(Long story short) Today, I am became a Doctor of Arts, as bestowed an Honorary Doctorate by DeMonfort University Leicester ✨✨
Big text about it all coming soon 💖
🧚🏾 BUT FIRST, Im really trying to celebrate with an engraved iPad and matching pen (ya BET it’s gonna say Dr (Insert real last name) 🥹
If you would like to celebrate this BIGGG TING moment with me and support that, *🔗in stories!*
⬇️
/paypalme/mwicemargaret
Thank you to everyone who knew and has messaged today.
Thank you to life, I live you like you love me: fully.
Please ALWAYS assume I’m booking Black and POC only, unless specified.
I created The Cocoa Butter Club because instead of white producers booking Black, Asian or other POC acts, they would book people to dress up as us. To dance like us, to talk like us, but never actually Black or POC acts.
When Black or POC acts were featured, it was one at a time. 5/6 white people and 1 non- white performer. That 1 performer was probably the only if not a handful of non-white people at a cabaret event ENTIRELY- like in the whole room.
The standard of bookings and opportunities created by The Cocoa Butter Club are an expression of love to Black and POC creatives.
The ones overlooked and underbooked deserve the best.
Our Producer works tirelessly to source, fund, negotiate and bring to life opportunities.
If you are white, your performance career has been wildly easier to achieve than any Black or POC creatives, even if they have been far more talented than you.
There are numerous bookers that prioritise white performers… now they won’t admit it, but if they didn’t why are there more white people than Black and POC in their line ups? Because whether they recognise it or not, they prioritise whiteness.
We prioritise Blackness and welcome other POC.
As more collectives that honour other POC appear, I will equally prioritise Blackness, because I also acknowledge how the other collectives deny Blackness in their efforts to prioritise their cultures - everybody is welcome at TCBC, but Black artists aren’t always welcome at other POC collectives.
The Cocoa Butter Club is a Black led performance platform.
It is our intention to create the best opportunities for the creatives who honour us with their talent and our collective as a whole.
We will continue to catch flights, play festivals, theatres, create club experiences and sell out shows, centring and catering to Black people and POC.
There’s bare white run events you can apply for, that will compensate you for your Festival appearance with a ticket to the festival. These opportunities are for BLACK and POC. This is ours 💖
TL;DR - Oi, if you’re not Black or POC stop applying to our castings.
🫨 B*TCH I asked for this! Specifically!! 🙏🏾
I cried about this. Loudly. 🤭
Tomorrow @blackburlesquefestival comes to LIFE!
Each year I listened to @bbc1xtra Future Figures and asked the universe - may I also? Such a legacy of individuals recognised for the real and daily effort of establishing/ elevating Black community.
Organisers know, there is rarely joy after an event; mostly just relief it’s done. 🤪
This, in my hand, a tangible ‘you did that!’
A very real, (important to me), honouring of my excellence. 😌✊🏾 That I needed.
Cabaret has not bought me financial security, management, a tv deal, or award show invitations.
It has asked me to create each thing I have wanted to experience. To make the website, plan the marketing, chase the tech, sell the tickets, pay the invoices, AND host the show.
✨ My only hope this weekend? To be present. ✨
I want to enjoy it too. We didn’t work this hard not to!
And often we (organisers) work so hard and don’t get to!
The biggest of shows pass like a blur; we see the event differently. Our days are longer.
This award feels like a tangible celebration of the stages, studios and schools, where I have stood and called for the melanated be celebrated since 2016. 🙏🏾✨
It is also a reminder of the mental hardships, the set-backs and adversity I continue to ✨thrive✨ through.
It is important. It is mine. It is deserved. IT IS REALLLLL!!
And this weekend YOU WILL UNDERSTAND! 💪🏾
Kerry is VERY upset about this
Real talk though, the cost of creating for the marginalised is being on the frontlines for nonsense
It’s more than the event you see, the room you see, the class you attend. The labour of Black creatives is 10-fold that of our peers
Womanhood becomes Black Womanhood
Queerness becomes Black Queerness
For example
And one thing I know, from experience, is, if Black people have it, everyone else wants it
I created this school because the work isn’t being put in to to attract and nurture Black Burlesque learners
Creators of events fail to show Black people you centre our experiences
UK Producers are not (even) putting on ONE All Black cast show in October to SHOW YOUR SUPPORT OF BLACK PEOPLE IN CABARET
So, we make and maintain, but real talk, if you hire more non-white people on stage, you’ll get more non-white people in your audiences, and more non-white people in your classes
And I won’t have to run a school that’s just for Black people
I keep telling y’all to decolonise your little minds
WE’RE BACK! 📸📸
With one of our favourite werkshops to date! 😍
Join us for a night to make new besties, unlock or finesse your in front of the camera baddie energy and come away with the most STUNNING photos 4 life 💋⭐️
And to make things even more iconic we are thrilled to be joined by icon @sadiesinner to show us exactly how to be our best gorgeous selves and most importantly, POSE! 💁🏽♀️ As the creator of the black burlesque school and cocoa butter club we are honoured to be in such good hands! ❤️
We will be unpacking all types of feelings around getting our photos taken, showing you tips and tricks to get the most iconic shots and be in the photoshoot environment in a safe welcoming space🍃
So get your tickets fast girl, because they’re limited! We cannot wait to Kiki with you, say cheeeeese xxxxxx
Tonight’s show is @thecocoabutterclub Summer Soirée ☀️
We’re calling in summer with performances of Pole, Burlesque and “Boylesque”, Drag, plus sideshow, all from Black and Asian Queer artists!
@xoxtotx | @reixuk | @thatdosacat | @xena_flame | @tadpole.xx
Plus a chance to win a goodie bag by pairing up in our glove peel competition! 🫦
🎟️ via @outsavvy
Video : @studiodelite BTS!
WHAT A WEEKEND! Lost my cat on Thursday, found her last night!
But more appropriately for this page…
This FRIDAY @thecocoabutterclub SUMMER SZN starts!☀️
The melanated are being celebrated FRI 8 MAY
@signaturebrewbh
Tickets via @outsavvy
Absolutely LOVE pictures of myself getting older - love learning what I look like at 35
I couldn’t imagine it
Didn’t always bank on it
Absolutely love her
She’s as regal as the stars are shiny, a living Angel 👼🏿
👂🏾Listen up, Friday is ruled by VENUS… So, I’m sharing a LOVE SPELL with you…
Open your camera, or find a mirror, and straight from Anita Bakers songbook, say:
👉🏾 “Have I told you I love you lately? Have I told you you still mean the world to me…”
Routine is our ritual. Ritual is our reality ✨
Pictures by @solo.pro.foto for @downtownpianolab 🇱🇹
