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Salon Roi entrepreneur Roi Barnard reflects on five decades in business

Stylist recalls AIDS epidemic — and Marilyn’s calming presence

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Roi Barnard, gay news, Washington Blade
Roi Barnard on the roof of his business Salon Roi. (Washington Blade photo by Michael Key)

For some — perhaps gay men disproportionately — the draw of a grand staircase is irresistible. Especially if one has logged much time in square-footage-starved city quarters. 

Roi Barnard looks proudly around his eponymous salon at the staircase and wall beside it decorated in images of Marilyn Monroe. 

“Fifty years I’ve been walking that staircase like Carol Burnett,” he says. “The staircase first sold me on this location. The shop can be whatever you want it to be. It can be elegant because of the staircase. It’s unique and they’re disappearing.”

Roi Barnard (Washington Blade photo by Michael Key)

Barnard still works at Salon Roi, though he sold it 12 years ago and has recently cut back his hours since a heart attack. It celebrated its 50th anniversary in business at the same location this month (Aug. 9). Ten years in, the Marilyn mural was created. Now an official D.C. landmark, she’s about to be refurbished. Barnard is celebrating the milestone with the publication of his book “Mister, are you a Lady?” A documentary is also being planned. 

Still, it’s Marilyn’s face just as much as his clients who continue to inspire him. 

“I first saw her in ‘The Asphalt Jungle’ when I was 10,” he says after having his picture taken in front of her mural painted on his roof. “I remember thinking how sad she looked despite her smile. Like me back then. After she died, I wanted to bring her with me. Now she lives on here.” 

For Barnard, the movie legend is more than a mere decorative element. He sometimes speaks of her as if she’s still around. 

“We’re going out on the roof for a picture with Marilyn,” Barnard says as he’s halfway out the bathroom window. “Come join us.”

It’s hard to believe this nimble 81-year-old survived not only ’70s excesses, the ’80s AIDS crisis and various waves of conservatism, but also a recent heart attack. He says he did it with his salon and a little help from his friends. 

Roi Barnard (Washington Blade photo by Michael Key)

“They’re my family,” Barnard says of his clients and staff. “And those who have been with me from the beginning, we’ve survived a lot. You can see it in their eyes.”

“I would say one part of the attraction of working here for me is not only the beauty of the building but also the family aspect,” says Zakiya St. Rose, a bisexual 28-year-old aesthetician at Salon Roi. “Everyone in my book (of clients) feels loved and cared for, and that’s a part of Roi’s legacy.”

Salon Roi, an upscale salon inside a cozy Woodley Park townhouse, began its life in 1969 as Charles the First, the unisex brainchild of Barnard and his former partner, Charles Stinson. 

“We were co-owners and lovers,” Barnard says. “The late ’60s and early ’70s were so incredibly wild. Be glad you weren’t there then because you probably wouldn’t be here now. Times were that wild.”

While Barnard was in a stable relationship and didn’t do drugs, he did enjoy diamond earrings, long fur coats and driving a gold Rolls Royce to Studio 54 on weekends with Stinson. At discos, they would go out on the dance floor and throw up cards in the air granting one free haircut like cost-effective wishes.

“That’s how we got them in,” he says. “We had a big house off 16th street with a big Marilyn Monroe swimming pool. Charles and I were so public and so out there. I was just coming off a fashion modeling career and we were not afraid.”

Still, he remembered challenges, even from gay folks.

“Gay people were afraid of us back then. We had a better time in the straight community,” Barnard says, frowning. “The gay community liked us but were afraid of us because we were out and they could get fired back then, especially if they worked for the federal government.”

Barnard remembers those pre-Stonewall times when, ”We had to hide everything.”

He remembers paying to go to a private party to meet other gay men and a half-hour after he left, it was raided by police. Some of the men he knew had their names printed in the paper and “they were told not to come back to work. They lost everything.”

He and Stinson each married lesbians because, “that was what you did at the time.” But times changed and a taste of freedom led to men wanting more, both gay and straight. 

“Half my clientele are straight men,” Barnard says. “They love being pampered. Before the ’60s and ’70s, men didn’t have much choice when they went to the barber. Then suddenly they had a lot more freedom in how to wear their hair. And one cookie leads to a whole box.”

This new desire for freedom led Barnard and Stinson to open a unisex salon. One goal was to spread the love to government workers. Their client lists grew from federal workers to senior officials. 

“Why couldn’t we help both men and women?” Barnard says. “Hair is hair. But it caused quite a media frenzy at the time. You see, women went to beauty parlors and men went to barber shops and the twain shall not meet.”

So Barnard and Stinson bucked convention and opened their shop to everyone, but not without controversy.

Barnard recalls being a guest of Maury Povich on D.C.’s “Panorama” and being asked to name-drop his more exclusive clients. He refused. Later, the secretary of defense stopped by his salon to thank him personally. Barnard’s stylists took care of the secretary’s entire family and to this day he is proud to serve the grandchildren of the first children he styled. 

“The children saved us,” he says, memories of the AIDS crisis giving him a haunted look.

The repression of the ’50s gave way to the freedom of the ’60s and the flamboyance of the ’70s, but the crisis of the ’80s threatened to take that all away.

“Everybody was scared,” Barnard says. “In those early days people were getting sick, a lot of people, and we didn’t know what was going on. People were losing their shops.”

He seemed unable to shake the fear of the time. 

“We still have the same eyes. I can see the ravages of war in the eyes of the girls who survived it with me. I lost five gay male hairdressers — major hairdressers,” Barnard says. “They were up-and-comers. Rising stars. I was mentoring them to open their own shops one day because that is what you do. But then suddenly they got sick and were gone. All of them. Gone.”

He says what happened in his shop happened in many shops in many other cities all over the country. Barnard jokes that before the crisis the term “gay hairdresser” was redundant but afterward, women took control of the industry because they had to. 

“We were hit hard in those days,” he says. “Robin Weir, who used to do Nancy Reagan’s hair, had a big salon on P Street. Maybe 25 or 30 hairdressers. He came to say goodbye. So many salons were closing and the owners coming to say goodbye to me.”

He describes how the crisis worsened and how salons started to look like hospital wards as sick stylists kept working despite losing their eyesight, getting tired and having to conceal blotches on their skin. 

“No one knew they were dying back then,” Barnard says. “No one knew what was going on. They were just desperately trying to get through their day. You know when you get sick you think you’ll get better and that there is a better day coming, but it didn’t come. For some it never came.”

To help his business survive, Barnard had to make two tough decisions. One was to get an instructor’s license and train all the female assistants “to the once-pompous boys” to do hair. 

“Not a single girl got sick,” Barnard says. “It was do that or lose the shop.”
The other was to leave Stinson and buy out his stake in the shop. 

“I thought drugs were changing Charles,” Barnard says. “Not a brain tumor caused by AIDS.”

Stinson, Barnard says, was becoming increasingly unstable toward his staff, his clients and his partner. Barnard had to take action, though now older and post-heart surgery he looks back with regret. 

“I should have taken him in,” he says looking around the nail room. “I could have let him work here while we watched over him and took care of him. We shouldn’t have left him alone.”

In those early days of the crisis, before Stinson knew he was sick, both he and Barnard were invited to Georgetown University to explain what they knew about gay life. The goal was to learn what about their “lifestyle” was filling the hospital wards with men who should be in the prime of their lives. 

“Our secrets were killing us,” Barnard says. “So I told them. I told what I knew.”

Barnard and Stinson took straight but intellectually curious doctors to gay bars around town and told of back rooms where sketchy sex could be had easily “in pitch dark with five, 10 men.” 

“At one bar a homeless man walked in off the street,” Barnard says, wrinkling his nose at the memory. “And right into that back room. Even if they couldn’t see him, which was a blessing, they had to be able to smell him, right?”

Barnard’s squeamishness may have saved his life.

He and Stinson introduced the doctors to Jim Graham, the director of a little walk-up clinic on 18th street called Whitman-Walker. Gay men frequented the clinic to treat “VD” or venereal diseases, now called STIs or sexually transmitted infections. 

“Jim didn’t like me telling them our secrets,” Barnard says, shaking his head. “But they had to know. We were dying.”

Back rooms began to close, but Barnard felt he needed to do more so he took his styling scissors on the road. He started doing hair for sick young men to help them feel beautiful again. He also joined DIFA, the Designing Industry Fighting AIDS. 

But like war nurses who suffer their own forms of PTSD, seeing the constant death began to take its toll. 

“One of my beautiful young friends got sick,” Barnard says. “He had these purple spots all over his face. His flesh just hung from him. His skin …”

Barnard was there to cut his friend’s hair but, “I just couldn’t do it.”

“I excused myself to sit alone on his front porch and check in with myself asking, ‘Can I do this? God, please help me.’ I finally told him, ‘I think I’m OK now. I just need some water.’ He asked me, ‘I look that bad?’ And I said, ‘Oh buddy, yeah. Yeah, you do.’”

Barnard styled his hair and warned his friend to take a picture and send it to his family before inviting them out to see him. 

Stinson’s condition deteriorated to the point where he wouldn’t last long. Barnard sent him to a friend connected with the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in California. Once known for developing a safe polio vaccine, the institute was now battling AIDS. Though well treated, Stinson would be experimented on before succumbing to the disease. 

“Over 300 people came to his funeral,” Bernard says. “Kindness came through.”

As the public learned more about the disease and the death toll eased, business slowly recovered at Salon Roi. 

“The fact that we were child-friendly saved us,” he says. “Our children in the ’80s didn’t know about AIDS. They were babies. They are still coming today with their babies.”

The business has now expanded with a spa and other services. Most of the staff still consists of women, but Barnard notes young gay men are returning to the field. Some of the old flair from the ’70s is starting to return as well. 

“Now, there is a boy who works here and is extremely flamboyant,” Barnard says. “But he has no idea what we went through before. The lifestyle had to come way down because of the backlash due to the AIDS crisis. But we came through. We survived.”

Roi Barnard says the undulations he and his business have been through in five decades would be unfathomable to Millennial or Gen Z gays. (Washington Blade photo by Michael Key)
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‘Tiger’ burning bright: an interview with Mary Timony

Today’s female-driven music scene wouldn’t be the same without her

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Mary Timony is back with a new album. (Photo by Chris Grady)

It’s hard to imagine what the current female-driven music scene would be like without Mary Timony. From Sleater-Kinney to Haim, from Angel Olsen to Mitski, the influence of Mary Timony is in every note being played, every word being sung. On her new solo album, “Untame The Tiger” (Merge), with its sly nod to Joni Mitchell, Timony has brought her many years of musical experience to the fore, resulting in what is easily her most accessible release. Beginning with the incredible six-plus minute opener “No Thirds” and continuing through the first single, “Dominoes,” and gorgeous numbers including “The Guest,” “The Dream,” and “Not The Only One,” Timony is assured to keep listeners purring along. Timony made time for an interview shortly before the album was released.

BLADE: Mary, I’d like to begin by talking to you about your musical lives in D.C. and Boston. I went to college in Boston in the early 1980s and was constantly amazed by the bands of the era such as Mission of Burma, Human Sexual Response, and ‘Til Tuesday. I moved to D.C. in the mid-1980s to go to grad school, and at the time, the music scene there was dominated by go-go music, and a smaller indie music featuring BETTY and the late Tommy Keene, among others. What do you remember about the music in D.C. as someone who grew up there?

MARY TIMONY: That’s interesting. We kind of did a switcheroo. I’m from D.C. and I moved to Boston. (In D.C.) I learned, as a teenager, about rock shows and rock music from being involved in the punk scene, the post-hardcore scene of kids here. Those are the shows I went to in high school. Basically, the Dischord (Records) bands and stuff. I saw every single Fugazi show from when they started in ’87. Before that, whatever was happening in 1985, hardcore shows by Swiz and Soulside and Kingface and I loved Ignition. Other than that, I would go see bluegrass out in Virginia and I loved go-go. I would go to see (go-go bands) Rare Essence and Trouble Funk. I was very into that stuff; that was really exciting. I think I liked go-go the most out of all of it, actually [laughs]. I would go to DC Space and 9:30 (Club), mostly for local (acts). I don’t think I ever saw BETTY, but I was a teenager then.

BLADE: Was the active music scene in Boston in the early 1990s part of the appeal for you when it came to relocating to Boston to attend Boston University?

TIMONY: The reason why I went there was because I wanted to go to a music program that was in a big university, in case I didn’t wanna study music the whole time, which is exactly what happened. I studied classical guitar for a year and then I didn’t really like the program much, so I transferred to study English. I found out about the (Boston) music scene from friends. We went to The Middle East (nightclub) and TT’s (T.T. The Bear’s nightclub). Then after college, I ended up living right down the street from The Middle East and I was there constantly.

BLADE: Good old Central Square! As a performer playing in bands including Autoclave, Helium, and Ex Hex, and as a solo artist with her own band, it’s not unreasonable to say that Mary, you are someone who plays well with others. 

TIMONY: [Big laugh.]

BLADE: What makes you such a good team player?

TIMONY: I didn’t know I was [laughs]. I’ve gone back and forth between doing solo stuff and being in bands. Mostly, I’ve done projects where I’ve written a bunch of songs and I’m trying to…I haven’t done a ton of collaborative stuff really. Ex Hex was fun because it was more collaborative. Wild Flag, the same thing, totally 100% collaborative in every way. But Helium was really my thing, but I got some great people that totally influenced it. I’ve always been doing my own thing but tried to find really good people. Music really is about connection. It’s never as good if it’s only one person’s vision. Usually, if it’s good it’s good because of the connection between the musicians. Music is a social art form, I think.

BLADE: “Untame The Tiger” is the title of your new album. In 1999, Joni Mitchell titled her album “Taming The Tiger.” Are you, in any way, making a nod to Joni?

TIMONY: A little bit because I am a huge fan. I have been since I was 18. But, it sort of came to me because I have a song called that on the record and I’m sure that probably came from ripping off Joni Mitchell. Then I just thought that’s a cool name for a record. Then I thought, “Oh, shit!” [Laughs] It’s already been taken! Then I thought about it and then I forgot about it. Then I thought about it again and finally, I was like, “It’s OK. It’s a little bit different.” And I love her!

BLADE: I’m currently reading Ann Powers’ book “Traveling: On the Path of Joni Mitchell,” which comes out in June.

TIMONY: Oh, I’m definitely going to have to read.

BLADE: Yes, please add that to your reading list. “Untame The Tiger” is your first new solo studio album in 15 years. Are there things you write and sing about on your solo records that might be out of place on an album you would record with another one of your musical outfits?

TIMONY: Yes. That’s why this ended up being a solo record. I guess it was because of the tuning of my guitar. They were more or less finished songs. I wanted the songs to sound kind of acoustic. I also wanted to play with a bunch of musicians who I really love. All those things just made it seem like a solo record. If I’m writing for a band, like Ex Hex, which is basically the other band that I do right now, they’re not finished. I bring them in (to the band members) with that band in mind.

BLADE: I love the lush instrumental section on “Thirds” and the psychedelic sounds of “Looking For The Sun” and “The Guest.” Were there things you were listening to while writing the songs for “Untame The Tiger” that were inspiring to you?

TIMONY: I was listening to a lot of music, a ton of stuff. I don’t ever try to purposely emulate anything very often, but I can’t help it. I’d rather be influenced by stuff without really thinking about it too consciously. I always have loved listening to The Left Banke’s instrumentation and The Moody Blues’ string parts. Most of the string parts come from trying to emulate The Moody Blues [laughs] or The Left Banke. I’m obsessed with The Left Banke.

BLADE: “Walk Away Renée,” right?

TIMONY: Yes. This guy, Michael Brown, was such a genius. He wrote so much stuff as a teenager. His dad was a string arranger. Anyway, I love those string parts. I was listening to this prog-rock band The Strawbs and this early (Ronnie) Dio band Elf. (The Flying) Burrito Brothers and The Byrds, too. I love Fairport Convention and Steeleye Span. Richard Thompson and I was really obsessed with Gerry Rafferty’s early solo record called “Can I Have My Money Back?” I love that record. I was listening to it a ton when I was arranging the songs.

BLADE: Why was the song “Dominoes” selected as the first single from “Untame The Tiger?”

TIMONY: I don’t know. I let other people tell me [laughs]. I really hate sequencing records and I hate choosing singles. I’m just too close to it. I can’t tell what people are going to like or not. A lot of times, the ones that I like are not the ones that other people like. I asked (the people at) the label and they suggested that. I think it’s more poppy sounding. Dave Fridmann mixed that one and “Don’t Disappear” and he’s a genius mixer. and these mixers are always very pleasing and accessible sounding. I think that has something to do with it, too.

BLADE: Earlier, we talked about your long history of playing music with others, which reminded me of your guest spot singing “All Dressed Up In Dreams,” written by gay singer/songwriter Stephin Merritt for his band The 6ths’ “Wasps’ Nest” album. 

TIMONY: He’s such a genius!

BLADE: How did that come about?

TIMONY: When I moved to Boston, for a year I lived with Claudia (Gonson of Merritt’s band The Magnetic Fields), who is his drummer. I lived in a group house in Cambridge. I was friends with Claudia, and Stephin lived a few blocks away. She told me he was making this record with guest singers they wanted to go over and sing on it. I went over there one day and he taught me the song and I sang on it.  I think he’s one of the best songwriters of the last 50 years or whatever.

BLADE: I completely agree. As someone who has collaborated with Stephin, are you aware of an LGBTQ+ following for your own music?

TIMONY: I don’t know. I think maybe a little bit. I’d love that. I love everybody who can connect with it, because all I’m trying to do is connect with people.

Mary Timony (Photo by Chris Grady)
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Sherry Vine is turning 60 — and she’s not quitting anytime soon

Legendary drag queen coming to D.C. for new show, ‘Smoke and Mirrors’

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Sherry Vine performs in D.C. on March 9. (Photo courtesy of Sherry Vine)

There are many things Sherry Vine is proud of. Throughout her 33-year-long career, the drag queen has accomplished so much — she’s released music, launched her own variety show and toured across the United States and Europe. 

But what she loves the most about her career is making people laugh. 

This calling to be a comedy queen started before her formal drag career. In high school, she remembers taking part in the musicals, and Vine would find joy in making people laugh by wittily changing song lyrics. 

“Then it just evolved into doing that as the act,” Vine said in an interview with the Blade. 

From the beginning of her career, she’s made singing live parodies a central part of her performance as a drag queen. And for her 60th birthday, she knew she wanted to put on an extravaganza. 

Vine is coming to the Woolly Mammoth on March 9 while on tour for her new show “Smoke and Mirrors,” performed and written by her. It’ll include new parodies, from Bruce Springsteen to ABBA. The D.C.-based drag queen Tara Hoot will be a special guest at the show. 

There’s a lot that led up to this milestone year for Vine. It all started with developing her character more than 30 years ago. 

Developing Sherry Vine

Vine describes her persona as a down-on-her-luck showgirl from Las Vegas with a heart of gold. 

She was always obsessed with stars like Joey Heatherton and Stella Stevens. Not to suggest those stars are down-on-their-luck showgirls, Vine said, but she wanted to evoke a sex kitten mentality. Her character eventually morphed into what it is today from these inspirations. 

But at first, Vine said she thought she had to look funny to be funny. 

“I didn’t care about the makeup. I didn’t wear big breasts. I just thought I had to look like a clown,” Vine said. 

When she moved to New York City in 1992, she was surrounded by queens who balanced being funny and gorgeous simultaneously. That was eye-opening for her, she said. 

Now, she relishes surprising people, she said. She’s been told she looks “too pretty” to be taken for a comedy queen, but that’s OK with her. 

“I want to walk out on stage, and anyone who’s never seen me, maybe they’re like, ‘Oh, she looks good,’” Vine said. “And then I started singing about poop and penis and they’re like, ‘Oh my gosh, she’s so stupid.’”

When she was starting out as a drag queen, Vine reflected that she didn’t envision doing drag as a career. She remembers not wanting to commit to it. She wanted to be a movie star, she said. 

“I kind of fought it. I loved it,” Vine said. “But I was like, I’m not doing this as a career.’”

But once she let go of fighting it, her career exploded. She got connected with RuPaul and was on two television specials in the 1990s. That support was crucial, Vine said, and helped her believe in herself more. 

“I was like, ‘Oh, OK. If this person thinks that I have something, then maybe I do,’” Vine said. 

Drag has changed — a lot 

(Photo courtesy of Sherry Vine)

The drag scene has changed drastically. Vine credits a lot of this transformation to “RuPaul’s Drag Race.” 

“When we started doing drag 30 years ago, no one in their right mind would have been like, ‘I’m going to do drag so I can make a lot of money and be famous,’” Vine said. 

Before RuPaul’s iconic single “Supermodel (You Better Work),” one of the only examples of drag the average consumer saw was “Mrs. Doubtfire,” Vine said.  

“You had to have a passion for it,” Vine said. “You had to have a calling.”

When Vine started, drag was a fringe art form that had an audience of mostly gay men. 

Nowadays, it’s mainstream. Drag is enjoyed by a much wider audience, and is more of a way to become famous. When Vine was coming up in the industry, there were few ways to get on TV and in films as a drag queen, short of playing a character that was murdered on “Law & Order,” she said. 

But even though drag has evolved and grown in popularity, Vine’s advice to drag queens has stayed the same over the years. 

“Don’t try to do something because you think someone else is doing it successfully,” Vine said. “Find what you do, and then exploit and explore that.”

Looking back, looking ahead 

Out of her multi-decade run as a drag queen, Vine said she’s most proud of the longevity of her career. There are a few people who have been in it as long as she has — Lady Bunny and Miss Coco Peru, for example. Few others have made it as long as Vine, she said.  

She stresses that she can’t take credit for creating things, but she takes pride in being one of the first drag queens to go viral on YouTube in the 2000s. Her “Bad Romance” parody, released in 2009, racked up more than 6 million views over the years. 

In the next few years, she’s looking into doing more television and film projects. Her latest show, “The Sherry Vine Variety Show,” just wrapped filming its third season. Creating this show is fulfilling a childhood dream of hers, she said. It’s an homage to “The Carol Burnett Show,” which Vine grew up watching. 

Whether it’s performing on camera or onstage, Vine doesn’t see herself quitting anytime soon. 

“I love performing and drag as much now as I did 33 years ago,” Vine said. “So I don’t see ever stopping.”

To get details on how to buy tickets to “Smoke and Mirrors,” visit woollymammoth.net/productions/sherry-vine.

(Image courtesy of Sherry Vine)
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Girls Rock! DC empowers young people through music, social justice education

Organization founded in October 2007

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Youth leaders of Girls Rock DC! (Washington Blade photo by Michael Key)

Girls Rock! DC, an organization operating at the intersection of art and activism, is dedicated to empowering young people through music and social justice education. 

Since its founding in October 2007; Girls Rock! DC has been creating a supportive, inclusive and equitable space that centers around girls and nonbinary youth, with a special emphasis on uplifting Black and Brown youth. At the core of Girls Rock! DC’s mission is a unique approach to music education, viewing it through a social justice and equity lens. 

“It’s a place where people can come explore their interest in music in a safe environment, figure out their own voice, and have a platform to say it,” Board Vice Chair Nicole Savage said.

This approach allows D.C.’s young people to build a sense of community and explore their passion for social change through after-school programs, workshops and camps.

The organization’s roots trace back to the first rock camp for girls in August 2001 in Portland, Ore. Similar camps have emerged worldwide since then, forming the International Girls Rock Camp Alliance. Girls Rock! DC is a member of this alliance, contributing to the larger community’s growth and advocacy for inclusivity in the music industry.

Girls Rock! DC’s annual programs now serve more than 100 young people and 20 adults, offering after-school programs and camps. Participants receive instruction on the electric guitar, the electric bass, keyboards, drum kits and other instruments or on a microphone and form bands to write and perform their own original songs. Beyond music, the program includes workshops on underrepresented histories in the music industry, community injustice issues and empowerment topics that include running for office and body positivity.

“I’ve been playing shows in the D.C. music scene for about six years, and I feel like Girls Rock! DC is the perfect amalgamation of everything that I stand for,” said Outreach Associate Lily Mónico. “So many music spaces are male dominated and I think there is a need for queer femme youth in music.”

Lily Mónico (Washington Blade photo by Michael Key)

The organization’s commitment to diversity and inclusion is evident not only in its leadership but also in the way it creates a safe space for queer and nonbinary individuals. Language is a crucial component, and Girls Rock! DC ensures that both campers and volunteers embrace inclusivity. 

“It is a very open and creative space, where there’s no judgment,” Zadyn Higgins, one of the youth leaders, emphasized. “It is the first time for a lot of us, to be in a space where we’re truly able to be ourselves.”

In creating a safe environment, Girls Rock! DC implements practices that include name tags with preferred names and pronouns, along with pronoun banners that help kids understand and respect diverse identities. 

“It’s really cool to watch these kids understand and just immediately get it,” said Higgins. 

Zadyn Higgins (Washington Blade photo by Michael Key)

Girls Rock! DC is also more than a music education organization; it’s a community where individuals can embark on a transformative journey that extends beyond their initial participation as campers. Many start their Girls Rock! DC experience as enthusiastic campers, learning to play instruments, forming bands and expressing their creativity in a supportive environment. The organization’s impact, however, doesn’t stop there. This inspiration leads them to volunteer and intern within the organization. 

The unique progression from camper to volunteer or intern, and eventually to a full-fledged role within the organization, exemplifies Girls Rock! DC as a place where growth is not confined to a single week of camp but extends into an ongoing, impactful journey. It’s a testament to the organization’s commitment to nurturing talent, empowering individuals and fostering a lifelong connection with the values for which Girls Rock! DC stands.

One of the highlights of Girls Rock! DC is its summer camp, where kids between 8-18 learn to play instruments, form bands, write songs and perform in just one week. Higgins shared a poignant moment from a showcase,

“To see them go from, like, crying a little bit about how scared they were to going out on the stage and performing their little hearts out was so sweet,” said Higgins.

(Photo courtesy of Frankie Amitrano of Girls Rock! D.C.)

Nzali Mwanza-Shannon, another youth leader, agreed that the camp is the highlight of the program. 

“The summer camp, I’ve met so many friends, and it’s always kind of scary coming up to the end, but after we get to perform and everything, I’m so grateful that I’ve gotten the opportunity to perform and meet new people and be so creative and do it all in a week,” said Mwanza-Shannon.

Forty-three young people who showcased their original songs and DJ sets at D.C.’s legendary 9:30 Club attended the first Girls Rock! DC camp in 2007. They performed to a crowd of 700 enthusiastic fans. The organization since then has grown exponentially, with each passing year bringing more energy, vibrancy and fun to the camp experience.

Since the pandemic, however, the organization has struggled financially, experiencing a funding shortage as well as reduced growth in attracting new members. 

Augusta Smith, who is a youth leader and a member of the band Petrichor, expressed concern about the potential impact on the unique and friendly environment that Girls Rock! DC provides. 

“We’ve kind of been really slow and barely making enough money. And this year, we’re having a funding shortage,” said Smith. 

The impact of Girls Rock! DC extends beyond musical skills, fostering leadership, self-expression and a passion for social change through creative collaboration and community power-building. Mwanza-Shannon hopes to be a part of Girls Rock! DC for a long time, 

“I want to keep on meeting new people,” said Mwanza-Shannon. “I want to keep on being able to perform at these different places and have different experiences.”

(Photo courtesy of Frankie Amitrano of Girls Rock! DC)
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