AKA. AFRICANAH LATTÉ. From the very top of Pride Rock, this South African Lion KWEEN gives majesty and regalia wherever she goes as a member of the EAST PALACE WEST PALACE family. She is a performer, a trained singer, and a theater lover; but her beloved strength lies in her deadly wit and shade-throwing demeanor. 

Masquerading as Africanah, the person behind the wig, Mcebo, also helped to socialize the energetic flavor of New York ballroom culture in Beijing and Shanghai, programming events that focus on dance forms like voguing and waacking, local runway, and avant-garde fashion.

Africanah hosts events ranging from grandiose embassy galas to underground grunge parties. Needless to say, she’s a versatile performer.

Jessica

JESSICA is a drag superstar. She elevates retro styles and takes people to next level fantasies with fierce performances that ooze energy and boldness.

She took the crown at Shanghai’s biggest Drag Queen competition in 2019.

PAT

AKA. Patrick Starlet. Born and raised in Manila, she's now ready to conquer Beijing and capture your hearts. She serves performance at its finest and would definitely leave you gagging for more. 

A professional dancer by day, and a Star by night. She's Fun, Fresh and Fierce.

YIHAO

YIHAO is a Shanghai-based performer coming from Chengdu. He is now a well-known drag performer in mainland China, where he is at the forefront of a new group of drag superstars. 

His innovative and otherworldly drag stretches the imagination and forces to bear witness to the unthinkable.  However, drag is not merely a form of entertainment for him; it’s rather a vehicle through which he voices his dissent, anger, and love. His style is strong, but his content is much stronger.

OOPS2

With a long history of listening to music and a unique musical aesthetic, we can call OOPS2 a "walking music library." 

As a child, he used to live in the Philippines with his father. There, he was captivated by the local customs and music, and he was particularly fascinated by dance-inducing music. 

Beautiful rhythms, retro beats, and classic melodies can be sampled to become a unique element of his live mix. On his watch, the dance floor is always alive, thriving with rhythm.

EAST PALACE WEST PALACE (also known locally as Dong Gong Xi Gong (东宫西宫) is a platform that lies at the intersection of dance club, queer culture(s) and Visual/Performative arts. 

Availing itself of a critical approach and a keen observation of the current state of affairs in each of the aforementioned fields, 东宫西宫 contextualizes these arenas while enabling spaces for political and aesthetic forces to collide in order to hopefully produce change and emancipation, if not ultimately just bliss, should everything else fail.

The platform builds around all inclusive, fundraising club nights where performance art meets club culture,installations, exhibitions, talks, workshops, and last but not least, editorial—with a penchant for academic background—content under its banner, penned by their committed collective members.

东宫西宫 aims at fostering solid regional and transnational queer solidarity networks while developing at the same time a supportive community for local queer artists, djs and grassroot organisations in mainland.

EAST PALACE WEST PALACE has welcomed to its dreamlike queer palatial paradise so far a large group of djs, artists and performers, among others equally talented artists: Eris Drew, Octo Octa (T4T LUV NRG, USA), DJ Bezier (Honey Soundystem, USA / Taiwan), MEDUSA (Elevator, Shanghai), Hao (TAG, Chengdu), Mr. Ho (Minh Club, Hong Kong), Miss Meatface, Alejandria Cinque, Inntya, YIHAO, Frozen Lolita, POPCORN (Spectrum Formosus, Taiwan), Huang Jiaqi, Yang Su, Manbo Key. 

The Collective

Carmen Herold (Cultural theorist, curator and club programmer)

Carmen Herold is a cultural theorist, club owner, host, and curator based between Berlin and Beijing.

Formerly employed in the cultural department of the Goethe-Institut Beijing, she has been intimately engaged in the Sino-German cultural landscape for years. Besides co-curating and coordinating the 4th and 5th Festival for German Cinema, she also hosted a number of talks on topics such as club culture and gender politics, supervised exhibition projects, and actioned large-scale theatre performances. In 2017, she co-founded the electronic music club and cultural space Zhao Dai(招待所) in Beijing, where she acts as music director and event programmer. Following the venue’s successful establishment, she also helped initiate its very own music festival Zhao Dai on Leave (招待会) as well as the queer cultural platform East Palace West Palace (东宫西宫). Currently, Carmen Herold is terminating a year-long research stay at New York University, where her main focus is on questions surrounding the micropolitics of Chinese popular culture, intellectual history, and post-colonial subjectivity. Her publications have been featured in international scientific magazines such as SFRA Review and others. 

Based on her multidirectional orientation, Carmen Herold consolidates a unique synthesis of practical and theoretical realms, emanating at the intersection of popular culture, artistic practice, and academic research.

Geisel Cabrera (Cultural projects coordinator, curator)Geisel Cabrera is a cultural projects coordinator and curator based between Nantes and Beijing. 

Emerging from the independent art spaces community in Beijing where he helped developing programs hand in hand with local and international artists and curators, passing by larger institutional festivals such as the European Union Film Festival in China where he helped curating and producing the program, his experience lays at the intersection of visual arts, music. and cinema initiatives with a special focus on a wide array of LGBTQI+ related preoccupations. 

Currently he co-curates and programs for the queer cultural platform East Palace West Palace (东宫西宫) and Nantes-based queer festivals CinéPride and Pride’n’Art, while developing cultural projects as part of PULSE, an agency that, in partnership with sister institutions, aims at expanding and questioning the understanding and discourses around queerness and nightlife  cultures with a focus on regions less represented in current global discourses.