Enby 6 drag star Rogue on serving, strutting, and changing minds

by V. S. Wells on July 27th, 2023 at 6:30 AM

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Catching a drag artist during Pride season is like trapping a firefly in a jar. There’s light, but they can’t stay long: onto the next show, the next brunch, the next crowd to entertain. Rogue, though, has somehow managed to find a happy balance. They’re busy, but not overwhelmed.

“Last summer, I said yes to every single thing,” Vancouver’s self-proclaimed premiere non-binary Jewish drag artist and producer tells the Straight via phone. It was the first real year of parties post-COVID lockdowns, and Rogue was in the midst of producing events around the city after they stepped into organizing shows in 2021. “This summer,” they reflect, “I planned a lot better.”

That includes running the Queen Titans showcase for Vancouver Pride Society on the day of the Pride parade, and showing off some of the city’s best emerging talent with spotlight numbers at the Bubly Davie Street Lounge.

“It was really hard for me to break into the scene back in the day,” Rogue explains. “I just really love creating opportunities for people.”

There’s a lot to drag shows that the audience doesn’t see: time spent styling wigs, assembling outfits, applying makeup, learning routines, and networking with other performers. Like all jobs, it’s not just what you know: it’s who. That was especially true when Rogue came up in 2016, when there were fewer venues putting on drag shows. And their Instagram influencer-bitch drag persona ruffled a few feathers at first, before other performers came to realize it was an act.

Rogue’s first time properly performing was in a competition for Bratpack—one of Vancouver’s iconic Davie Street drag groups—that was looking for a new member. Drag houses and collectives hold a lot of power in every local scene, and Vancouver (with our reputation for cliques and coldness) is no exception.

That competition was won by Synthia Kiss, who’s now one of the core parts of Bratpack’s trio version (completed by Gia Metric and Kendall Gender)—a lineup solidified when the three appeared on season two of Canada’s Drag Race. But Bratpack had other members, too. (If you’ve got string and a corkboard handy, now would be a great time to bust them out.) Jane Smoker, Bratpack’s founder, is both Gender’s drag mother and Rogue’s, but has since stepped away from drag. Thanks Jem is also a former member, but still performs. Rogue, herself, is also kind-of a former member, as she was part of The Next Generation alongside Eva Scarlett and Amy Grindhouse. You still with us?

Grindhouse, alongside Rogue, is now part of Enby 6—Vancouver’s non-binary drag supergroup, which is performing at the Pride lounge on August 4 as well as Happyland on August 6.

According to Rogue, the group came about when Rogue heard there was a coveted Thursday night slot open at the Junction, one of Davie Street’s best-trafficked queer bars. They pitched a group for the slot, then set about working on a lineup that was “a lot more queer, lots of different types of bodies, lots of different types of drag.”

The resulting six-person cast—completed by PM, Venus, Mx Bukuru, and Kara Juku—is a deliberate mix of styles, talents, and vibes.

“Showing six different people, six different artists, six different humans, that showcase their non-binary-isms in different ways… is really important,” Rogue muses. “I think it’s changed, honestly, a lot of perceptions about drag on Davie, and about what it means to be non-binary.”

The group is “serving body, serving model, serving dancing diva, serving comedy, serving club kid—just all these different types of drag,” Rogue continues. “What makes Enby 6 so special is the audience… will scream as hard for everyone, and they will love every type of drag.”

Rogue themself is a chameleon. They change their style to best fit whatever is missing from a show. They’re known for their off-the-wall mixes, and for delivering their Instagram-bitch persona.

“I can perform a lot of different ways,” they say. “If I look at the cast and the audience, [I think]: ‘What will do well here, what will do well within this cast, what will give them what they need, and what will make me stand out in a way that won’t take away from anyone else?’”

Heading up the Queen Titans showcase is The Newcomers, a new trio of Atondra Deville, Batty Banks, and Hazel. And the three of them are also closely tied to Enby 6, with Hazel often performing with Venus, Banks being a member of Haus Bukuru, and Deville being Juku’s drag daughter.

“The Newcomers are the cherry on the ice-cream sundae of new drag,” Rogue enthuses. But they’re also doing the exact thing Rogue has done for their whole career: making the most of their peers, and working together to lift each other up.

“I created a lot of connections with people that were [starting] doing drag around the same time that I was doing it, which is PM, which is Venus, which is Amy Grindhouse,” Rogue says. “We all entered the scene around the same time, and now we’re the ones running the scene, almost.”