"No tranny is your friend." Artist reveals behind-the-scenes of travesti show he thinks gay audience is significantly more discerning

How long have you been doing travesti art?

It's been 10 years since I started at the Friends club. Before those 10 years, it was really hard to get on stage. That's why I performed for free for about a year, in all different venues. I'm sure I couldn't really pick and choose from jobs in the beginning and I took whatever came along to get me somewhere.

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Sources: Foto: se souhlasem Juan David Calderón Ardila

However, as far as I know, after some time you managed to travel with your own band to different towns and villages around Prague? How did the audience there react to you? After all, it is said that in smaller towns and villages people are more conservative and something like men dressing up as women might cause a stir, but on the other hand, it is known that travesti performances are literally hot there...

It's true that most of these people still think we're guys who dress up in women's clothes and mommy's shoes for fun. There are a lot of people who don't see it as art and don't know that we really work hard to make something happen. They don't realize that we spend a long time putting the show together and that we spend hours and hours in the gym. Of course, we have to practice the lines and put together a look that fits the performance. I feel like this audience takes us as women and they just see it as fun and that's the way it's supposed to be. I don't think they associate us with the LGBT+ community at all. I'm often surprised that some people don't even know what travesti is and think it's just a fetish or that we're doing stripping (laughs).

So on the one hand the audience in the gay bar and on the other hand people from smaller towns and villages, or a complete mix in terms of corporate events. How would you describe these different audiences?

I tend to focus my style on the gay audience because they understand my style the most. However, it's true that a lot of our "brothers and sisters" from gay bars are far more discerning and won't give you anything for free. Plus, this audience is pretty critical, they'll forgive you a bit more elsewhere.

Photo: courtesy of Juan David Calderón Ardila
Photo: Foto: se souhlasem Juan David Calderón Ardila

And what about relationships within the community? Is it fair to say that, for the most part, all the female artists stick together?

One unnamed female travesti artist told me a rule in the early days, which is "no tranny is your friend", which is true and I follow that. Of course, it's all about how you behave. It's important to be a good person and only then can you get anywhere. You always have to remember that everything you say can backfire. There are a lot of female artists who don't do completely good things, and of course there are some rumours behind me as well, but everyone makes their own reputation and if you do bad things it will come back to you. For example, I've had a colleague who stole wigs and costumes, but I don't want to defame the Czech travesti scene because I think there are bad people everywhere.

What do you think about the emerging young generation of female artists, who often call themselves drag queens and who have suddenly emerged in great numbers? It seems to me that, for example, the new generation of Czech singers doesn't pay much attention to Czech singers and most of them are only doing the foreign scene...

There are a few of these new female artists who have earned it, they are really good and they know what drag is and most importantly they know who they are on stage and who they are in real life, which is very important. If you can't distinguish between those things, you're in over your head. Other than that, I think the scene today is kind of a hot needle.

In what way?

In the sense that you go to a show and you see 18-year-old boys who are performing for the third or fourth time in their lives and have been on stage every week since. It seems to me that it's awfully fast, and their performances and costumes, which are often stitched together in a Sichrhai way, look like that. That's definitely not the way it's supposed to be. If you're gonna do a big show, you're supposed to have everything tip toe. Of course, sometimes your dress doesn't stay on, something breaks and you fix it at the last minute, but it shouldn't be the norm. Most of these artists suck and their performances look like it.

I watch RuPaul's Drag Race, for example, and I see how the drag queens work on themselves and how they do everything themselves, but I don't think we'll ever get to that level.

So there's nobody that good in our country in your opinion?

Of course there is. For me, the top quality has always been Diva Noxx, which is now over, but I liked it from the beginning because it was different and its own. From the new generation I would single out Layla Riel, Hayley The Strange and Naira Delario for example. I have a lot of respect for those three and they are artists who know what they are doing.

As for the ones I looked up to and learned from, Diva Noxx was the one I looked up to the most, but also artists from the Screamers and Crazy Goddess, but they were more into the "typical Czech style". Even though they are great and sell out venues all over the Czech Republic, I wanted to go a little different way. I wanted to imitate Rihanna, Beyoncé, Lady Gaga, Madonna and others, so I had to take inspiration from elsewhere and grew up watching videos I found on the internet and watching RuPaul's Drag Race.

How much of a schizophrenic activity is travesti? You yourself have talked about the importance of distinguishing who you are on stage and who you are in real life...

The way I've always had it is that when I was on stage I looked completely different and nobody recognized me in the real world. But some artists want to show up all the time and look the same outside of performing, which I personally don't understand because it's already hard to separate the two worlds. Because as soon as you close yourself in the dressing room, you start "lalating", which means you say: bought, made, etc.

So sometimes woman and sometimes man?

Of course, sometimes you make a joke and get away with it, but I've always been a proud man and I'm glad to be a man and I would never get rid of my masculine side. I think it's important for every female artist to set up how she's going to approach it from the beginning, to know what's reality and what's illusion.

However, I guess it's not so easy when one is doing it so called full time? That was your case too, if I'm not mistaken?

Yes, at one time we used to perform from Thursday to Saturday, which were the so-called "three-day gigs", which were great and I enjoyed them a lot, but after a while it became a kind of stereotype, because you do the same gig for half a year and you get sick of it. I love Pink, for example, and I like to imitate her during her shows. I have to say that after six months I literally started to hate some of her songs. (laughs)

What are you planning for your career in the future?

I've had my fill of travesti and in the last few years I've discovered animation, which actually kind of allows me to be a "travesti artist" in my civilian life. I don't have to put on a lot of makeup, get my boobs done, and walk around in heels, but otherwise I'm actually doing the same job, which I find terribly fun and fulfilling. I've found that I can do entertainment in just a t-shirt and shorts and I can say that it's liberating (laughs).

Where do you do your animation work?

In Egypt, where I fell in love with the job. It's great because I'm by the sea, I'm recharged by the sunshine and because I'm a dancer, I have my own dance classes in the hotel, which I really enjoy. Travesti has been a certain part of my life and I definitely don't ever want to do it full time again because it's a real chore. Now it's more about having fun with it and doing the occasional performance.