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Bio
Poet and drag artist Brooklyn Nightlife Award Best Performance Artist 2026 ✨🦧 @switchnplay @nightboat_books
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Recent posts
It’s my 34 birthday, double 17, and i’d like to share a snippet of a recent performance I did for the @nightboat_books Gala with dancers @johnnymathews3 @andie.sleaze and @luxury.bones.drag . Thank you for collaborating and choreographing and puppeteering with me to make my Italodisco dreams come true. I am spending this day thinking about life and death (the middle of one’s life as a bright yellow beginning) and watching my mother’s life ending under the same calendar year. By her years, I could be more than halfway through with my own life, in that the time we get is not guaranteed and life can and does end suddenly. This is not morbidity, but maybe something clear eyed in our time where healthcare is being stripped from us, folks who are like my brothers and friends being snatched from the streets, and speech is violently suppressed. Carrying with me this grief, I choose the work of beauty, which is defiance in this tacky world and a reminder that the spirit cannot be destroyed. Through death or oppression we continue ❤️🔥♥️♥️
Please enjoy the puppet show and the woman in feathers. In the meantime, give me 3 words that you associate with 34, aspirational or through memory… Or you can DM me a full memory (or aspiration) that you have for that age.
Thank you all ♥️ If you want to buy me a coffee or send a present my venmo is @theillustriouspearl but no worries ♥️
wowowo
10 Nov 2025
drag lately: obsessed with the breath so it is Balloon Time
no easier metaphor for a life than container and spirit imbued
interested in all that floats: helium, silk, ostrich, dreams, descants
developing the dance of the spirit people
the real pleasure of simulated play (you can see it on my face at one point)
will probably book a space to do a long form show soon, pls keep a look out
Thank you @dynastyhandbag and @josephkeckler for bringing us out to @artyardcenter ♥️ ♥️ a pleasure of the artist life is getting to share the stage and living space with brilliant and captivating ARtists @claywomanhello @sachayanow @to_die_for_duva & @dynastyhandbag and never really knowing where your work will take you (Frenchtown)
Thank you @sistergirlfiola for shooting and editing this 14 minute number. I had a blast filming with you and our PA on set @smash_the.king. Thank you @mollieguac for the gleaming white disco orangutan costume and @missmalice.bk for the updo I wear in video. AND thank you @anniev.nyc @sourdoestarter & @jocelynknobs for coming over to 🇫🇷 town for the show!! it meant everything to me to get to show you all my work!!!
more shows soon, love u all
19 Aug 2026
HALL OF FAME 💖🧱 thank you @bknightlifeawards & thank you Brooklyn for our Hall of Fame win!!!!!!! We are so grateful and happy to be celebrated for our contributions to the drag scene. 💖 Switch n’ Play is more than just the longest-running drag show in Brooklyn — it’s a show that has always centered drag kings, things, dÿkes, and trans performers, and that has played a vital role in bringing together the already entwined art forms of drag and burlesque in our city. It has been an honor to entertain you, to inspire you, and to make a home for artists and our community for so many years. It is not easy to keep an important queer thriving for 20 years (!!) so remember to never take the homes we make for one another for granted! So much labor and care goes into making this space come to life each month, and we are so grateful to be recognized by our peers and community for this truly beautiful legacy. 🥹 thank you for your support & love!!!!
WE LOVE YOU BROOKLYN!!!!!!!!
📸: 1-4 @ajjordanphoto & 5 by @shazzamgio 💖
12 Nov 2026
happy birthday to me ♥️ thank you @bknightlifeawards and brooklyn nite life for awarding me best performance artist 2026. i had no idea this could happen 😭 😭
photo credit @mauve_over
10 Nov 2026
35. first year without my mother, year of new friends and the rebirthaissance of my drag
come to cmon everybody tomorrow at 7:30 pm. come celebrate with shows and a beautiful poster limited edition designed by my good friend John from philly. Excited to see everyone
♥️
10 Nov 2026
PLACES, PLACES! Switch n’ Play is headed to Broadway, and we’re ready to chew the scenery!!!
ANNOUNCING Switch n’ Playbill 🎭🎶 opening (& closing) on November 21st at @littlefieldnyc!!
Featuring scene-stealing performances by special guests @cherry.jaymes @ddarlingnyc @tellevangeline & @mauve_over 🎶
And of course, an Afterparty & all that jazz with DJ @tellevangeline and more late-night performances at @parklifebk 🎶
🎟️ at the ⛓️💥 in our b!0
air purification by @a.i.r.nyc
09 Nov 2026
We’re just a little over one week away from Part II of PLEASURE DOME: CONTINUUM. Grab a ticket for November 18th or 19th (or both!) in our bio. The next artist to be featured is @theillustriouspearl!
The Illustrious Pearl is a poet, drag artist, and a longstanding member of Brooklyn-based drag/burlesque collective Switch n’ Play. The author of the award-winning poetry collection TOGETHERNESS (Nightboat Books), which will be available for purchase. Pearl has received honors from MacDowell, New York Foundation for the Arts, Lambda Literary, and many more. Her multi-disciplinary work blends lyric poem, lip-synch, classical voice, silent film, and unexpected propwork to stage visions of delight, grief, and sincere beauty.
For PLEASURE DOME, following the recent death of her mother, Pearl will be presenting excerpts from her longform poetic drag feature “Mother of Pearl.” Restricted to a grief palette of black-and-white, Pearl weaves a range of form and media into an immersive narrative swirling around the experience of loss and grief.
Cover photo by @fotodecristo
Slide 2 by @sidewalkkilla, Slide 3 by @mettieostrowski, Slide 5 by @anniev.nyc
05 Nov 2026
Snag your ticks 🐜 to RETURN TO PEARL HARBOR 🦪 celebrating the icon, the poet, the former vers top THE ILLUSTRIOUS PEARL’S Rebirthaissance on the North American stage (@cmoneverybodybk ) ✨ Shows featuring @divinagransparkle @heyvigormortis @emigrate_drag @mauve_over @fishdrag @smash_the.king @aqua.dwata and Dj sets by @ohyunglia & @sourdoestarter . Live painting by Smash the King!
11/11 Doors at 7:30, shows at 8pm! Link is my biography!! ⬆️
04 Nov 2026
I, who have never commemorated my ILLUSTRIOUS 13 year career enacting weepyfreak bk poetry art drag, invite you
to RETURN TO PEARL HARBOR…!
this 11/11… make a wish…! It will be my birthday, my drag rebirthaissance, and the bk debut of my dead mom art drag special MOTHER OF PEARL.
Featuring drag and burlesque performers from many facets of the INFINITE pearl, including my @switchnplay siblings @heyvigormortis & @divinagransparkle , fave acts and requested performances from @mauve_over & @emigrate_drag & the thrill of new talents and pearly shellmates 🦪 @aqua.dwata @fishdrag & @smash_the.king who will also be doing LIVE PAINTING.
Yes, bring ur dollars, wag those washington, jangle the jacksons (f*ck that guy!!), and i might BUST all over a benjamin who knows ??!
After the show we will dance the dance of no nations to 💿 🏇 DJ @sourdoestarter & bestie extraordinaire womana @ohyunglia !!
But truly, this is the first time i’ve thrown a bday party for myself in all my drag AND poetry career and i NEEED not to miss this on our modest and demure wednesday night, 8pm, 11/11 at @cmoneverybodybk
There will be merch for sale, including the poster seen in the second slide! and my poetry book if you’re a TOTAL weirdo.
Tickets are in my bio. 🎩 Sales will pay our performers, so do it for the community and the community will do you back ♥️
28 Oct 2026
A tribute to Larry Mitchell’s F@GGOTS AND THEIR FRIENDS BETWEEN REVOLUTIONS performed for @nightboat_books F4GGOT FETE!! (Part 2)!!
Gorgeous, life-changing to get to perform this in front of FAGGOTS illustrator Ned Asta @namastened and so many luminaries @tourmaliline @morgankindof @wayne.koestenbaum
Big big shoutout to the drag pros in this illustrious ensemble @mauve_over @luxury.bones.drag @sourdoestarter @anniev.nyc @aqua.dwata
& @tellevangeline !!
Thank you so much @youngsunart for filming this performance!
thank you @sugarhillsupperclub for having us, your stage is so fab!
#faggotsandtheirfriendsbetweenrevolutions
12 Oct 2026
The Illustrious Pearl hosts a “Masquerade of Metaphors: Embody Your Favorite Poem - A Poetry Costume Party.” Come dressed as your favorite poem or poet – be as literal or figurative or alliterative as you’d like. There will be a dedicated Poetry Pageant Walk, where you can sashay your simile and walk your poetic attire with a short recitation. October 22 @Howl! Happening, NYC. More information https://citylore.org/peoples-poetry-gathering-2026/
@city_lore @bowerypoetry @poetshouse @_howlarts
#poetry #poets #NewYork #poems #poet @theillustriouspearl
09 Oct 2026
busttin
26 Sep 2026
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