BROOKLYN, NY—"Red Canary Screams," a full afternoon of burlesque, drag and circus performances, as well as on-site kink experiences such as bootblacking, rope bondage, flogging, and hanky-code flagging, is a fundraiser for Red Canary Song, an organization advocating and providing resources for Asian migrant massage parlor workers in Flushing, Queens. The get-together is a historic gathering of New York City and surrounding areas' Asian-American underground, where queer, burlesque, drag, fetish, tattoo, and circus communities will unite for an extravaganza of entertainment and eroticism.
Red Canary Song was formed after the terrible death of Yang Song, a Chinese massage sex worker, who fell to her death during a police raid in 2017. A year prior to the night of her death, Song was sexually assaulted by a man who identified himself as a police officer. Song filed a report with the NYPD, but identified the wrong man in a line up, a method that often leads to false positives. Later that year, and just months prior to Yang Song’s fatal arrest, the NYPD forcibly brought her to their station to try to convince her to become an informant on the other women who worked by her side.
On November 25, during the 2017 Thanksgiving holiday, an undercover police officer solicited Song with the intention to arrest her. The building’s video cameras show Song shutting the door on the officer and pacing in anxiety. There is no footage of what happened minutes before Song’s fall, but a camera caught a glimpse of her body dropping past a window. The next morning at New York Presbysterian Hospital in Queens, Yang Song was pronounced dead with multiple fractures to her head and body.
"Red Canary Screams" is co-produced by Red Canary Song and event promoter Kink Out, and will be hosted by drag king Wang Newton, who'll be joined by a diverse line-up including burlesque performers Calamity Chang and Kitana Louise, the kinky Mistress Lucy Sweetkill and Domina Dia Dynasty,plus there will be tattoo sessions with @arielisgood and @squids.ink, and drag by Emi Grate and Demon Daddy, to name a few of the stars committed to appearing.
Tattoo, photographic, and sexuality coaching sessions will be up for bid in the silent auction, and prints, merchandise, and event-themed live embroidery will be available to purchase.
Also, politicians Ron Kim (Queens) and Yuh-Line Niou (Manhattan Chinatown) will be joining and speaking on their work and support of Red Canary Song and decriminalization of sex work.
As the Asian sex work community already knows, Asian sexuality is often co-opted and exoticised by those who are not of Asian heritage. "Red Canary Screams" is both a protest and a celebration on a multitude of levels. Asian American performers who craft their work on body, identity, and erotic agency are unifying to champion rights and protections for the most marginalized and silenced within our communities: migrant massage parlor workers.
"Red Canary Screams," described as an "All-Asian-American activation for sex workers’ rights, will take place on Saturday, November 2, from 2-8 p.m. at Lot 45, 411 Troutman St, Brooklyn, NY 11237. More information may be found, and ticket purchases may be made here.
