story and photo by Mark Benton
Christian “Cashmere” Assandria was asked by the owner of Alchemy/Growlers to manage a Sunday entertainment venue at Growlers Sports Pub in May. He quickly thought about the days when Sunday T Dances were the norm and a booming business. He wanted to recreate that passion and bring the entire community of Memphis together. He became aware that many performers in “Drag Entertainment” lacked a place to showcase their talents. Memphis has always been known since the 70s as a premier place for female impersonation extravaganza and entertainment. Back in the 70s and 80s Georgia’s Crisco Disco was one of the best Drag venues in the South. Christian decided to embrace a philanthropic dynamic into recreating the Sunday T Dance. Focus Magazine sat down with Christian and discussed his foray into envisioning and creating a wonderful Sunday Gay T Dance for a wider audience. One that not only entertains but happen on a Sunday afternoon and gives back to community organizations and their represented charities.
What is your vision of recreating the old American Sunday T Dance? I’d like to take a concept that’s established and maybe a bit of a lost art and improve upon it to appeal to the whole community. Young and old.
Do you plan to reach out towards the organizations or charities that are not specifically LGBTQ specific? Starting out I’ve reached out to organizations that are near and dear to the community to create a crowd. Once it kicks off I’ll be glad to reach out to all kinds of organizations.
How valuable in your opinion is it to be a forum for new talents in the Female Drag entertainment venue. Giving room to cultivate the art form? A lot of drag performers in Memphis and the surrounding area don’t have a home to express their creative outlet. My idea with the rotating line up is to give those people a chance to show what they’ve got and pull in their circle.
So, the owner of Alchemy who owns Growlers basically came to you to reinvent their Sunday business. What made you think of a Sunday T Dance Forum? T Dance is something we tried at Alchemy first and worked for a while but people seemed to lose interest. I hope with this ever changing and evolving show, we can hold people’s attention a little longer.
How have your patrons (who aren’t specifically LGBTQ) responded to the entertainment? I have had plenty of non-gay patrons come in and say they really enjoyed the show. Even outside of Growlers there’s a lot of buzz.
What does it mean to you to offer a philanthropic aspect to a business? The focus of these events is to bring our community together. What better way to do that than by adding the philanthropic aspect. I want people to feel good about coming out and supporting a good cause
How receptive are the organizations that have reached out to Growlers? Every organization that I’ve reached out to so far has been very excited about doing a show, and the donors have been very gracious to the cause.
How often will the Sunday T Dance be scheduled? Sunday T Dance will be the first Sunday of every month.
What do you love most about your job at Growlers? To summarize everything, I think my favorite part is after a show when I’m thinking of everything that could have been done better, the amount of positive feedback I receive is overwhelming and reassures me that what I’m doing is making people happy. That in itself is the biggest reward for me.
