Why We Love: Jade Pollard-Crowe

14/12/14

Why We Love: Jade Pollard-Crowe

“It is really important that my work is from a black gay female,” says upcoming performer and artist Jade Pollard-Crowe. “Society sees ‘issues’ such as race, sexuality and gender as separate entities when, in reality, they combine to build our identities. I identify as a Lesbian (my sexuality) and Queer (my gender). A new personal word I’ve come up with is Stag – stud and, well, you work it out!”

DIVA first came across Jade at the RVT 150^th birthday celebrations this summer, where she took part in the Duckie Summer School and performed a slick show, playing on her naturally androgynous physicality. “Many of us inhabit what I would describe as ‘the in between’,” she says. “I naturally feel masculine whilst claiming my femininity. I have learnt to embrace both energies. A close friend’s boyfriend confessed he feels I suit a beard better than he does!”

Jade’s performances are highly political and she’s been strongly influenced by queer theory and race politics. She studied Fine Art at Sheffield Hallam University, where her first performance, Boi-lesque – Performance 1, involved drag, yellow PVC, fierce music and a strip down to her binding and packed underwear.

Jade is both an artist and a performer. “The artist is who I am, it’s integral to my being and what keeps me going. The performer is my body as a medium utilised to express concerns I have.” And since those concerns affect us all, Jade is certainly a Stag to watch.

Also published in the January 2015 print issue of DIVA magazine