D*CK DY*KE Takeover

Open Dy*ke is a platform for queer becoming, rooted in care, radio, and community gatherings. This Thursday and for Oona Bar Closing Week, they are hosting D*CK D*KE, a takeover celebrating trans-masc brotherhood, opening the floodgates to all resilience, joy, and becoming.

The night, running from 8PM until midnight, features sets from Mahita, Enana, Folly Ghost, and Alice Dee, alongside the launch of a new editorial series with Eden Jetschmann. Proceeds from the editorial release will support queer Palestinian friend, Ahmad Aladham.

We catchup with Aziz and Sacre Blair ahead of the event.

How did Open Dy*ke start, and what was the idea behind it?

Aziz: Open Dy*ke has felt synonymous with building a village, an open playground for ramblings, expression, and self-documentation for those who will live on — a visceral archive of queer becomings, unfolding within the non-queer. I have carried Pakistan in my fists, but also in the gentleness of my open arms.

“A visceral fragility, the filled crevices of my palm, with dense friction with your arm’s hair, at an arm’s length, the thickness of our brotherhood keeps my body warm, envisioning a home in the thickness of yours.” Open Dy*ke, whether on radio, or with parties, or in familial artistic works, is not about becoming spectacle, but rather platforming the slow work of becoming, together.

Sacre Blair and I happen to share the urgency of nurturing.

Sacre Blair: Open Dy*ke began as an active effort to foster conversations of queer vastness. With our radio show, we are building a space in which all the many tangents and fragments that have come to constitute our queer identities and relationships to music and culture are given space to exist, unapologetically. Our growth into an event and artistic series is a testament to the joyful and manifold ways in which our community longs to come together and build expression and connection. SENSODY*KE became D*CK DY*KE for this takeover, what does that shift mean to you?

Aziz: In our radio, event, and artistic series, we move with the various becomings slipping within the crevices of our queerness — boredom, resistance, sensuality, rage, hunger, grief, rupture, silence. D*CK DY*KE is a celebration of and an ode to our brotherhood.

Sacre Blair: SENSODY*KE was our way of blooming into existence, bringing together friends in what manifested as the most joyful celebration of all things sensitive and sensual. D*CK DY*KE sees a solidification of our vision; celebrating the beauty and brotherhood of the Trans Masc community and yet again highlighting BIPOC artists in our lineup.

What inspired the editorial series with Eden Jetschmann?

Aziz: “I am my father’s father, and my mother’s too, and sometimes, a son of a friend, or a lover’s, too. I am letting go — these things are ridiculous — relationships, the past, the greener grass, the sun sinking in generosity, for the moon. I am you — runs hot in my blood — you are, often, an ode to me, too.”

The coming together with Eden felt like a reunion. Within four days, we were already nodding, smiling, dissecting, creating, and celebrating our collective work. That urgency and collision, is the reason, and inspiration, for Mascpit Brotherhood to unfold.

A village can hold the impact of your body, emotion, clashes, and heat, with love.

Sacre Blair: For D*CK DY*KE we wanted to curate a visual language that honours and reveres our community. Eden immediately understood and expanded upon our ideas with a delicate sincerity, building the most beautiful and safe shoot within a short amount of time. The energy from the shoot has now blossomed into an ongoing and expansive editorial series that we hope will continue to grow with us.

What energy will each artist bring Thursday at Oona Bar?

Aziz: The queer agenda, for Thursday, is storytelling, pulsating heavy in our chests, reminding us that pleasure is political. From Folly Ghost, to Enana, to Alice Dee, and Mahita — you will witness their becoming.

Sacre Blair: The energy for D*CK DY*KE will be one of sheer exhilaration. We will begin by inviting members from our community, including those involved in our Masc Pit shoot to bare their thoughts and souls over the airwaves. As Aziz has said, the night will then unfold into the beautiful becomings of each of the artists, delighting and challenging us in equal measure. How do sound and radio shows help you explore the soundscapes of queer becoming?

Sacre Blair: The queer experience is an embodied one, and there is nothing quite so embodied as the sensations and stirrings that are felt, expressed, and absorbed through sound. How do you balance visibility with care?

Aziz: Open Dy*ke will always practice to keep five ears out, to listen, acknowledge, absorb, step forward, step back, and ten arms ready to hold, catch, and carry the fractures and the weight of becoming.

Sacre Blair: Awareness, care, and learning are the pillars of Open Dy*ke. As Aziz has acknowledged, we are mindful of of the necessity to continually listen, absorb, and grow, alongside, with, and for our entire community. Looking ahead, what do you hope Open Dy*ke becomes, for you and as a wider community?

Aziz: A space of frolic, ramblings, care, and family — a village taking all shapes that come naturally. Sacre Blair and I dream of honing a physical space for Open Dy*ke, with collaborations that unfold beyond geographies and borders.

Sacre Blair: My hopes for Open Dy*ke are for it to become a source of warmth and a sense of home for more and more people. We long to continue to grow our various avenues of creative expression, building ever-expanding space for silliness, celebration, heartbreak, and joy.

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Photos courtesy of Eden Jetschmann.