We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Onyx Sage a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Onyx , thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today How did you learn to do what you do? Knowing what you know now, what could you have done to speed up your learning process? What skills do you think were most essential? What obstacles stood in the way of learning more?
I have been creating and performing in some shape or form for as long as I can remember, however, performing in drag was a different beast all together. For awhile I only really enjoyed the design and creation aspect but performing required me to improvise way more than I expected and really learn to trust myself. Especially, as there are people who have no interest in uplifting their community and just tearing down, and I want no part in that. I want to create, perform, and have fun with other queer people. So I focused on myself more, and learned that I needed to get out of my head and get more into my body. For me, aerial hoop helped me do that . It’s an art form that is very painful, as your body is moving around this metal apparatus. However, as my body became more and more conditioned to this hoop, it connected me more to my body. One of the most important skills as an aerialist is listening to your body, as that is often your way out safely. If you are in a sketchy move and you don’t trust your grip, come out. I teach beginner and intermediate hoop and I tell my students all the time that you can always go back into a move, don’t be afraid of coming out of a move when you need to. Once you learn how to listen to yourself that way, you start to be able to listen to yourself more in other ways. I would say that one of my biggest obstacles in aerial and drag to be able to learn more is financials and time, I have to be realistic about what I can handle. As on top of my aerial and drag, I also have other commitments like I’m currently going to school for social work, I work as a Direct Support Professional for Volunteers of America, and a hub coordinator for Sunrise Scranton, which is centered around climate activism. However, I also recognize that I’m in a privileged place to have been able to afford to take the classes that helped me get to where I am now, and to have had a community at Aries Aerial and Pole Dance Fitness in Scranton that made going to the studio an amazing place to be and encouraged me to continue and make progress. I don’t think I ever would have progressed as far as I have without the people at Aries.
Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.
I am originally from Roanoke, Virginia, however, when I was about 12 we started to move around a whole bunch as my mom was a traveling nurse and then she was working her way to becoming a midwife, which for anybody that’s doesn’t know is someone who specializes in delivering babies. I lived in New Mexico, Rhode Island, North Carolina, etc, until we moved to Pennsylvania and I graduated high school here. Once I graduated I moved in with my friends, which included my partner who is also a drag performer named Alex Sage, who I have been with for over 6 years now. My first time at a drag show was here in Pennsylvania while I was in school, however I had already been out as queer in some form since I was in middle school. I didn’t have the words to describe my feelings before that point. However at this first drag show, I really saw queer joy in person for the first time. At the end of the day, that’s what drag is and what drag should be. Queer Joy. That’s why I continue doing drag, and why I hope that so many other performers who have felt like their drag doesn’t always fits into the queer spaces they have access to continue doing drag. It’s for us, not for anyone else. This applies to so many different forms of art, you can’t trust trends to tell you what is good. What they like you for today, they might hate you for the next. You have to do what makes you happy, dance to your heart’s content, sing, make bad art, find the joy when you can. It’s not always easy, but believing you can is the first step. I can do drag, I can do aerial, I can make art, and so much more. It’s like the famous phrase, “Just make it exist first, you can make it good later.” You can learn a skill one step at a time, you don’t need to be great right away.
How can we best help foster a strong, supportive environment for artists and creatives?
Support artists as much as you can, by being anti-AI art, buying local as much as you can, and allowing space for creatives to experiment and grow. Not everyone thrives the same way, something that might water someone, might drown someone else. Society doesn’t currently prioritize artists, if anything it exploits us. We live in a capitalistic society, which says if your art doesn’t make money then it’s not good. For society to really support artists, it would need to change its foundations and see the importance in human’s creating.
We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.
Right before I started teaching aerial for the first time I was fired from my job for applying for FMLA and sending it in to the wrong doctor. I had never been fired from a job before and I was scared, especially because I kept searching and searching and nothing. Thankfully I had a life insurance policy I could cash out to save me in that instance for an extra month or so. However, that pushed me into a job I was honestly kind of afraid of doing, but I did it, I started working as a DSP, where I help other people with disabilities achieve goals. Which helped propel me to deciding to go to school for social work, hoping to become a therapist. Before making those leaps, I said yes to teaching, I had never taught before and it was scary. But it also kept me grounded, and I needed it during a very scary time in my life.
Contact Info:
- Instagram: theflyingonyx
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/share/19NycXQgJh/?mibextid=wwXIfr
- Other: I have a second Instagram for my art called sunwitchdraws, and I am also TheFlyingOnyx on TikTok and Rednote.
Image Credits
Jade Sterling Photography
Frank Carey
Elijah Carpenter