Black Cowboys in Dresses

Black Cowboys in Dresses is a four-act contemporary theatre piece that reflects on portions of Berlin, Germany’s 90s-era queer Black history and club culture that premiered at the Constellations Festival 2023. This interdisciplinary work melds dance, poetry, jazz, classical voice, performance, drag, sound, visuals, and audience participation through meditation, breathwork, and vocalization. Interview fragments by two of Berlin’s pioneering Black queer artists, Todd Ford and Troy Lopez weave together a story about Berlin. We travel back in time to reflect on the not-too-distant realities of queer BPOC in Germany, who faced Nazism, racism, and homophobia and, in spite of this, created art, formed communities, and expressed themselves fully. Looping stories back to present, we journey through Black-Queer legacies and nightlife in Berlin and ponder our queer present and futures. Kameron Locke created both the performance and sound installation soundtracks, and he also developed and devised the performance.