate this. For so many in the queer community, bodies are a source of shame and definition, not just in the case of the ‘gay’ community with its extreme focus on physical appearance (otters, bears, twinks, etc.). This also rings true for trans and gender-diverse individuals, who have for so long grappled with a hostile society, looking to define them through biological appendages that aren’t reflective of their identity. Beasties gave both the performers and audiences an ability to celebrate these bodies, to acknowledge both the hurt and the joy that comes from being queer, and the freedom, both of expression and of movement, in being able to rejoice in our own form.
Each performance was framed around a central axis of dance and movement. Beasts would roam throughout the venue, amongst the crowd of onlookers. Audience participation was encouraged, bringing up individuals onto the stage to share in the act of performing. Performance is a crucial part of contemporary queer history; the joy of donning sequins and rhinestones for Mardi Gras, covering oneself in feather boas for an outrageous drag show, and partying your little queer heart out. But also the fear: the use of Polari (gay slang derived from carnival speak) because English was too dangerous, the role of lavender marriages (het-presenting marriage of convenience, traditionally to conceal a lesbian woman and gay man) and the risk of being disowned by your family simply for existing. Beasties brought all this and more to the fore within the crowded front room of the Bearded Tit, creating a lens into a queer past, paying tribute to those who came before, and sharing queer joy in increasingly troubling times.
Beasties felt like a celebration of that performance, embracing the fear, a statement announcing ‘we are here, we are damaged, we’ve been vilified, ostracised. Our bodies have been judged and our existence threatened, but we are beautiful and free’. Beasties creator Alli Wolf built a monument to queer joy and a celebration of everything that came before, and I cannot appreciate it enough.
Beasties played at the Bearded Tit from 12 – 28 March 2025.
