Sài Gòn By Night Drag Performance (2025)

Ant Honey video still courtesy Paris Preston2 wide web

Anthony Le
Sài Gòn By Night Drag Performance
2025

Single Channel Video, edited by Le with footage by Paris Preston
3:58 Minutes

I did a drag performance in Sài Gòn By Night in response to the 50th anniversary of the end of the American War in Vietnam to the songs “Girls Like Me Don’t Cry” and “Golden”. My drag was banned from being performed at the Kennedy Center in Feb. 2025 and was performed at Pearl Street Warehouse in Sept. 2025.

🐦This performance was about finding belonging and transforming from a shameful pigeon to a glamorous one.

🕊️Pigeons are big iridescent city birds that can easily become invisible in a white dove heralded world, so it’s a metaphor for queerness for me.

🎈I also threw in some ideas around Viet reconciliation as this is still the 50th anniversary of the end of the war in Vietnam.

🪷How do we move forward beyond the trauma of war and displacement and not forget it, but not let it fuel this deep grudge and mud. It’s time to lotus, honey.

Ant Honey drag performance | Photo by Hai Thai
Photo by Hai Thai

Ant Honey drag performance | Photo by Chris Chen
Photo by Chris Chen
Ant Honey drag performance whipping pony tail | Photo by Hai Thai
Photo by Hai Thai

Sài Gòn By Night graphic by Sophie Nguyen

Ant Honey drag performance | Photo by Chris Chen
Photo by Chris Chen

Photo by Clarisse Liclic
Photo by Clarisse Liclic
Photo by Clarisse Liclic
Photo by Clarisse Liclic