This weekend marks World AIDS Day all over the world, a day that mourns those who have lost their lives to the disease while also raising awareness and decreasing stigma for those living with HIV and AIDS.
Here in Winnipeg, World AIDS Day is being observed at the Winnipeg Art Gallery Qaumajuq with a 1920’s-themed World AIDS Day Cabaret presented by the Nine Circles Community Health Centre in west Broadway. The organization is a key part of the HIV/AIDS treatment network in Manitoba and hopes to raise crucial funds for its community health programs and support groups.
The essential nature of this work is something that Shauna Fay knows all too well. She is a former employee of Nine Circles and will be performing as her drag persona Skirt Browning at the cabaret. Drag has long been a part of performing tradition within the 2SLGBTQ+ community, and Fay notes that performances have always come together to support those in need.
“There’s always been a lot of AIDS activism and art activism tied hand in hand,” Fay said in a conversation with Nolan Kehler on Morning Light. “We can make it a night about honour and support, but also celebration, love, laughter and fashion.”
“We do embrace some of the sadness, but we also embrace the love and support.”
This combination of the support those living with difficult health circumstances and the light-heartedness of a cabaret performance is something that Fay looks forward to leaning into wholeheartedly. She says that she draws on the misconceptions and stigmas that surround HIV/AIDS when crafting her comedy. “It’s nice that we can come together and laugh at the things that are absurd and not at the things that sometimes get picked on.”
The comedy of the event is less built on the tropes surrounding HIV/AIDS, but on the lived experiences of real people that Fay has known in her work. “I try to take some of the things that irritate me and not focus on the folks who are involved, but the systems that make it that way because we can change those systems,” she says.
Ultimately, approaching the topic of HIV/AIDS with humour also allows for those supporting people living with the disease to break down stigmas they might associate with it. “It makes the subject more approachable,” Fay explains. “People sometimes are scared to talk to doctors or scared to even walk into clinics. It’s trying to figure out ways to open the subject and then have people come and chat.”
The World AIDS Day Cabaret takes place on November 29 at 6 p.m. at the Winnipeg Art Gallery Qaumajuq. For tickets and more information, visit the Nine Circles Community Health Centre’s website.