Hey babes! Welcome to DRAG ENERGY! It's a wonderful universe of empowerment possibilities and play activated through embodiment workshops.
Letting go of the confines of society's expectations of us and living a bigger, bolder, more beautiful version of ourselves is drag darling, and it's available to you. This sassy somatic practice is extremely freeing and feeds into our daily lives, building confidence and freedom for self expression.
How we move, act, interact and feel can all shift when we give a spotlight to our authenticity.Come and experiment, these experiences are a laboratory for exploration. Play, prance and get curious to see what comes up.
You don't have to be confident to do this practice, we will build to that slowly. It's about showing up and being with what is there for you right then. We can use some helpful drag lessons like creating the illusion, losing ourselves to a healthy bit of delusion and freeing the mind and body to be curious and creative. Surprise yourself and BAM! Change can happen.
This enriching embodied movement practice is for everyone of all ages, abilities, genders, race and reason, because we can all do with some more joy and connection, to ourselves and to build community. Participants at Drag Energy are invited to meditate, warmup and catwalk with passion in groups and solo while celebrating and uplifting each other. These workshops will build confidence and creativity through play and self expression.
Drag empowerment mentorship, makeup sessions and team building sessions are also offered, go check out the Book a Bitch page for more information on what is available. Kisses XXX
A little disclaimer honey…
Along with all the playful stuff, this can be very deep work. Difficult emotions can come up and it's important to make space for them. Shame, anger, sadness, comparison, hurt, regret and trauma can arise, so be ready.
It's important to take responsibility for our own wellbeing, triggers and physical safety. I encourage you to explore resistance while keeping yourself safe. I am not a therapist and I hold this space for us to experiment and get curious. I ask you to check in with yourself and feel into your boundaries, where you want to push and where you need safety.
Everything at Drag Energy is an invitation and I am not a bully drag queen. Expect to be treated with kindness and in turn offer it to yourself and each other.
This practice is done sober and I feel it's important to create opportunities for our LGBTIQA+ and wider community to be wild, joyful, emotional and connected in spaces that aren't centred around alcohol and drugs.
HOW DRAG ENERGY STARTED
Drag Energy started from a need to express myself in the world and to experience drag away from the conventional club and bar spaces since going sober. I wanted to push myself and find what I love in life with clarity.
I grabbed my neon yellow snakeskin print 20cm high heel platform boots (subtle I know!) and cycled out to Tempelhofer Feld in Berlin, a public park at an old airfield, where I brought my fears, excitement and curiosity to the runway to explore the possibilities.
I kept going back daily and walking, dancing, moving and meditating sober and wild in public. I knew there was deep work to be done here for me to embrace the joy fully, to let go of fear and expectations, to see the trauma and work through it, to build a stronger and more authentic sense of self. As I felt a shift in my daily life from the profound power and energy of this new practice I had created I realised it was time to share it with the world, with you.
I began holding space for the brave and beautiful babes who dared to come out and challenge themselves and the social norms that we are forced into by catwalking in public, by being seen, feeling into it and learning with the body. The confines of suffocating patriarchal oppression began to expand, Drag Energy had purpose.
People of all kinds started to play, grow, evolve, vibe, share, celebrate and build community. My heart is filled with love and gratitude for everyone who attends my workshops and is willing to pioneer this radical freedom. I see you, you belong and baby, you look fucking fantastic!
Now walk my darling and show us who you really are! Release your most fabulous self!
WHO IS JAZBAZMAZ?
Hey babes, I’m Jay / Jazbazmaz, a drag queen, embodiment workshop creator, facilitator and wild creative force! What more do you want darling?
My mission is to cultivate the transformative powers of joy, play, deep emotional listening and self expression, in myself, my community and with my work. I think it's so important and healing for the world, which honey, if you haven't noticed, really needs some love. Being authentic is a radical act amongst all this madness, inequality and oppression. Let's do it together and evolve while building community and changing the world. Yes bitch, we got this!
I have worked across the world sharing my fabulous Drag and Drag Energy workshops at mega festivals like the Venice Biennale, Mighty Hoopla, Glastonbury, Bestival, Stretch, Glitterbox Ibiza, Pride London, Berlin, Barcelona, Margate, Melbourne and performing with my drag family the legendary Sink the Pink for 14 years from the beginning!
I also worked in costume on the biggest movies for Marvel, DC, Tim Burton, Ridley Scott and the divine Alan Rickman.
Costuming and touring with superstars The Spice Girls and Kylie Minogue, body painting and making headdresses for Grace Jones and designing couture finale gowns for RuPauls Drag Race queens to name drop just a few. I have been a busy butch bitch!
To balance this madness I have also been in service on small school building charity projects in Nepal and queer community initiatives in Berlin and London, while also becoming a certified 300 hour Jivamukti teacher in Costa Rica. Gurl what hasn't she done?!
I have found my passion in life from culminating my vast experience and creating Drag Energy to hold space for people to express themselves freely and grow. While deepening the connection to the self we can embrace the potential for community and create real global change.
Honestly babe, my whole life has led me to this moment where I am creating and sharing Drag Energy with you to cultivate connection and build a world worth living in for everyone. Sounds a bit over the top I know, but whenever we stand up to the systems of oppression and really express ourselves authentically while lifting each other up, we truly transform this planet.
So Drag Energy, I mean, it could have just been called Energy, but I know from experience that the punk, wild and subversive nature of Drag is a fantastic way to tear up societal norms and create a new and more inclusive, fair and compassionate future.
I have been a Drag Queen for so long, since I was a fluid creative child I would say, but officially for 27 years now, after I went to my best friend's highschool ball in Perth, Western Australia in 1995.
It was at an all girls Catholic school so this was radical. Picture it, darling: I’m 15 years old, (my skin is radiant bitch!) wearing a floor length black velvet skirt and burgundy steel boned corset laced up so tight I can barely breathe. Rachele, who lent me the look, laid me on the linoleum floor in her kitchen while my friend Leila stuck her black witch heeled boot into my back to pull the laces as tight as humanly possible; she was snatched honey!
My face powdered, eyes with dramatic black wings applied and watering from the pressure on my ribs. I put on some deep red lipstick and a raven black, waist length wig with white streaks. The look completed by stomping into the fancy venue in my black, calf length, lace-up Doc boots (it was the fucking 90s and I was a goth ok!)
My beautiful bestie Narelle was also breaking the bullshit gender barriers down in drag, donning a fabulous three piece suit and top hat. What a scene bitch, it was quite a stir. Those Nuns didn't know what to do and I knew that this was us, we were there to shake that shit up! Narelle and I are still best friends today and still warriors for change!
I later moved to London and was part of the ICONIC Sink the Pink drag family from the first party to the last one. The incredibly inclusive, joyful, creative and wild ethos of this collective had a profound effect on my life that carries through into my work today. There was always a fantastic impromptu catwalk moment at Sink the Pink, no matter if we were performing in a sweaty basement, a working mens club or a huge festival stage, this tradition was my absolute favourite. A moment to display myself, my drag and my heart on the stage with my family to my community, so powerful!
I love to traverse the boundaries, get curious and go to the edges, sometimes split leaping over them in a sassy pump to explore the wildest possibilities beyond. That is where I can feel free and myself in a world that wants us to be controlled, cloned, obedient, heteronormative and mundane, to assimilate and follow the ‘rules’. Who made those fucking stupid rules? Arseholes that's who, power hungry fuckheads! The truth is, in many ways we have the power to make our own rules. We just have to dare to try and together darling, we must.
I hope I can be an inspiration for you to demolish some of these barriers and live life at your fullest potential! This world needs us to be compassionate, connected and powerful so we can smash the oppressive systems that hold us back. Let's do this!
