Queer Sri Lankan journey

Richard Dodds, Bay Area Reporter

There was a recent movie titled It’s Complicated, but I’m sure the complications facing its glossy characters are nothing compared to what the performer known as D’Lo faces everyday. In the exquisite solo show Ramble-Ations at Brava Theatre Center’s intimate second space, the Los Angeles performer takes us on a cultural and gender journey that has never been explored in quite this way.

By way of introduction, D’Lo comes from a Sri Lankan family, a little-understood heritage complicated by the fact that they are part of the Tamil minority defeated recently in a civil war. The family’s cultural background and Hindu faith aren’t exactly in sync with D’Lo’s “I’m gay” announcement, a coming-out that is complicated when, as relatives are getting used to having a lesbian in the family, she further declares that she’s transgendered and identifies as a man.

Directed by Adelina Anthony, Ramble-Ations is much more than a “I’m here, I’m queer, I’m transgendered” manifesto, as D’Lo bravely dives into personal conflictions, humorously (and convincingly) dons female drag to play several characters, and even gives us a slide-show documentation of a her/his childhood evolution from short-haired tomboy to a long-haired feminization under Southern Californian peer pressure to the bouncing, boyish, hip hop-styled persona that first greets us.

D’Lo projects an assurance tempered with deprecation, bemoaning a “Mickey Mouse voice” that belies desires for a masculine image, or describing Sri Lanka as a little nation of alcoholics created from a fart from India’s ass. He plays his own mother in full ethnic attire, who recalls D’Lo’s efforts to turn a childhood  Barbie into a Ken doll, and wonders why her daughter can’t at least look like such long-haired lesbians as Rosie O’Donnell and Martina Navratilova.

D’Lo dons a wig and a dress to portray a Valley Girl cousin who speaks at a memorial service for a friend who died in the 2004 tsunami that wiped out 35,000 Sri Lankans, but did nothing to unite the ethnically torn country. A scene in which D’Lo plays a tottering grandfather with a Gandhi fixation, but who curses like a sailor, highlights just what a nimble physical comedian he can be.

The 60-minute show never strays far from a laugh, but the reality of a simmering racial, gender, and cultural diaspora is also ready to emerge at any moment. That D’Lo does not profess to have yet sorted out all the complications turns out to be a big strength of Ramble-Ations .

Youth Group Meeting

Come to the Youth Group Meeting!
Date: Saturday March 20th
Time: 4-6pm
Place: LGBT Center 208 W 13th Street

It’ll be lots of fun and you can meet cool new people.
Ages 24 & younger.

SALGA Youth Group is a safe, confidential place for queer South Asians between the ages of thirteen and twenty-four to discuss issues facing our community. Whether you need support coming out, or have questions about your legal rights as queer youth, or are just trying to connect with fellow South Asians, this is the space for you! Depending on what members want, the group can provide social events, community outings, discussions, and participation in political events.

SALGA NYC Youth is the youth branch of SALGA NYC, a volunteer organization which serves the needs the South Asian queer community both politically and socially in New York City.

Coming Out For Reel

By Shatarupa Chaudhuri
April 11, 2009
SOURCE:  Express Buzz

BANGALORE: “I am here for the movies. And Alessandro, he just wants to sleep around,” Daniel hooted with laughter at his own joke, while Alessandro vehemently protested between his blushes. We joined in the leg-pulling and Alessandro, who’s from Italy, went redder.“I want to watch the movies, make friends. And it is a different experience for me in India. Italy has changed a lot in the last 10 years and gays are more accepted, unlike here. Almost everyone there has a friend or a cousin or an acquaintance who is gay and people are okay with it,” Alessandro defended himself. Read the rest of this entry »

South Asian GLBT group honors families of LBT women

Khush Klatch | by Yusef Najafi in Metro Weekly (Washington DC) | Published on April 9, 2009
Link to article

There are few who could claim to have explored the relationships between GLBT South Asians and their parents as deeply as Sonali Gulati. As a documentary filmmaker, Gulati has spent much of the past five years doing just that for a film she hopes to finish later this year, Out & About.

With that theme in mind, Gulati has helped to organize an April 11 event for KhushDC, the metro area’s ‘’social, support and political group” for GLBT South Asians, of which she is a board member. ”Loving Ties: Honoring South Asian Queer Women’s Families” will be an evening of conversation, dinner and honoring parents who have supported their lesbian, bisexual and transgender daughters, commemorating March as Women’s History Month.
Read the rest of this entry »