In Lil BLK Nic Kay is anything but little

THE PERFORMANCE ARTIST Nic Kay recalls a particularly jarring memory from a time spent working retail at a Ralph Lauren in Lower Manhattan. Kay, who’s black and identifies as gender nonconforming, was on a lunch break when it happened. “This random young white woman gave me a bouquet of cotton,” Kay says. “It was a really absurd experience.” Formative stories figure prominently in Lil

BLK, Kay’s upcoming solo show about identity, or as Kay describes it, “different times in which I felt rejected by dominant society or in conflict with the dominant narrative, or what it meant to be in a black feminine body.”

Part of the Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events’ OnEdge experimental performance series, this mostly autobiographical account is never short on variety. Kay draws on multiple genres and styles, among them spoken word, Japanese butoh, and voguing, which Kay first discovered as a young student during an after- school program at the New York- based Hetrick- Martin Institute, a pioneering organization for LGBTQ youth. The institute doubles as a premium locale for a subculture of the contemporary ballroom scene known as kiki functions— raucous, celebratory, affairs that grew from other LGBTQfriendly social gatherings. Kay calls them out as a primary inspiration.

Asked to describe Lil BLK for an audience that isn’t necessarily familiar with things like kikis or performance art, Kay pauses. “It’s like a motivational marathon, when the second runner- up doesn’t win the first- place trophy,” Kay says. “But the fact that that person put themselves out there and tries is affirmation. I feel like that’s what the show is.”

PEÑA LIL BLK 3/ 18- 3/ 19: Fri 7: 30 PM, Sat 2 PM, Hamlin Park Fieldhouse Theater, 3035 N. Hoyne , second floor, 312- 742- 7785, cityofchicago. org/ city/ en/ depts/ dca/ supp_ info/ onedge8. html.