Skip to main content
Anything’s possible at a drag funeral. Mourners might laugh, cry, see some ass, drink Mountain Dew Baja Blast and hear some good-natured jokes about the deceased’s OnlyFans page. So it was Sunday, Jan. 19, as mourners packed Clinton Street Theater for the drag-cabaret variety show Melange. The show’s co-producer, a burlesque performer who danced under the name Dahlia Kash and in drag as the femme persona VenDetta Petty Kash D’Ho and drag king Javier Miguel, died Jan. 13 of sudden onset complications from a chronic health condition a month shy of her 43rd birthday.
Destiny Smokez, Kash’s Melange co-producer, openly struggled to shine like a showgirl given the circumstances, but a supportive sold-out crowd was grateful for a venue to remember the locally cherished entertainer together. Two of their drag children opened Melange as Latina K. Turner D’Ho performed a striptease to Sweet Sensation’s “Sincerely Yours,” while Mr. E Smokez sang an original song and played electric ukulele before a video compilation of Kash’s performances played.
After intermission, the performer Risque and Rye lip synced one of Kash’s signature songs, “Thique” by Beyoncé, ending with a drop split twirling assels (ass tassels for the unfamiliar). Destiny Smokez, after a long raffle break, closed Kash’s memorial edition of Melange with a number set to the Slipknot song “Danger Keep Away.”