From the stage to the streets, make a distinction this vacation season

In Silkroad Cafe, a small occasion area in Tokyo’s Kinshicho Ward, flamboyant drag queens and kings sing, strut and pole dance throughout the stage to a packed home with a world viewers. The night’s performances touch upon quite a few social points equivalent to HIV, gun violence and the social masks all of us put on.

This is “Fresh Meat,” an occasion sequence that the drag troupe Haus von Schwarz organizes to boost cash for varied causes via ticket gross sales and donations. This explicit present on Nov. 24 raised cash for CUFA, a corporation that helps academic initiatives in favelas (neighborhoods throughout Brazil dealing with excessive poverty).

“We’ve fundraised previously for causes together with transgender rights, housing and refugees because of the shut ties between the trans group and drag. We have additionally supported Palestine and Ukraine because of the fixed human rights violations there,” says occasion co-host and Japan Times contributor Kat Joplin, who performs beneath the title Le Horla.