Fox&Badge FLASHBACK #3: 2017
2017, our 2nd year where we ran just 2 events, felt like a real step up; an emergence…
🌹DARK VICTORIANA🌹
“Dark Victoriana” unfolded in April across 3 floors in an old chapel in Dalston.
The ground floor living room was a kind of 2nd more-ambient dancefloor, exploring dark, edgy, ambient and artsy sounds, whilst the vast dining table became a stage for some stunning performances.
Vicky Butterly emerged in a long cloak which exploded open as a spectacular whirl of LED. Jemma painted herself entirely in black latex, which she dramatically tore off. GabrielleDollFacee and Ed spun fire and sparks amidst the guests before we brought out the sparkling birthday cakes.
We began expanding our performance roster, with surprises erupting across all the rooms.
We also grew more immersive, with a few more durational installations and spaces to explore. We hid our guestlist in a giant dusty book, & - because it was still all mostly friends - I made ridiculously detailed notes next to each name with which our doorwoman could mysteriously greet them. One performer was tasked solely with re-arranging candles into new spatial arrangement all night.
Things were also getting more richly kinky. Val & Stuart strung guests up in shibari across the entire room. A Victorian Doctor offered his expert frigging services to female guests in need. Downstairs, dearly-departed Laurence ran a little Peep Show, which became participatory, and got quite steamy.
Upstairs in the more intimate lounge, Sasha improvised erotic poetry and Pete read out salacious verses, whilst downstairs our guests throbbed to basement techno.
We were learning the power of cohesive costume (here, all black; “latex & lace” - though 1 friend beautifully came in her white wedding dress), & began our 1st Pinterest - a mere 300 pins.
🎖️MILITARIA🎖️
“Militaria” spanned 3 arches in the huge legendary nightclub, Fire.
A few righteous friends boycotted, fearing we were fetishising violence; we weren’t (though we always welcome a healthy degree of edge & provocation), and observed at the time: “The word 'military' might look threatening, but trace it back through the Middle French and Latin and Etruscan - and you get a party; the Sanskrit "melah" means "assembled crowd or throng"; add techno and theatre and our heavenly crowd, and things go ballistic and beautiful.”
Our key innovation was the female troupe of harnessed soldiers, who burst out of the dancefloor into a stunning marching parade during headliner Marcus Blacker’s set. Later they assembled a firing squad, firing volleys of orgasmic attention at their willing male victims. At the end of the night we had a wild impromptu pillow fight, the feathers drifting everywhere; it looked just like the snow we’d driven through to get there. We began our collab with Natalie Pereira, who’d become a central performer & co-creator. We ran our 1st dungeon, staffed by an ex-military Dom.
I was still enrolling all my friends as performers: Liza as crazed nurse, Lawrence as interrogator; years later, he’d send me anonymised, masked recordings of the confessions he wrought from willing guests. I still very much feel we are an outlet for people to unleash an inner archetype. Friends in balaclavas took down the DJ, followed by a staged venue blackout, before angelic war nurses emerged with light and cake. It didn’t go as planned, but our journey had begun.
Sinead performed for the first time, and would continue to dazzle at all our collaborations. It was her birthday, and Liv had arranged an amazing fox cake for Foxy; we all put on fox masks as Gareth hoisted her onto his shoulder, enshrouded in confetti and joy.
Decor was becoming a bit more large and extensive, pimping DJ booths and plastering walls with vast posters - including prurient wartime posters in all the toilets, warning of VD. The German military cap - long co-opted by queer & burn culture - was the costume staple, all the soldiers interspersed in an army of samurais, ancient Scots, knights, mujahideen, boxers and peaceniks.
It was a beautiful, expansive year, and suggested there was so much more for us to explore, and create.
