a&e features
Nina West spreads holiday cheer in two new videos
‘Drag Race’ vet says ‘Cha Cha Heels,’ ‘Quarantine Dream’ were labors of love
Nina West has two new videos she’s unleashed on the world.
In “Cha Cha Heels” she pays homage to John Waters playing iconic characters from three of his movies — Dawn Davenport in “Female Trouble,” Beverly Sutphin in “Serial Mom” and Tracy Turnblad in “Hairspray.” The song is from her 2019 Christmas EP “The West Christmas Ever.”
And in “Quarantine Dream” she worked with friend and Disney animator Dan Lund, a veteran of many classic movies such as “Frozen,” “Aladdin,” “The Lion King” and more, to mix live action/animation for the West-penned song about coping with COVID-19 induced quarantine. The three-and-a-half-minute mini-musical was filmed with a cell phone and inspired by the Disney classic “Mary Poppins.” Both are on YouTube.
West, aka Andrew Levitt, is a Columbus, Ohio-based drag performer who came to fame on season 11 of “RuPaul’s Drag Race,” where she finished sixth and was named Miss Congeniality. She made history at the 2019 Emmys for being the first to walk the red carpet in drag and was named one of the “most powerful drag queens in America” by New York Magazine the same year. West, 42, has been performing for 18 years.
WASHINGTON BLADE: So how did the concept for the “Cha Cha Heels” video come about?
NINA WEST: I’d had this big idea of a big flash mob and this huge cast and filming in the street with a bunch of people and then COVID hit. So the intention was always to do a “Cha Cha Heels” video, but we had to really adjust quickly when the time came to pull the trigger and film the video because (of restrictions). I worked with a really great director, who is a tremendous John Waters fan named Brad Hammer, and he suggested doing three different female characters in three different John Waters movies. … We filmed it with a cast of four including myself, all people were already in my bubble, so we made all the adjustments we needed to make to have a safe shoot and went there and I think the video ended up being much better for it.
BLADE: Where was it shot?
WEST: We shot it in a day in two locations here in Columbus.
BLADE: Do you have to get permission from Waters or whomever owns the films before you do something like this or is it considered a parody and thus fair game?
WEST: Yeah, it’s seen as parody so you don’t have to get a green light really. We weren’t recreating it shot by shot or telling the same story but we were lucky enough that when John saw it last week, he sent me an e-mail … saying how much he loved it and how much Divine would have loved it … so that was pretty fantastic.
BLADE: Oh wow, that must have been incredible.
WEST: I practically fell over, yeah. I’m 42 so queer Andrew coming out, John Waters movies were a huge rite of passage just as I was coming into my queerness. I wanted this to be a love letter to a queer trailblazer who has had more impact and power than I think any of us really recognize.
BLADE: Tell us about “Quarantine Dream.” How do you know Dan Lund?
WEST: I worked with him on a project called “Coaster” where he was the executive producer and we have remained in touch. He’s one of these people who’s just always talking and dreaming. His brain is constantly rolling. The day after I flew home in March, he called ….
BLADE: Where had you been?
WEST: I was on tour in Europe and then I was going back and forth from New York to L.A. working on a couple projects and I ended up in New York and I was supposed to be going to the opening of the Broadway musical “Six,” but the day it was supposed to open everything was shut down. I was panicking trying to get a flight home.
BLADE: Oh wow.
WEST: Yeah. So he suggested this and I was like, “Sure, um, OK.” I didn’t really know what he meant but then he pitched this whole treatment inspired by “Mary Poppins,” which I’m a huge, through-and-through Disney queen and “Mary Poppins” is my favorite film of all time, so when you have a Disney artist who’s worked on all these cultural touchstones, yeah, OK, I’m not gonna say no. That’s how it happened. I worked with a songwriter Markaholic who is super prolific. If you’ve seen the RuPaul Old Navy commercials, he wrote that song, he’s worked with Ru a lot and is just super talented.
BLADE: So you basically are encouraging people to take the pandemic seriously but in a fun way?
WEST: Yes. We thought it was a fun way to say, “Hey, it sucks, but let’s all stay home and like instead of having the fatigue, maybe we can just take a step back and dream a little bit. We’re gonna get through this. We were gonna release it earlier in the year, but we felt like it wouldn’t have as much impact but now here we are, oddly enough, going into round two and people are getting more sick than ever before and this fatigue of anger and frustration has settled in … so I think the message it sends if very different than it would have been six months ago.
BLADE: How different has your year been?
WEST: Oh my god, I started off with a full calendar and full plate and watched it all disappear. Some things are being rescheduled, some things have been canceled, some things are being reimagined. I hate the word pivot, but that’s kind of what we’ve all been doing. …. I never thought I would be doing drag primarily by phone for almost a year of my life (laughs).
BLADE: Who was your favorite season 11 celebrity guest judge on “Drag Race”?
WEST: Oh my gosh, I really love Bobby Moynihan. I’m an SNL fanatic so he was on my season. I also was really gagged when we had Lena Waithe and Wanda Sykes. That was the episode I went home, but it was still pretty awesome because I’m gigantic fans of both of them.
BLADE: What was your favorite challenge?
WEST: Probably the magic challenge. It was supremely challenging but it allowed me to show off all my skills in one 10-minute segment. I was glad I got that in before I went home. Some of them were really hard, just really, really arduous. “Trump the Rusical” was so hard. When they say it’s the drag Olympics, it really is.
BLADE: You were a fan of the show a long time before you were on it. What seemed the most different seeing it all in real life vs. watching it on TV?
WEST: Oh wow, my brain is going in like 17 different directions. It was all overwhelming. You never forget walking into the workroom for the first time. … Also seeing RuPaul for the first time is really overwhelming. People always ask why we always react so wildly seeing him walk in the workroom. It’s the same person coming through the same door and you know it’s gonna happen, but he really is just so larger than life, I don’t know how else to explain it. He’s so magnetic and so those moments to me were always supremely overwhelming.
BLADE: I can imagine that.
WEST: One thing I didn’t expect that wasn’t so great was realizing later that there are parts of the fandom that are extremely toxic. When I was eliminated and saw the anger and disgust and vitriol and poison directed at Silky (Nutmeg Ganache), that was surprising. It’s not the show’s fault but there are sections of the fandom that cultivates and allows itself to breed this incestuous, toxic hate.
BLADE: What are your plans for the holidays?
WEST: My parents live about 10 minutes away from me so we talked about maybe doing a quarantine for two weeks then a rapid test before Christmas, and I’m willing to do that, but my siblings and I are all just trying to be super responsible so we may just do a Zoom Christmas. I know it’s really hard but I think it’s important for all of us to work collectively to pull ourselves out of this any way we can.
BLADE: Are you and the queens from your season all constantly on group text and Zoom and all that. Whom are you closest with?
WEST: Yeah, I’m in touch with several people from my season. I talk to Silky, I talk to Brooke Lynn (Hytes). I talk to Vanjie once in a while. … Those relationships from that six-week experience, I can’t explain it — you come to rely on these people in a whole other way. It’s not something tangible or that you can even explain. It’s very life changing to go through that together.
BLADE: What’s gonna happen with season 13? Did they do something this summer?
WEST: I don’t know anything official but yesterday I saw a casting call for season 14 so that tells me season 13 must be in the can. I think it’s like full speed ahead for “Drag Race,” which is great because we all love to watch it and fall in love with new people.
BLADE: You auditioned many times before you got on. Was it discouraging or were you just that tenacious you weren’t gonna be deterred or what?
WEST: Oh no, no, no. (laughs) I’m positive but girl, I’m not that positive. I was broken. It really broke me. My last audition was authentically gonna be my last audition and I don’t even remember who said this to me but on of the production people said it had been stated that, “Nina is either on this season or she’s not, this is the last time we’re watching these tapes.” I don’t know if that’s true or not, but I think we all just felt it had come to like a shit-or-get-off-the-pot type moment. I had to move on with my life in a way. I wanted it so badly and for so many years it just was not happening. Finally my last time, I was the most like, “I don’t care, let’s just get it done, whatever,” and that was the one that got me on. So I think tenacity is one thing, but wearing them down is another.
a&e features
New book celebrates 1970s dance music icons
‘A Night at the Disco’ features interviews with Donna Summer, Debbie Harry, more
If you’re a fan of 1970s-era dance music, don’t miss the irresistible new book by Christian John Wikane and Alice Harris, “A Night at the Disco,” which revisits more than 90 interviews conducted with some of the biggest names in pop culture.
“A Night at the Disco” (ACC Art Books) was published on March 24, and distributed by Simon & Schuster. It celebrates more than 100 artists who sparked a phenomenon in dance music from 1970-1979 and features excerpts from interviews with everyone from Donna Summer to Debbie Harry.
Lost City Books (2467 18th St., N.W.) will welcome author Christian John Wikane for a book signing and conversation about “A Night at the Disco” on Thursday, April 16 at 6 p.m. Details at lostcitybookstore.com. Bird in Hand Coffee & Books in Baltimore (11 E. 33rd St.) )will also host a Q&A with the author on Wednesday, April 15 at 6 p.m. Details at theivybookshop.com.
Below is an excerpt from “A Night at the Disco.”
“I’ll let in anyone who looks like they’ll make things fun.” Steve Rubell is guiding a New York Times reporter through Studio 54 as resident DJ Richie Kaczor dazzles the crowd with records by CHIC, Odyssey, and T-Connection. “Disco, that’s where the happy people go,” The Trammps sing as dancers spin and twirl underneath tubes of flashing lights. Seven months since Rubell and co-owner Ian Schrager opened Studio 54 in April 1977, it’s welcomed untold numbers of “happy people” … at least those lucky enough to pass through the doors.
“We were part of the chosen few,” says André De Shields, who immortalized the title role in The Wiz on Broadway at the time. “We could show up at Studio 54 and the doorman at the velvet stanchion would look over everyone and point to us from The Wiz to come in, that kind of thing.” As the lead vocalist in the GRAMMY-nominated Dr. Buzzard’s Original Savannah Band, whose debut modernized big band sophistication for the discothèques, Cory Daye had carte blanche in the club. “The energy was like a New Year’s Eve party every night,” she says. “I would go up to the mezzanine and watch the mechanical light pillars go up and down, metallic confetti falling from the ceiling, the spoon and the moon. I was so fascinated and enamored by it.
“When a certain song came on, the people would just rush to the dance floor. There was no contact dancing — the hustle was pretty much on its way out — but it was just an amazing experience to see all the cultures together. It was a fusion of cultures, which described my life and my band, so I was right at home there.”
“Studio 54 was the place,” adds Linda Clifford. “Crazy parties. If you could think it, you would see it. It was like a circus. Just an amazing place to be. I worked 54 so many times. It was like a second home to me. The people there treated me so well. The crowd always seemed to enjoy my show. I always had a good time with them. That was the most important thing: making sure that they had fun.”
Well before Studio 54 opened, disco had become a business juggernaut. “A four billion dollar market and still growing,” Billboard announced in February 1977, with dance music offering more variety than ever. “There is no longer a single, readily identifiable disco beat, but a kaleidoscope of sounds that are melodic and danceable,” Tom Moulton told the magazine. In the clubs, records by veteran artists like Stevie Wonder and the Bee Gees were mixed in with a range of new acts like Grace Jones, Boney M., and The Ritchie Family, while everyone from ABBA to Marvin Gaye scored number one pop hits with songs that had club-centric storylines.
Beyond the charts, disco itself remained as idiosyncratic as ever, especially on several productions by Laurin Rinder and W. Michael Lewis, whose studio creations, El Coco (“Let’s Get It Together,” “Cocomotion”) and Le Pamplemousse (“Le Spank”), joined their own “Lust” from Seven Deadly Sins (1977) among the most tantalizing releases on AVI Records. Rinder & Lewis also produced acts for the newly hatched Butterfly Records in Los Angeles, where Saint Tropez (“On a Rien à Perdre”) and Tuxedo Junction (“Moonlight Serenade”) reflected the duo’s high gloss sound, spanning everything from European sophistication to a more literal translation of the ’40s sensibilities popularized by Dr. Buzzard’s Original Savannah Band.
12-inch singles had also grown as the preferred format to approximate the club music experience at home. Nearly a year after Atlantic Records introduced its series of promotional 12-inch singles for DJs, New York-based Salsoul Records released the industry’s first commercially available 12-inch single, “Ten Percent” by Double Exposure, in May 1976. A year later, T.K. Records was the first label to certify a gold record for a 12-inch single when Peter Brown’s “Do You Wanna Get Funky With Me” tallied one million sales.— Christian John Wikane
(From “A Night at the Disco” by Alice Harris & Christian John Wikane. Published by ACC Art Books.)
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a&e features
Award-winning D.C. chef reaching new culinary heights
Anthony Jones of Marcus DC competing on ‘Top Chef’
In Anthony Jones’s kitchen, all sorts of flags fly, including his own. Executive chef at award-winning restaurant Marcus DC, Jones has reached culinary heights (James Beard Award semifinalist for Emerging Chef, anyone?), yet he’s just getting started.
Briefly stepping away from his award-winning station, Jones took a moment under a different set of lights. Recently, he temporarily gave up his post at the restaurant for a starring small-screen slot on the latest season of “Top Chef,” which debuted in March. (The show airs weekly on Bravo and Peacock).
Before his strategic slice-and-dice competition, however, Jones, who identifies as gay, draws from his deep DMV roots. In the years before “Top Chef” and the top chef spot at Marcus, he was born and raised in Sunderland, Md., in southern Maryland, near the Chesapeake.
Early memories were steeped in afternoons on boats with his dad bonding over fishing, and wandering the garden of his great-grandparents spread with fresh vegetables and a few hogs. “It was Southern, old-school ethics and upbringing,” he said. “Family and food went hand in hand.” Weekends meant grabbing bushels of crabs, dad and grandma would cook and crack them. Family members would host fish fries for extra cash. In this seafood-heavy youth, Jones managed time to sneak in episodes of the “OG” Japanese “Iron Chef” show, which helped inspire him to pursue a career in the kitchen.
Jones moved to D.C. after graduating from college, ending up at lauded Restaurant Eve, and met famed chef Marcus Samuelson, who brought him to Miami to be part of the opening team for Red Rooster Overtown. After three years, Jones moved back to D.C., where he ran Dirty Habit, reinventing and reimagining the menu, integrating West African flavors and ingredients.
Samuelson, however, wouldn’t let a talent like Jones stay away for too long. Pulling Jones back into his orbit, Samuelson elevated Jones to help him open his namesake restaurant Marcus DC, which has been named a top-five restaurant by the Washington Post. Since then, Jones has been nominated as a semifinalist for the RAMMYs Rising Culinary Star in 2026 and won the Eater DC’s Rising Chef award in 2025.
Samuelson’s Marcus is a tour de force interpreting the Black Diaspora on the plate, from the American South to West Africa, along with his signature “Swedopian” touches. Yet it’s Jones who has deeply informed the plate, elevating his own story to date. Marcus DC is primarily a seafood restaurant, which serves Jones well.
“Where I’m from is seafood heavy, and as I’ve progressed in my career, I’ve moved away from meat.” Veggies and fish are hero dishes. His own dish, Mel’s Crab Rice, was not only lauded by the Washington Post, but is framed by his youth carrying home the crustaceans from Mel’s crab truck. It’s a bowl of Carolina rice, layered with pickled okra, uni béarnaise, and crab. Jones also points to a dish on the opening menu, rockfish and brassica, paying respect to a landmark D.C. institution, Ben’s Chili Bowl. Jones reverse engineered a favorite bowl of chili that’s seafood instead of meat forward, leveraging octopus and rockfish along with different riffs of cauliflower: showing his intellectual, creative, and cultural sides.
While “Top Chef” is showing Jones’s spotlight side, he also lets his identity show at work. “In the kitchen, I make sure we’re inclusive. We don’t tolerate discrimination. Everyone that’s here should feel confident to express themselves. There are so many different flags in the kitchen.”
Jones says that he didn’t fully express his gay identity until fairly recently. He felt reluctant coming out to certain family members, “you’re scared to tell them about being different,” he says, and while that anxiety ate at him, “I’m lucky and fortunate to have unconditional love and that weight off my shoulders.”
Today, “I’m me all the time, Monday to Sunday. I’m honest with people, and my staff is honest with me.”
“Being a chef is hard,” he says, “and being a chef of color is even more difficult.”
Yet his LGBTQ identity is a juggling act, he says. “I need to keep that balance, because once someone finds out something about you, their opinion can change, whether you want it or not.”
Being on a whole season of TV cooking competition, however, might mean millions more might have an opinion of him (Jones has appeared on TV already, on an episode of “Chopped”). To prepare, he says, “I’ve just kept a level head. It’s just an honor to be on top chef with amazing people happy to be there.”
Plus, this season is set in the Carolinas, and Jones attended Johnson & Wales University in Charlotte, N.C. “It’s a full story of my life, now a monumental moment for me.”
Jones also recently was nominated for a James Beard Foundation Award. “JBF has been a north star, a dream for so long. I always had this goal on my wall.”
Being at the top spot at Marcus DC, making waves through his accolades, and cooking on Bravo means that Jones is highly visible. “I think that if someone has a similar background to me, and can see our story, trajectory, and success, they can have more ability to be themselves. This is my goal.”
Back at Marcus, Jones has plenty up his chef’s white’s sleeves. A new spring menu is in the works. He’ll be launching a new tasting menu “dining experience,” he says, and has plans to work on more events and collaborations with chefs and friends to bring in new talent and share the culinary wealth.
a&e features
Introducing the Torchbearers Awards honoring queer, trans women and nonbinary people
Meet the Legends and Illuminators lighting new paths
The Torchbearers Awards are more than recognition—they are a continuation of legacy. They honor the quiet architects of progress in our community: those who organize, advocate, build, and protect, often without fanfare but always with purpose. Rooted in a belief in intentional recognition, this honor names those who carry our movements forward—those who make room for others, who remind us that change is both generational and generative. In a time marked by uncertainty and challenge, these leaders push forward with courage, clarity, and an unwavering commitment to expanding opportunity and equity.
This year’s honorees reflect the full breadth of our community, spanning generations, backgrounds, identities, and industries. From Legends, with decades of leadership and having created pathways for others, to Illuminators, who are lighting new paths with creativity and innovation, each Torchbearer represents the power of intergenerational leadership and the strength found in our diversity. They are organizers, advocates, artists, policy leaders, healers, and changemakers whose lived experiences shape a shared vision for equity and liberation.
This award is our love letter to queer and trans women and nonbinary people who carry the flame when it would be easier to let it dim. To those who consistently show up, who use their voice and visibility and stand firm, often without recognition, so that others may live more freely and fully. The Torchbearers Awards celebrates not just what has been done, but the enduring spirit, responsibility, and collective care that ensure the work continues, and that the flame is always passed forward.
Co-Creators of the Torchbearers Awards: Shannon Alston, June Crenshaw, Heidi Ellis
Torchbearers Awards Advisory Board: Aditi Hardikar, Lesley Bryant, Jasmine Wilson-Bryant, Stephen Rutgers
ILLUMINATOR AWARDEES
- Representative Sharice Davids (she/her), (D, KS-03)
— U.S. House of Representatives - Greisa Martinez Rosas (she/her/ella)
— Executive Director, United We Dream - Paola Ramos (she/her)
— Journalist & Correspondent - Meagan A. Fitzgerald (she/her)
— Journalist & Correspondent - Jessica L. Lewis (she/her)
— Founder / Producer, Play Play DC - Savannah Wade (she/her)
— Founder, OAR Agency - Suhad Babaa (she/her)
— Filmmaker/ Former Executive Director of Just Vision - Ashlee Davis (she/her)
— Global Head of Inclusive Outcomes, Ancestry - Jazmine Hughes (she/her)
— Journalist and Former Editor at New York Times Magazine - Queen Adesuyi (they/she)
— Policy Advisor & Organizer, ReFrame Health & Justice - Michele Rayner, Esq. (she/her)
— Civil Rights Attorney, State Representative (Florida House of Representatives) - Gaby Vincent (she/her)
— Sports/Cultural Commentator and Community Leader - Jenny Nguyen (she/her)
— Founder & Owner, The Sports Bra - Denice Frohman (she/her)
— Independent Artist, Poet / Performer - Vida Rangel (she/her)
— Founder, Our Trans Capital - Roxanne Anderson (they/them)
— Executive Director, Our Space - Ann Marie Gothard (she/her)
— Co-Founder & President, Pride Live (Stonewall National Monument Visitor Center) - Diana Rodriquez (she/her)
— Co-Founder & CEO, Pride Live (Stonewall National Monument Visitor Center) - Wendi Cooper (she/her)
— Founder / Executive Director, Transcending Women - Toya Matthews (she/her)
— City of San Antonio, Texas - Mayor Gina Ortiz Jones (she/her)
— Sports/Cultural Commentator and Community Leader - Charity Blackwell (she/her)
— Poet, LGBTQ Advocate & Community Leader - Wilhelmina Indermaur (she/her)
— Director of Communications, Tyler Clementi Foundation - Em Chadwick (she/her)
— CMO, For Them & Autostraddle - Kylo Freeman (they/he)
— CEO, For Them & Autostraddle
LEGEND AWARDEES
- Sheila Alexander-Reid (she/her)
— Executive Director, PHL Diversity, Philadelphia Convention & Visitors Bureau - Cassandra Cantave Burton (she/her)
— Interim Director of Thought Leadership & Senior Research Advisor, AARP - leigh h. mosley (she/her)
— Photographer / Educator, PhotoFlo Photography - Jenn M. Jackson, PhD (they/them)
— Assistant Professor of Political Science; Author & Columnist, Syracuse University - Jordyn White (she/her)
— COO, Washington Prodigy / VP of Leadership Development & Research, HRC Foundation - AJ Hikes (they/them)
— Deputy Executive Director, ACLU - RaeShanda Lias (she/her)
— Digital Creator, RL Lockhart - Donna Payne-Hardy (she/her)
— Educator, EEO Specialist, Founder of NBJC, Former Leader at the Human Rights Campaign - Courtney R. Snowden (she/her)
— Principal, Blueprint Strategy Group - Gaye Adegbalola (she/her)
— Musician & Activist, Musician / Inductee of the Blues Hall of Fame - Cheryl A. Head (she/her)
— Independent Author, Novelist (Crime Fiction) - Letitia Gomez (she/her)
— The American LGBTQ+ Museum, Board Chair - Lynne Brown (she/her)
— Publisher, Washington Blade - Shay Franco-Clausen (She/Her/Ella/Queen)
— Political Strategist and Organizer - Melissa L. Bradley (she/her)
— Founder & Managing Partner, New Majority Ventures - Meghann Burke (she/her)
— Executive Director, NWSL Players Association - Victoria Kirby York, MPA (she/they)
— Director of Public Policy & Programs, National Black Justice Collective - Joli Angel Robinson (she/her)
— CEO, Center on Halsted - Jeannine Frisby LaRue (she/her)
— CEO, Moxie Strategies - Alice Wu (she/her)
— Film Director (Saving Face, The Half of It) / Screenwriter - Storme Webber (she/her)
— Interdisciplinary Artist / Educator, University of Washington - Kim Stone
— CEO of the Washington Spirit, Washington Spirit - Mickalene Thomas
— American Visual Artist, Mickalene Thomas Studio - Erika Lorshbough (any/they/she)
— Executive Director, interACT - J. Gia Loving (she/ella)
— Co-Executive Director, GSA Network
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