PARTY LIKE A DIVA

PARTY LIKE A DIVA

This summer, longtime party-throwers and community organizers, Jordan Chopra and Cat Tran of the popular house party Bootswick joined forces with Doll Invasion founder Fran Tirado to throw the now legendary Dollswick, a party for dolls by the larger Bushwick community. Here, the three organizers got together to tell PSB about how they pulled off one of the biggest parties of the summer, what makes a great party, and why capitalism has no place on their dancefloor. 

JORDAN CHOPRA: Who are you? 

CAT TRAN: All right. I am Cat Tran. They/them. Aka DJ Cat Eye. I am Jordan's longtime friend, resident Bootswick DJ, and organizer with DJs Against Apartheid.

FRAN TIRADO: I am Fran Tirado, the Founder of Doll Invasion and Mother of the House of the Invasion.

JC: Damn. That was fierce. I am Jordan Chopra. I am also a longtime friend of Catherine Tran, also DJ Cat Eye. In my boring day job, I am an experiential designer for Pepsi, but I am more proudly a community organizer. I hate it when people say shit like that, but--

CT: I like that shit. You're a ninja. 

JC: [Laughs]. I fucking do all of that stupid shit, but I hate talking about it because usually everyone is all talk. I just like to do shit and bring people into it.

CT: You are Bootswick’s Mama. [Laughs].

JC: I'm the big Mama and Papa of Bootswick. I'm from Texas. I live in New York and Bushwick right now. What else do I wanna say about myself? 

CT: You have a six-pack. You're single. 

JC: Ooh, come get me bears. I guess let's start with Encino, right? Cat and I met in New York at our mutual friend Nami's birthday, and just started randomly talking to each other. We found out that we both lived in Austin and both worked at Facebook. Back in Texas, we got together in the office and have been divas together ever since. In Austin, I lived on the East side with this huge backyard, so we started throwing parties back there--but they weren't just like normal parties. 

CT: Right. I don't know that I could call them normal parties. People have told me since I moved to New York that Encino was the best party in Austin. Even people that I didn't know in Austin and later met in New York were like, those parties were Project X in real life. 

JC: It really, truly was. We had such a handle on doing DIY, build it yourself shit, but we also had the chops to talk to breweries and such. The DIY nature of it made it so fucking fierce. We put so much into it when it came to building the stage in the corner. We had like the halfpipe down the side of the house. Tito's once built a bar out of the corner of my old roommate’s room. 

CT: You built all of that with your bare hands, which I think is pretty unprecedented. People were not building stages and then booking punk bands to play on a handbuilt wooden stage in their backyards. 

JC: We were so used to apartment parties or West Campus parties and going to Sixth Street bars. The production was at such a high DIY level for us to be fresh out of college and in our early twenties. I always think about the energy at Encino and how fucking monumental it was. It was such a good blend of people, energy and craft.

CT: Exactly. It's like community as craft, you know? You as the main organizer of the event had this very unique ability to see what people can bring to a function. You still do. You can figure out whatever their special thing, their special talent, is. You see the best in people and create space for them to express and share with everybody else. Encino and, now, Bootswick are the culmination of that. It's almost like a talent show. 

JC: It's totally a talent show. New York has such a strong queer community and what that community brings is talent. The queers have the talent and culture, right? They do. When we threw the first Bootswick, it was all of our friends DJing, taking photographs, performing in drag, and so many other things.

CT: I think there's so many rigid hierarchical structures in the world for showcasing talent or.getting booked or getting hired or whatever it is. There are all these kinds of gatekeepers, which may exist for a good reason, but because this is a community driven DIY effort, it's like all those gatekeepers are kind of gone. Like the gatekeeper is just like, are you a diva? 

JC: That's also another thing: these parties have never been ticketed or promoted or sold. And they're not sold, they can't be bought either. That's the beautiful thing about Bootswick. Those rigid structures that you're talking about are all brought to you by fucking Citibank or Klarna and whatever. It all just turns into this drab, capitalist mush of trying to make a buck at the end of the day. The whole point of this is building a safe, fun--well, safe is questionable because we're literally throwing people off zip lines and shit. But the whole point of the effort and the energy we put into it is solely to relish in the moment of everyone coming together for one night.

CT: Enjoying each other and enjoying the gag are the end goal. The end goal is not to make as much money as possible, or pay off our rent on this space. We're free from the pressures of capitalism in large part because of your generosity. You're willing to put in your own money and your own time and your own labor. It’s a huge credit to you and to everybody else who chips in. Something I really appreciated about Encino was that people would stay after to help clean your house. 

JC: Oh, every time. Even for the most recent Bootswick, as soon as it ended, Fran got on the mic and was like, if you're cisgendered, pick up a trash bag and start cleaning.

CT: I was screaming. That is practice. Like if you're cis, clean the toilet right now. Right Fucking now. 

JC: Obviously that's just the case for Dollswick. We're here for the dolls. This is community at its finest. We're all pitching in, bringing what we can to the table, and then we're inviting our network of friends, so we can all escape the bullshit that's happening outside and just enjoy each other and each other's talents for like one night. 

CT: It's not even necessarily an escape because we're all aware of it. I think there are a lot of spaces where people try to escape, and they're playing dumb or playing ignorant to the horrors of the world. Whereas these events are actually the net. Like how much were we able to raise and donate from Dollswick?

JC: For background context, like Dollswick was a fundraiser for Doll Invasion, and we raised over $4,000. Like holy shit. That's from having a donation request on the Partiful saying $10, if you feel so kind as to support the dolls. Then the bar had $5 Margs and $3 beers--incredibly less expensive than anything you'll find in New York. Wait, Fran, can you provide us some context as to what Doll Invasion is?

FT: An initiative bringing a record number of trans visitors to Fire Island each year during an

annual weekend-long fundraiser for trans-led nonprofits as part of a mass movement to

galvanize transsexuals to experience the magic of the island — run by a collective of producers,

artists, PR girls, nightlife veterans, corporate gays, and mutual aid baddies. Our work is funded

fully by donations and many of us volunteer our time.

JC: Period. Dollswick took the structure of Bootswick and combined it with the ethos of Doll Invasion. Something that I've always felt very strong about is never charging for these parties. I also want to make sure the way you get invited is through a network of friends. That way everyone has already been vetted, and I can trust that you're gonna be fun in my house. I'm all about building the energy and the space and the experience of what it feels like to come to one of these parties. I want you to come with like zero expectations and let me blow you the fuck away. 

CT: It's all about the gag. You know, we pull off the gag. There's just kind of no feeling like it. Nothing can replace the gag and the gag can't be bought either. 

JC: The gag is not for sale. It just exists on its own terms and it has to.

CT: I think anytime people see a big groundswell of energy the first response is always about monetizing it. I think it is a really beautiful and futuristic and groundbreaking thing to resist that urge. Adrienne Marie Brown says about organizing that “the scale of a project will grow at the speed of trust.” Bootswick is like that, right?The limit is not how many people can buy a ticket; the limit is how many people can I trust? How many people are gonna keep the integrity of Bootswick? The integrity of Bootswick has to always come first. The vibe has to be good, the people have to feel safe.

JC: That is so on point and beautiful and honestly flattering. I've gotten a lot of pressure from people telling me that I should start charging for attendance. But the way I justify it is this: some people will spend $2,000 or however much they spend to like go on a nice beach vacation or something for the weekend, and I would so much rather take that money and spend it here, invest in another Bootswick and then have all of my friends over for an explosive party. That means more to me. 

CT: I think about that a lot in my life too, and how we invest our money. We live in a society that tells us to spend our money and where we should put our money. What you're doing with your money is giving a gift to the community and then the community gives back. It creates this virtuous cycle that just keeps going and growing. That’s what Bootswick means to me. That's why it matters so much to me as an organizer with DJs Against Apartheid, too. The logics of capitalism infect nightlife and make the vibe bad. Like why is the rave being brought to me by a private equity form? What does that even mean? If the rave is brought to you by a private equity firm that funds pipelines that are then going through Indigenous land and, in turn, funding genocide, then it's not community anymore. It's just scale. 

JC: We're about to turn this Diva Issue into the Destroy Capitalism issue. 

CT: [Laughs]. I know, I'll reign it in. But it's a big part of Bootswick’s ethos. You're modeling something that could create a new model of nightlife that's community-centered and DIY and fully autonomous.

JC: That's incredible. It's all a gift and something that I wanna build for the community. This was like the first time that we went outside of that, but it was still by and for the community. It was for the dolls. The money earned from Doll Invasion then goes to Queer Art and Trans Equality Now. 

CT: They’re parties with purpose. Like the purpose is obviously the fun and the gag and the joy of the moment, but it's also justice-oriented. We’re helping people who are vulnerable and marginalized in this current moment under this administration.

JC: That made it all the more important to me. The way our administration and culture-at-large is treating trans people is abominable.

CT: That's the fuel we need to keep fighting too. It's easy to give into despair. To be honest, for a few weeks, I had been living in a kind of state of despair, but Bootswick brought me back to life. Punk is alive, and this is what punk looks like today. I was thinking about the last 10 years  we've spent throwing parties and how they've managed to resonate and grow over time. I don't even know how to describe it. It's like every emotion at once. 

JC: Working with Doll Invasion is such a huge indication of that. That's a big ass function at one of the biggest properties on Fire Island. Not to mention the talent that they’re able to feature. The fact that we just partnered with them and had multiple shows, DJs, and that fucking punk band? It’s crazy to think that grew from what we were doing in Austin.

CT: It’s crazy to think about the future, too. 

JC: When you come to Bootswick, you will be gagged. There will always be some surprise bullshit. The whole intent is to catch you off guard and it be like an explosive expression of like queer fuckery. 

CT: There's always a Project X element to it.  

JC: Okay, I think we’ve covered most of it. What’s a diva to you? Would you consider yourself to be one?

FT: I’d say a diva is the transmitter of cunt, an arbiter of ova, a chanteuse to transmute the

message of the divine from heaven straight through the subconscious through the diva mouth

and disseminated to the masses who so fiercely need the gospel of cunt.

CT: Wow. I don’t know if I can follow that up. I'll be honest, I have been feeling quite emo. I haven’t been feeling like a diva for a while. I felt like a diva at Dollswick, and I owe a lot to Dollswick for that. I think being a diva is just being-- at the risk of sounding cliche--unapologetically yourself and living your values.

JC: I agree with that. Absolutely. There's nothing that you can say to what a diva is that isn’t a little cliché. A diva, to me, is someone who has a really idiosyncratic style that's very much their own. But it's also extremely fierce. A diva has an element of panache that's inimitable. People wanna replicate it. It's very in your face and unmissable. You’re going to be able to walk into a room full of mornies and immediately point out the diva. You can't dismiss the diva. 

CT: Dollswick was definitely chockfull of divas.

JC: It was diva down. 100%. And yes, I am a diva. I definitely haven't felt like a diva in recent times, but I think people would define me as a diva.

CT: We're well-rounded divas. We contain multitudes. Sometimes, I'm in my diva bag; other times, I don't even know what bag I'm in, but it's not the diva bag.

JC: There's always diva in you, but like when you're in your diva bag, you’re diva down and you're in that diva bag. You have to feel like a diva before you are the diva. If you're not feeling your diva, then like you, this, you're just not a diva. 

CT: What makes a party worthy of a diva? 

JC: I think all parties deserve a little diva. If I'm a diva, I wanna see an open bar and a sexy, fun, diverse crowd. There better be people from every letter of the L-G-B-T-Q-I-A block. I wanna see gags, I wanna be gagged. I want you to do something unexpected.

FT: I want confirmed ineffable irreplaceable and never before seen gags and nothing less. This is a requirement. 

*This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity and your viewing pleasure.