Author Archives: Alan Ilagan

“I was a queen, and you took away my crown; a wife, and you killed my husband; a mother, and you deprived me of my children. My blood alone remains: take it, but do not make me suffer long.” ~ Marie Antoinette

“An entrance is everything. It’s how we present ourselves to an audience. It’s how we present ourselves in life. A man who would barge in on a woman in her bath is a pig. She should know from his entrance how it’s going to end. I’ll show you an entrance…” ~ Terrence McNally

It begins with a man in a dress.
A very pink and very frilly dress.
A dress rife with ruffles, filled deeply with drama.
A dress designed for lounging before a looking glass.
A dress designed for gazing – a dress designed to be gazed upon.

Accompanied by the words of one of our grandest divas of all:
“Look around! Everywhere you turn there’s heartache. It’s everywhere that you go! You try everything you can to escape the pain of life that you know. When all else fails and you long to be something better than you are today, I know a place where you can get away…”

“All you need is your own imagination, so use it, that’s what it’s for. Go inside for your finest inspiration, your dreams will open the door. It makes no difference if you’re black or white, if you’re a boy or a girl. If the music’s pumping it will give you new life – you’re a superstar! Yes, that’s what you are!”

Beauty’s where you find it, not just where you bump and grind it.

Soul is in the musical, that’s where I feel so beautiful…

Magical!

Life’s a ball!

This is where vanity rules the day.
This is where the surface is all that matters.
This is where glamour and fame and fabulousness reach dizzying heights of delight.
This is where the shallow and the superficial collide in phantasmagoric majesty.
This is The Divine Diva Tour: A Fairy’s Tale.
All hail the Queen.
It’s everything you thought it would be, and so much more.
This is the ride of your life.
Fasten your seat belts, it’s going to be a bumpy night.

“Qu ‘ils mangent de la brioche.”

~ The Divine Diva Tour: A Fairy’s Tale ~

While the Divine Diva Tour is an exercise in escapism, part of the essence of escapism is in needing to escape from something. Though the world has recently given us that in excess, back in 2005 the dark underside of this fairy’s tale was a trajectory that began with silly pomp and circumstance, then gradually bled into something deeper. Hints and foreshadowing of the impending darkness inherent to any desperate bid for escape appear here, preparing the viewer for the possibility of our corridor growing ever dimmer. Still, wrapped in color and sleights of imagery, it begs the question of whether what is being seen is truly as awful as what is being hinted at – and whether any of it was ever real. 

Many people often wonder what everyone did in the days leading up to a pivotal moment in history – like how did the people of Germany live as Hitler was rising up. Perhaps we need to look around and take stock of what we are doing in America at this very moment. Every little step or minute motion towards a destination is part of how it all happens. It all matters. 

There is something seductive about the way a properly-tied noose slides so smoothly around the neck.

“A person must pay dearly for the divine gift of creative fire.” – C.G. Jung

The year was 2005, and that’s saying something when you truly divine everything in it: there is more in that opening salvo than meets the eye and mind. If you think about the enormity of what twenty years truly encompasses you wouldn’t be so flippant in moving onto the next sentence. Already I’m alienating the reader in likely-unnecessary warnings, but if there’s one thing that the project I’m about to present taught me it was to unabashedly be myself. That means being absolutely willing to look like a fool and an idiot, and having the utmost fun in doing so. It means leaning into the idea of fantasy and escape as a viable means of mentally dealing with an imperfect and increasingly-awful world. It means embracing your own divinity and fabulousness in the face of those who would have you silent and suppressed.

‘The Divine Diva Tour: A Fairy’s Tale’ was my project from 2005 – two long decades ago, when the world was decidedly different, and going on tour merely meant traveling to see friends around the country. Following the subtle writings of 2004’s ‘shades of gray’, the contemplative musings of 2003’s ‘Talented Trickster Tour: Reflections of a Floating World‘, the earnest garden diary of 2002’s ‘Words of a Gardener‘ and 2001’s scandalous ‘MAN*BOY‘, ‘The Divine Diva Tour: A Fairy’s Tale’ was originally conceived as an escapist bit of visual fantasy. It came after that string of rather serious and occasionally somber works, and on the surface it was very much a celebration of superficial glamour and sparkle. Underneath it all there was a more serious theme emerging, but rather than present it in dour fashion, I tried to dress it up in feathers and sequins, the way I’ve tried to dress up life whenever it threatens to bring us down.

The Divine Diva Tour was very much centered on the glamour of being a diva – the frills and fun and ridiculousness of it all – wrapped in satin and shine, studded with sparkle and pizzazz, and given divine life through attitude and insistence. It also posited questions on what it meant to be feminine versus masculine, the ever-evolving perception and reality of gender roles, and the multi-faceted realm of sexuality. It was a tale told by a fairy, and the element of being gay was at its heart, informing every glitter-littering step, lifting every fluttering wing. It also marked my first flirtation with drag in any sense of the word, and also my last, as I make for an ugly-ass woman (the eyebrows alone were horrendous) but it all added to the element of play and fun and riotous abandon.

This project remained buried for years, much like ‘shades of gray‘ and other golden-oldies. I’m not entirely sure why, other than concerns typically ran to what was current rather than what had once been. Seeing as it was one of my most fantasy-fueled works it feels like the right time to resurrect it, coinciding with its 20th anniversary. It’s also relatively light-on-the-writing-and-reading and heavy on the visuals, so it’s easy to digest, and ideal for the current state of the world. Without further ado, our presentation of ‘The Divina Diva Tour: A Fairy’s Tale’ takes wing starting today…