Arts & Entertainment
Best of Gay D.C. 2016: NIGHTLIFE
Blade readers voted for their nightlife favorites
Best Dance Party
Mixtape
Runner-up: BARE by LURe
DJs Shea Van Horn and Matt Bailer host Mixtape, an alternative dance party, on the second Saturday of each month. Locations vary. The fifth annual Mixtape Halloween party is on Monday, Oct. 31 at the Howard Theatre. It’s at the 9:30 Club on Saturday, Nov. 12.
Mixtape (Photo by Dave Claypool)
Best Bartender
Dito Sevilla, Dito’s Bar at Floriana
1602 17th St., N.W.
Runner-up: Dusty Martinez, Trade
Dito Sevilla (Washington Blade photo by Michael Key)
Best Burlesque Dancer
Bella La Blanc
Runner-up: GiGi Holliday
Bella La Blanc is a housewife and mother of three, but unlike most wives and mothers, she’s a showgirl who has found a way to play multiple roles in her life and not just on stage.
La Blanc, originally from Miami, says she was a theater kid who first fell in love with burlesque after watching “Gypsy.” She then watched “Funny Girl” and once she came of legal age decided she wanted to emulate Barbra Streisand’s Fanny Brice. Her journey led her to frequent fetish clubs, at the time the only place to find burlesque shows.
Now La Blanc regularly performs at the Bier Baron Tavern and has her own burlesque production company Glit-O-Rama Productions. She’s also become known for her cos-play of Regina Mills from “Once Upon a Time.”
La Blanc says her showgirl life is an open book for her kids who often see an evening gown and a vat of crystals strung out on the dining room table after dinner in her Northern Virginia home. Events like this make it all the more fitting that her tagline is “The Stepford Wife gone wild!”
For La Blanc, burlesque is all about pride in being who you are.
“As an exhibitionist I love being on stage and I love sparkly things,” La Blanc says. “But I find that self-empowerment, self-confidence is what burlesque is all about. I go on stage and I’m like, ‘Yeah, I’m a 30-something-year old woman. This body has popped out babies and I’m still going to wear next to nothing and shake my bacon.” (Mariah Cooper)
Bella La Blanc (Photo courtesy of La Blanc)
Best Cocktail
Lemon Squeeze
Duplex Diner
2004 18th St., N.W.
202-265-7828
(Second consecutive win in this category)
Runner-up: Watermelon Basil Slush, Logan Tavern
A bartender makes a Lemon Squeeze at Duplex Diner. (Washington Blade photo by Michael Key)
Best DJ
Matt Bailer
Peach Pit, Mixtape
(Second consecutive win in this category)
Runner-up: DJ Tezrah
DJ Matt Bailer (Washington Blade photo by Michael Key)
Best Drag King
Chris Jay
Runner-up: Sebastian Katz
Chris Jay — who identifies as gender non-conforming and goes by Chris Jennings in non-drag endeavors — started drag three-and-a-half years ago, led to the craft by photography.
Interested in finding some different subjects, he happened upon the D.C. Kings four years ago and started shooting as many of their performances as he could. About six months later, he started with the Kings and continues to this day.
“I’m a lover of R&B, so you’ll find me performing that mostly,” Jay says. “My drag persona is me at a thousand, so I’m kind of full of myself and way more outgoing.”
Now with Pretty Boi Drag (the Kings folded two years ago), Jay performs twice a month — the first Sunday of each at Acre 121 and the third Sunday of each month at the Bier Baron. Jay is 36, happily partnered and lives in Baltimore. (Joey DiGuglielmo)
Chris Jay (Photo courtesy of Chris Jay)
Best Drag Queen
Tatianna
Runner-up: Ba’Naka
While Tatianna has been a drag nightlife staple in D.C., for the rest of the nation she had dropped off the radar in between her appearance on the second season of “RuPaul’s Drag Race” and her reemergence in “RuPaul’s Drag Race All Stars 2.”
In her original season, Tatianna, who hails from Falls Church, Va., became a stand-out competitor when she won Snatch Game with her eerily on point imitation of Britney Spears circa 2005. Her taglines, “Thank you” and “Choices” also made her a fan favorite.
In “All Stars 2” Tatianna was booted from the show by fellow queen Alaska not once, but twice. However before leaving she yet again left an impression on the judges with her spoken word performance of “Same Parts,” an ode to men at parties who hit on her and don’t realize she also has the “same parts.”
The local queen also dressed up as T-Boz for her last runway challenge impressing both the judges and fans.
Tatianna can frequently be found performing at Town and has said her favorite celebrities to impersonate are Britney Spears, Ariana Grande and Miley Cyrus. Tatianna has mentioned on “RuPaul’s Drag Race” that she first began doing drag in middle school at age 14.
Since leaving the show, Tatianna is ready to continue working hard on her career.
“You can expect to see me everywhere because I’m traveling the world, dropping new music and saying ‘Yes!’ to any and all projects,” Tatianna told the Huffington Post following her exit from the show. (Mariah Cooper)
Tatianna (Washington Blade photo by Hugh Clarke)
Best Drag Show
Ladies of Town
Fridays and Saturdays at 10:30 p.m.
Town Danceboutique
2009 8th St., N.W.
Runner-up: Pretty Boi Drag
Ladies of Town (Washington Blade photo by Michael Key)
Best Gay-Friendly Straight Bar
Dacha Beer Garden
1600 7th St., N.W.
202-524-8790
(Second consecutive win in this category)
Runner-up: Black Cat
Dacha Beer Garden (Washington Blade photo by Michael Key)
Best Go-Go Dancer/Stripper
Dylan Knight
Runner-up: Christian Lezzil
Dylan Knight (Photo by David Claypool; courtesy Knight)
Tatianna isn’t the only star to launch from Town Danceboutique. Dylan Knight started gyrating lasciviously about 2010 after seeing other go-go dancers there.
He’s a weekly regular at Town and performs there and elsewhere, never taking himself too seriously.
“I just try to be entertaining and cute,” the 25-year-old D.C. resident says.
He’s also honored to win — “It feels good, I didn’t think I would.”
Knight dances nude sometimes and has shot more than 100 gay porn scenes since 2012 (favorite co-star? Colby Jansen).
He got his famous shamrock tattoo at Ocean City at age 18 when he was there for his senior trip. “My boyfriend and I got matching tattoos,” he says. “I’m Irish and pretty lucky, so it fits.” (Joey DiGuglielmo)
Best Happy Hour
D.C. Bear Crüe Bear Happy Hour
Every Friday at 6 p.m.
Town Danceboutique
2009 8th St., N.W.
Runner-up: Number Nine
D.C. Bear Crüe Bear Happy Hour (Washington Blade photo by Hugh Clarke)
Hottest Bar Staff
Nellie’s
900 U St., N.W.
Runner-up: Town Patio
Nellie’s Sports Bar (Washington Blade photo by Hugh Clarke)
Best Live Music
9:30 Club
815 V St., N.W.
(A perennial favorite in this category)
Runner-up: Black Cat
Troye Sivan performs at the 9:30 Club (Photo by Katherine Gaines)
Best Neighborhood Bar
JR.’s Bar & Grill
1519 17th St., N.W.
(A perennial favorite in this category)
Runner-up: Uproar
JR.’s (Washington Blade photo by Pete Exis)
Best Outside-the-District Bar
Freddie’s Beach Bar
555 S. 23rd St.
Arlington, Va.
(A winner of this award many times previously)
Runner-up: Grand Central (Baltimore)
Freddie’s Beach Bar and Grill (Washington Blade photo by Hugh Clarke)
Best Outdoor Drinking
Town Patio
Town Danceboutique
2009 8th St., N.W.
(Second consecutive win in this category)
Runner-up: Dacha Beer Garden
Town Patio (Washington Blade photo by Michael Key)
Best Place for Guys Night Out
Ziegfeld’s/Secrets
1824 Half St., S.W.
(Second consecutive win in this category)
Runner-up: D.C. Bear Crüe Bear Happy Hour
Ziegfeld’s-Secrets (Washington Blade file photo by Michael Key)
Best Place for Girls Night Out
BARE by LURe
Every third Saturday of the month at Cobalt
1639 R St., N.W.
(Second consecutive win in this category)
Runner-up: WhiskHER
BARE by LURe (Washington Blade photo by Damien Salas)
Best Rehoboth Bar
Blue Moon
35 Baltimore Ave.
Rehoboth Beach, Del.
(Second consecutive win in this category)
Runner-up: Aqua
Blue Moon (Washington Blade photo by Michael Key)
Best Rehoboth Bartender
Matt Urban, Blue Moon
35 Baltimore Ave.
Rehoboth Beach, Del.
Runner-up: Jamie Romano, Purple Parrot
Matt Urban has been behind the bar at the venerable Blue Moon for 14 years. His friendly, reserved demeanor keeps the customers coming back year after year. He says the best part of the job is “meeting so many different people and catching up with friends.” Originally from Wilmington, he lives in Rehoboth with his wife.
Matt Urban (Photo courtesy Urban)
Best Rooftop
Uproar Lounge & Restaurant
639 Florida Ave., N.W.
Runner-up: Nellie’s
UpRoar rooftop (Washington Blade photo by Hugh Clarke)
Best Singer or Band
Frankie & Betty
(Second consecutive win in this category)
Runner-up: Wicked Jezabel
Frankie & Betty (Washington Blade photo by Michael Key)
Best Transgender Performer
Gigi Paris Couture
Runner-up: Lady Dane
Gigi Paris Couture started performing 20 years ago. She was just hanging out in drag one night at a bar and one of the performers was a no-show.
“They asked me to perform and I liked it,” Couture, a veteran of Ziegfeld’s, Town, Freddie’s, Cobalt, Perry’s and many others, says.
She performs weekly and works by day as a stylist at the Cosset Aveda in Crystal City, Va., near where she resides in Alexandria.
Couture, who’s single, says many trans performers work right alongside drag queens. She acknowledges there is “occasional tension, but nothing major.”
“There’s always something funny at every show,” Couture says. “That’s the nature of the business. A pastie can come off, duct tape might fall off or a piece of jewelry might fall on someone’s eggs during brunch. Little funny things that make people laugh.”
She’s happy to win this new category, a Washington Blade Best of Gay D.C. first.
“It’s an honor to be acknowledged for something I have enjoyed doing for so long.” (Joey DiGuglielmo)
Gigi Paris Couture (Photo courtesy of Couture)
To see winners in other categories in the Washington Blade’s Best of Gay D.C. 2016 Awards, click here.
Puerto Rico
Bad Bunny shares Super Bowl stage with Ricky Martin, Lady Gaga
Puerto Rican activist celebrates half time show
Bad Bunny on Sunday shared the stage with Ricky Martin and Lady Gaga at the Super Bowl halftime show in Santa Clara, Calif.
Martin came out as gay in 2010. Gaga, who headlined the 2017 Super Bowl halftime show, is bisexual. Bad Bunny has championed LGBTQ rights in his native Puerto Rico and elsewhere.
“Not only was a sophisticated political statement, but it was a celebration of who we are as Puerto Ricans,” Pedro Julio Serrano, president of the LGBTQ+ Federation of Puerto Rico, told the Washington Blade on Monday. “That includes us as LGBTQ+ people by including a ground-breaking superstar and legend, Ricky Martin singing an anti-colonial anthem and showcasing Young Miko, an up-and-coming star at La Casita. And, of course, having queer icon Lady Gaga sing salsa was the cherry on the top.”
La Casita is a house that Bad Bunny included in his residency in San Juan, the Puerto Rican capital, last year. He recreated it during the halftime show.
“His performance brought us together as Puerto Ricans, as Latin Americans, as Americans (from the Americas) and as human beings,” said Serrano. “He embraced his own words by showcasing, through his performance, that the ‘only thing more powerful than hate is love.’”
Drag artists perform for crowds in towns across Virginia. The photographer follows Gerryatrick, Shenandoah, Climaxx, Emerald Envy among others over eight months as they perform at venues in the Virginia towns of Staunton, Harrisonburg and Fredericksburg.
(Washington Blade photos by Landon Shackelford)
Books
New book explores homosexuality in ancient cultures
‘Queer Thing About Sin’ explains impact of religious credo in Greece, Rome
‘The Queer Thing About Sin’
By Harry Tanner
c.2025, Bloomsbury
$28/259 pages
Nobody likes you very much.
That’s how it seems sometimes, doesn’t it? Nobody wants to see you around, they don’t want to hear your voice, they can’t stand the thought of your existence and they’d really rather you just go away. It’s infuriating, and in the new book “The Queer Thing About Sin” by Harry Tanner, you’ll see how we got to this point.
When he was a teenager, Harry Tanner says that he thought he “was going to hell.”
For years, he’d been attracted to men and he prayed that it would stop. He asked for help from a lay minister who offered Tanner websites meant to repress his urges, but they weren’t the panacea Tanner hoped for. It wasn’t until he went to college that he found the answers he needed and “stopped fearing God’s retribution.”
Being gay wasn’t a sin. Not ever, but he “still wanted to know why Western culture believed it was for so long.”
Historically, many believe that older men were sexual “mentors” for teenage boys, but Tanner says that in ancient Greece and Rome, same-sex relationships were common between male partners of equal age and between differently-aged pairs, alike. Clarity comes by understanding relationships between husbands and wives then, and careful translation of the word “boy,” to show that age wasn’t a factor, but superiority and inferiority were.
In ancient Athens, queer love was considered to be “noble” but after the Persians sacked Athens, sex between men instead became an acceptable act of aggression aimed at conquered enemies. Raping a male prisoner was encouraged but, “Gay men became symbols of a depraved lack of self-control and abstinence.”
Later Greeks believed that men could turn into women “if they weren’t sufficiently virile.” Biblical interpretations point to more conflict; Leviticus specifically bans queer sex but “the Sumerians actively encouraged it.” The Egyptians hated it, but “there are sporadic clues that same-sex partners lived together in ancient Egypt.”
Says Tanner, “all is not what it seems.”
So you say you’re not really into ancient history. If it’s not your thing, then “The Queer Thing About Sin” won’t be, either.
Just know that if you skip this book, you’re missing out on the kind of excitement you get from reading mythology, but what’s here is true, and a much wider view than mere folklore. Author Harry Tanner invites readers to go deep inside philosophy, religion, and ancient culture, but the information he brings is not dry. No, there are major battles brought to life here, vanquished enemies and death – but also love, acceptance, even encouragement that the citizens of yore in many societies embraced and enjoyed. Tanner explains carefully how religious credo tied in with homosexuality (or didn’t) and he brings readers up to speed through recent times.
While this is not a breezy vacation read or a curl-up-with-a-blanket kind of book, “The Queer Thing About Sin” is absolutely worth spending time with. If you’re a thinking person and can give yourself a chance to ponder, you’ll like it very much.
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