November 4 |  5:00 – 6:30 PM
A Performance & Conversation With Lady Shug
Location: Howard Thurman Center, Rm 104

Please join Boston University’s Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Program for A Performance & Conversation With Lady Shug, featuring drag performer and activist Lady Shug and local performers Stabitha Christie and Zeizar Zalad.

Lady Shug

Lady ShugLady Shug is a proud Indigenous drag artist, born for the Diné (Navajo) Nation, raised in the Four Corners area of New Mexico. Lady Shug has been entertaining audiences for over 11+ years, beginning her career with nightly performances on the Las Vegas Strip. Recently, Lady Shug felt called to return home to the Navajo Reservation and now lives along the Arizona-New Mexico border. As a community activist, Lady Shug works with grassroots collectives to fight for equal rights for her 2SLGBTQ+ Indigenous relatives living in rural areas and on reservations that have long denied them equal treatment. Lady Shug uses her platform to connect her passions for drag and activism to raise awareness and stand in solidarity with social movements.

In and out of drag, Shug uses both voices to challenge and make change for inclusion, acceptance, decolonization – always within the frame of indigenous resistance. Shug then gained the skills necessary to organize in the four corners area – and from this work, the #ShugChallenge was born. The #ShugChallenge is a mutual aid program that supports the border towns and communities within and alongside their reservation – relatives and folks who are forgotten in the main spectrum of living can find services and support through the #ShugChallenge.

Lady Shug

She was the first drag artist to host a pop-up powwow in Bentonville, AR with Live in America. Lady Shug this year has become the found of Indigenous Drag Story Hour for DHS. Shug was popularly featured in the Emmy awarded series HBO’s We’re Here, featuring RuPaul’s Drag Race alumni Bob the Drag Queen, Shangela, and Eureka. Currently, Lady Shug is touring the US & international territories Landa Lakes on the all-Indigenous LaLa Land Back tour #LaLaLandBack Tour.
The LaLa Land Back Tour welcomes Indigenous, queer, Two-Spirit, and trans artists into theaters, museums, and community centers – venues where these voices have been historically excluded – and offers education alongside compassion for those who are curious about but uninitiated on the topic of intersectionality. The LaLa Land Back Tour delivers two accessible and exuberant experiences for all audiences, from the youngest members of our communities, to the young-at-heart at the LaLa Land Back Tour Indigenous Show.

 

Stabitha Christie (he/they/she)

Stabitha ChristieCurrent reigning Mx. Gay Boston and host of Screamtime – a monthly drag & horror movie night, Stabitha Christie is a Two Spirit drag demon and the ghoulfriend you don’t want to bring home to your parents! 

 

 

 

 

 

Zeizar Zalad (they/he)

Zeizar ZaladZeizar ZaladZeizar Zalad is a Two-Spirit, high energy Drag King based in MA. They are a First Nations Cree and Métis mixed artist bringing stories to life while shedding light on ongoing political issues around us. Community is key to survival.

“Only when the last tree has been cut down, the last fish been caught, and the last stream poisoned, will we realize we cannot eat money” – Cree proverb

 

 

 

Co-sponsored by: LGBTQIA+ Student Resource Center, LGBTQIA+ Center for Faculty & Staff