By HAMISH RUTHERFORD in Whakatane
An extravaganza of drag will open a nationwide tour of a once-controversial photography exhibition.
Go Girl, which opens in Whakatane on February 26, exhibits around 100 images by Taranaki photographer Fiona Clark focusing on the gay, lesbian and transgender community in New Zealand
in the 1970s. It also includes video interviews with the subjects.
The photos were taken when Ms Clark was a 20-year-old art student in Auckland. The pictures are of some of the leading Auckland drag figures of the time. One of these is Tina de Malmanche, who grew up in Whakatane and recently returned after a long stint in Auckland.
Tina and cousin Pepper Hudson, also from Whakatane, will perform at a Drag Diva show featuring seven drag queens.
"It will be an extravaganza of false eyelashes, powdered lips and push-up bras," Tina said.
All seven of the performers know each other but have never performed as a group.
"This is a show that will never be repeated and of a kind that Whakatane would have never seen."
Tina said she expected less controversy to follow the exhibition than in the 1970s.
When the exhibition toured New Zealand in 1975, photos showing drag queens dancing and exposing their breasts were so controversial it was removed from galleries in Wanganui and New Plymouth and cancelled before opening in Auckland.
The R16 exhibition opens at the Whakatane Museum and Gallery at 5.30pm on January 26. The drag show, at the Boiler Room, starts at 7pm.
