The reported reasons for the cancellation ranged from safety concerns to possible sponsor pressure.

By Nina Gogadze

OC Media

From 1–2 August, Yerevan hosted the second Notations Festival, bringing artists from around the world together to collaborate and create new, cross-disciplinary projects.

The festival was organised by HOSQ, a Yerevan-based non-profit that organizes cultural and educational events and residencies with a mission to create competitive creative enterprises that ‘celebrate Armenian identity while contributing to the international creative economy’. One of the organization’s values is inclusivity, with their about page defining the term as ‘ensuring diverse participation and equitable access to opportunities​’.

Collaborating with HOSQ was Square Showcase, a queer performance and event series in Yerevan’s underground drag scene, which had organised a performance intended to spotlight several drag artists. Many of the artists spent weeks preparing for the festival, including travelling and spending their own money on costumes, styling, and other preparations.

Yet just days before the festival’s opening, the planned showcase was cancelled. According to the drag performers, a variety of explanations were given, from safety concerns to claims the performance no longer fit the festival’s intended atmosphere.

Yet more broadly, the cancellation reignited conversation over how local cultural institutions should engage with queer artists in Armenia.

Conflicting arguments

According to Seyoncé, a Yerevan-based drag queen and the founder of Square Showcase, the conflict first arose on 28 July, when they met with the HOSQ festival coordinator to finalize the details. It was at this point, Seyoncé says, that they were told festival organizers had concerns about HOSQ’s reputation and did not want to present the performance as a ‘drag show’, but instead as an ‘entertainment act’.

As the conflict escalated and more officials from HOSQ became involved, Seyoncé says the original explanation about reputation shifted, with another festival organizer claiming the performance no longer fit the festival’s format by stating their performance did not match HOSQ’s ‘color palette’.

For Seyoncé, none of HOSQ’s arguments added up.

‘They knew that it was a drag performance’, Seyoncé tells OC Media. ‘And then they had a problem with the words drag and queer’.

With only four days until the festival, Square Showcase found themselves in a difficult spot.

While none of the performers were being paid as part of the showcase, Seyoncé emphasizes that they nevertheless invested considerable time and money into their preparations. In addition, they highlight that Armenian drag performers are not given many opportunities to showcase their work, which is why this seemed a promising opportunity to reach a wider audience and promote their artwork.

Seyoncé ultimately withdrew from the event, saying he believed the problem was not the format of the performance but the organizers’ discomfort with openly associating the festival with queer and drag expression.

Speaking with OC Media on condition of anonymity, another drag artist said that HOSQ’s artistic director later told them that a person communicating between the festival and its sponsors had warned that explicitly mentioning drag or the word queer could create problems, including putting the festival’s funding at risk.

While they could not independently establish whether sponsor pressure was ultimately responsible for the cancellation, they highlight that it offers one possible explanation for the organisers’ changing descriptions of the problem — from safety concerns, to the festival changing direction, to the question of how the performance was labelled.

‘They put themselves in a really stupid situation’, the drag artist says, arguing that the organisers had initially treated drag primarily as entertainment rather than understanding its cultural and political significance.

Following the backlash, HOSQ published a statement on Instagram acknowledging that its decision had hurt queer artists and the wider queer community. The organisation also acknowledged the role of queer and diverse artists in Armenia’s cultural scene and took responsibility for what it described as mistakes.

‘Drag is art’

While the showcase was cancelled, one drag artist, Ms Lava Dicks, still decided to take part in the festival, having been a part of the festival’s art residency programme in the past.

Speaking with OC Media, Ms Lava Dicks said she had been approached individually weeks earlier and told she was booked to perform. Like in the case with Square Showcase, it appeared that organisers were aware and supportive of him as a drag artist initially. However, when the dispute with Square Showcase began, she voiced her own objections, arguing that the performance was explicitly rooted in drag and queer culture and that removing the word would mean using the culture without acknowledging it.

When the festival organisers raised concerns about safety, warning that performing drag could potentially attract an ‘aggressive audience’, the artist pushed back, saying that the safety argument did not explain the later request to remove the word ‘drag’ from the programme.

Eventually, like with Square Showcase, organisers told her that the festival had moved in a more ‘family-oriented’ and traditional direction and that the drag showcase no longer fitted its ‘palette’.

She says that she does not necessarily believe the organisers themselves were personally homophobic. Instead, she describes the situation as a problem of visibility — a willingness to include drag artists while being reluctant to publicly associate the festival with drag or queer culture.

As a part of her performance at the festival, she made a public statement identifying herself as a drag artist and holding up a banner reading ‘Drag is art’.

She notes that the organisers did not object to the statement or approach her afterwards to complain about it. She adds that for her, the festival ultimately ended on a positive note, despite the controversy surrounding the cancelled showcase.

Drag as a form of queer activism

While Ms Lava Dicks welcomed HOSQ’s eventual apology, despite remaining critical of the way the cancellation had been handled, others thought that the message, as well as the way it was delivered, lacked urgency. For them, the episode was ultimately bigger than HOSQ.

‘We don’t want hush-hush’, the drag artist who spoke with OC Media on condition of anonymity says. ‘We want to be fully visible’.

According to them, the cancellation was part of a broader problem faced by Armenia’s drag community: organisers may want the audiences, visibility, and the cultural cachet that drag can bring, yet remain cautious about publicly identifying it.

‘If you’re going to involve us, be vocal about it […] Talk about us, mention us, put it on a poster’, they tell OC Media.

At the same time, the issue also extends beyond recognition, with the drag artist highlighting that performing outside queer-organised spaces can carry additional risks because performers have less control over the audience and security. When drag artists organise their own events, they know their audience and can take measures to protect performers. At outside events, those decisions are largely in the hands of organisers.

‘We already put ourselves in danger by agreeing to perform in a club that is not necessarily made for drag’, they say. ‘And yet we are the ones who are being toned down’.

They also rejected the idea that drag should automatically be understood as sexual or inappropriate for a broader audience, arguing that the organisers had failed to understand drag as an art form, describing it instead as something they needed to conceal or soften for a more conservative audience.

‘Before involving drag, make sure to know and understand what drag is’, they say.

‘Every drag performance is extremely difficult’, the artist says. ‘Every drag artist is a director on their own, a designer on their own, a choreographer on their own’.

They said the community’s response was not intended as a campaign against HOSQ, but as an opportunity to demand greater recognition and respect for drag as an art form.

‘Drag is important and should exist’, they said. ‘Drag is queer activism without being activism. We do our art, but it is an act of activism as it is’.

The local queer rights organisation Pink Armenia similarly argues that the incident should be viewed in the wider context of the challenges facing queer people and events in Armenia.

‘The cancellation of the drag performance is deeply concerning from the perspective of freedom of expression, artistic freedom, and the rights of LGBTQ+ people to participate in public and cultural life without intimidation’, Pink Armenia’s Executive Director, Hripsime Kizogyan, tells OC Media.

According to Kizogyan, queer events in Armenia have repeatedly faced hostility, online harassment, disinformation and, in some cases, threats of violence. Organisers are often required to devote significant resources to security and risk management simply to hold peaceful events, she says.

She also warns that repeated cancellations or pressure on performers can have a ‘chilling effect’, leading artists to self-censor, limit their work, or avoid public appearances because of safety concerns.

‘Drag performances are not merely entertainment; they are also spaces where LGBTQ+ people can see themselves represented, celebrate their identities, and experience community’, Kizogyan says. ‘When these spaces are disrupted, the impact extends far beyond a single performance’.

At the same time, she notes that Armenia has an active civil society and independent cultural initiatives that continue to support equality and human rights despite these challenges.

‘A democratic society should create conditions where diverse forms of artistic expression can exist, even when they challenge prevailing social norms or provoke disagreement. Restricting or silencing such expression ultimately weakens freedom of expression for everyone’.