Klub Korporate is an office-themed rave-art club cabaret spectacular with drag queens and karaoke. Do we really need to say any more!? Okay, let us explain…
As part of the always excellent Midsumma Festival, Klub Korporate was a dance party like no other. One of Australia’s favorite drag stars, Karen From Finance hosted the evening. The event flyer let us know that Karen had been struggling with the mid-financial year BAS statements, her computer’s frozen, her pen has leaked, and the overtime hours are ticking on. The corporate queen needed to let her hair down, and this time after-work drinks just didn’t cut it.
Joining Karen From Finance were some of her closest business colleagues who took over the Brunswick Mechanics Institute with installations, performances, dance and karaoke.
As we made our way through the entrance, past a wall of employee of the month photos (mainly Karen), we decided to get a cheeky drink. The bar doubled as a shrine to Dolly Parton (working 9-5) with projections of Windows 98 error messages on the walls. Did we mention this was office themed? Next up we dropped by the Karen-oke karaoke room, which was playing all the classics.
The main dance hall was where it was all at though. As the excellent DJ set by Popchops played an entire set of “work” themed songs (there’s way more than you would think), we took the opportunity to remove a paper jam in the photocopier to take some prints of our faces. This has to be one of our favorite photo booth ideas yet!
The opening act from Karen From Finance included a PowerPoint presentation backdrop. From that strong beginning, Tanzer’s spoken word poetry piece was fantastic while Ruby Slippers drag version of the Divinyls classic, but with mannequin hands had the audience shouting out for more. The Huxleys elaborately costumed performances are always incredible, though this show’s video backdrop added something even more magical. The lineup of art/drag/performance/dance acts was huge and included James Andrews, Zelia Rose and Art Simone amongst many more.
Melbourne continues to exceed all expectations when it comes to drag and cabaret as an art form and this is one of the best shows we have seen. Fun, exciting and completely unique, we can’t wait to clock on and get to work at Klub Korporate again.
– Tomas
Tomas Zagoda is a filmmaker, writer, coffee addict and tall person who does not play basketball. You can follow him @TomasZagoda.
Klub Korporate was a special one-night-only event. There are plenty of other great shows during Midsumma which runs from 14 January – 4 February 2018. The full program is here.
