TRANSISTERS & THE GODDESSES OF ROCK brings together some of downtown's most iconic performers, including Anohni, Kembra Pfahler, Jayne County (via Skype), Gyda Gash, and Kathy Rey, among others, to discuss and celebrate the legacy and influence of Chloe Dzubilo's art and music as well as the history of transgression and gender performance in the downtown and rock music scenes.
During the 1990s and beyond, Chloe was an icon of downtown nightlife. She wrote plays for and performed with the Blackl...
TRANSISTERS & THE GODDESSES OF ROCK brings together some of downtown's most iconic performers, including Anohni, Kembra Pfahler, Jayne County (via Skype), Gyda Gash, and Kathy Rey, among others, to discuss and celebrate the legacy and influence of Chloe Dzubilo's art and music as well as the history of transgression and gender performance in the downtown and rock music scenes.
During the 1990s and beyond, Chloe was an icon of downtown nightlife. She wrote plays for and performed with the Blacklips Performance Cult (cofounded by Anohni) at the Pyramid club and edited the group's zine, Leif Sux. She was the lead singer and songwriter for the rock band the Transisters (with Gyda Gash, Kathy Rey, and Tracy Almazan), who played at CBGB's, Squeeze Box at Don Hill's and other trendsetting hubs of downtown culture. A longtime volunteer for the LGBT Community Center's groundbreaking Gender Identity Project, she served on its transgender HIV prevention team conducting prevention outreach in bars, nightclubs and on strolls. She spoke at national and international conferences, in video Public Service Announcements and training workshops for health care and mental health providers. Chloe was involved with the political action group the Transsexual Menace and went on to direct one of the first federally funded HIV prevention programs for transgender sex workers in 1997. She embodied many roles as a fierce AIDS & transgender activist rocker.
Through Transisters songs such as "Kaposi's Koverstick," described as "a sarcastic and morbid ode to the unslightly AIDS-related cancer and the beauty tips to be it with," Chloe infused the music of the Transisters with an activist spirit. These song and others were among the first to explicitly discuss HIV/AIDS and its ramifications, and Chloe sang their impacting lyrics with powerful first-person presence. Transisters was a four person band with Chloe on vocals, Gyda Gash on bass, Tracy Almazan on drums and Kathy Rey on guitar.
In addition to the discussion, moderated by Participant Inc's Director Lia Gangitano, T De Long will DJ the celebratory evening, and Transisters CDs will be distributed to those in attendance.
This program was supported by a grant from the New York Council for the Humanities.
TRANSISTERS & THE GODDESSES OF ROCK is coordinated in conjunction with the publication of Visual AIDS' DUETS series, DUETS: Che Gossett & Alice O’Malley in Conversation on Chloe Dzubilo, which features a conversation between Che Gossett and Alice O'Malley about the life and legacy of Visual AIDS Artist Member Chloe Dzubilo. Che Gossett is a Black gender-queer and femme-fabulous writer and activist. Alice O'Malley is a New York-based photographer whose portraits constitute an archive of downtown's most notorious artists, performers and muses. DUETS is a series of publications that pairs artists, activists, writers, and thinkers in dialogues about their creative practices and current social issues around HIV/AIDS. DUETS: Che Gossett & Alice O'Malley in Conversation on Chloe Dzubilo features additional contributions by T De Long and JP Borum and artwork by Chloe Dzubilo.
