Interview with a Jew: Alissa Brink, Toronto
Shalom my beautiful He-brews, She-brews and They-brews! My name is Gila Münster and I am Toronto’s cross stitching, cross dressing Jewish American Princess. While I haven’t been able to perform in person during the pandemic, I’ve been making my rounds talking to my fellow Jewish drag performers. In this blog series you’ll find the T, the whole T, and nothing but the T(ruth!)
This month’s guest is somebody I’ve had the pleasure of performing with for three separate Jewish drag events --and hopefully many more to come! She is an unbelievable performer, known for throwing herself all over the stage (and the audience) and for her affinity for alternative music. Without further ado, here is my interview with Toronto’s Punk, Metal, Riot Fairy herself, Alissa Brink!
You can find Alissa on Instagram at @alissabrink.
Gila: Gut Shabbos, friend! How has Alissa fared Ontario’s never ending cycle of shutdowns? Have you transitioned to online content during this time?
Alissa: Hey, Gila! I’m sad to say that Alissa has shriveled into a dark corner in a deep dark cave, waiting for the day Daddy Ford (Ontario’s Premier) releases her from the dungeon. I thrive off the screams and cheers of my audience, and it's very hard to get that from online shows. It's hard to find the motivation to do my art when the fuel for said art is the reactions of the crowd.
Gila: Amen to that! For those who haven’t been lucky enough to see you perform, you’ve been known to bring the audience to both tears and blood. What inspires you?
Alissa: METAL and women in metal! While all the other gays were looking up to Diana Ross, Lady Gaga, P!nk and Beyoncé, I was always more drawn to the fierce, aggressive women of Heavy Metal: Alissa White-Gluz, Maria Brink, Angela Gossow, Simone Simons, Heidi Shepherd, Carla Harvey, Floor Jansen... all names I’m sure mean nothing to most of your readers, but these women are my inspiration!
The first two on that list are actually how I got my drag name. Drag is about breaking down gender stereotypes and proving the gender binary is meaningless, and nothing exemplifies that more for me than these fierce women who forced their way into a male-dominated music scene, and growled their way to the top.
Gila: We love to top! One of the things I find so fascinating about you (besides your squiggly brows) is your day job working in a Catholic school. Care to tell our readers about it and what it taught you, a queer Jew?
Alissa: People often ask me this and expect me to have hundreds of stories about facing oppression in the workplace, but honestly I find myself very accepted and welcomed in my job. The Toronto Catholic schools have changed a lot in the past decade, and anytime I tell my coworkers I do drag it’s almost always met with excitement rather than revulsion. Most ask if they can come to one of my shows!
I go to work with painted, and often long, nails, and no one cares. I have worked in schools with out and open trans and gay kids, where they are all supported by their teachers and classmates. In fact, the day I am writing this the Toronto Catholic District School Board announced they will be raising a Pride flag for the month of June for the first time ever!
I think it's important to keep in mind that people who work in schools are typically pretty progressive, because we are the first to bear witness to the changing youth culture. It's typically the old farts at the top, those who haven’t stepped into a classroom in the past 20 years, who are holding things back logistically.
Gila: So glad to hear it’s been a positive experience! Tell us about how you got started in drag, and what advice would you give a baby queen/king?
Alissa: I kinda just threw myself into drag, because that’s typically how I get into anything new; I have an idea, look up if it's possible to do in my area, and if so, I just force myself to do it despite the almost crippling anxiety.
I had been teaching myself makeup for around three months and saw that there was this tiny, little open stage in this little upstairs bar on Church Street, so I signed up, put on some jeans shorts, a punk shirt and some fishnets, and performed “Going To Hell” by The Pretty Reckless for a room of around a dozen people. I immediately fell in love with the rush of performing, and the rest is history.
Any advice I can give is going to sound super cliché, but that's honestly because the clichés are true:
Go DO IT! You can be a wizard at makeup and know how to make a sickening outfit, but nothing matters more than performance. The only way to get better is to put yourself out there! Do as many open stages as you can, meet other performers, ask them for advice, and WATCH THEM! Look at what they do, how they get crowd reactions, etc.
Figure out what makes you different! What is your unique perspective? Where do you draw inspiration from? It’s important to have a unique voice. I promise those of you with something odd and different will last much longer than the 12th Britney dancing queen to stumble onto the stage.
Gila: Calling me out for my Britney number?! That’s okay, I forgive you. You are so beautiful, so we’re all dying to know: what’s one skincare product and one makeup item that Alissa can’t live without?
Alissa: Aww you are such a good liar! For skincare I gotta go with my makeup remover from The Body Shop, the Camomile Cleansing Butter ($17, The Body Shop), it's what I use to melt all my makeup off, super cheap and feels great!
My go-to makeup item is 1000% Pros-Aide ($24, StudioFX)! It's a medical-grade glue used by makeup artists for gluing down prosthetics. I use it for everything from gluing my brows down, gluing my fake brows on, gluing my lace-front down... I couldn’t do drag without Pros-Aide. You need a special solvent to get it off though, so make sure you buy both when you go shopping.
Gila: From the materialistic to the abstract, let’s talk about faith. Judaism and queerness can seem so contradictory at face level. And yet, you have performed in at least three Jewish drag events with me. What is your relationship with your faith like today?
Alissa: Like many modern Jews, I was raised very ‘non-religiously.’ Growing up, my parents and I celebrated the High Holidays, but they always impressed upon me that Judaism was my culture and birthright, rather than simply my religion. My parents never tried to push the idea of G-d on me, and they don’t really believe in it themselves.
As a result, I have always had a pretty consistent relationship with my Judaism. It’s my culture and I feel a deep kinship with other Jews, but because I was never raised to think being queer was wrong or that G-d was going to punish me for liking guys, I never even considered the idea that my queerness had an effect on my Jewishness.
I was always taught that for Jews, community and taking care of your fellow Jew comes first and belief in G-d comes second. If queer people are part of the Jewish community, then why would G-d think we are any less worthy of love and support than any other Jew?
Gila: I love that perspective! When COVID is over, what’s the first song you’ll perform? Do you have any upcoming virtual shows that we should tune in for?
Alissa: Oh, that's an impossible question to answer! There are so many incredible songs and albums that have come out throughout COVID that I so want to perform to! I will give you two: it's either gonna be “Deal with It” By Ashnikko or the In This Moment cover of “We Will Rock You” (I have big ideas for a group number for that one).
Unfortunately, I don’t have any upcoming shows but I hope to be back to performing as soon as things open up safely and then you can catch me all over Church Street!
Thanks so much for this Gila, I had a great time! I can’t wait for our next show together!