Bazongas!

Rebecca VanderKooi
Jun 4
2 min read

This club kid era renaissance carves out a new niche in queer parties

The darkened room teems with queer people of all ages and backgrounds clad in everything–from corsets to rat costumes and even fx makeup open wounds. Some of the crowd mingle, getting plague-themed drinks; others relax on couches surrounded by fake rats, while more dance under the kaleidoscopic disco ball. All the while, a performance artist circles the room dramatically coughing.

This is the world of Bozongas, the New York City LGBTQ+ costume party that is the brainchild of Hannah Pinson, Luca D’Angelo, and musical artist, King Princess. It all began when King Princess moved back to New York City and started going out more in the LGBTQ+ scene; she met Pinson and D’Angelo, and they hit it off instantly. It didn’t take long for King Princess to have the idea of creating a party with Pinson and D’Angelo, and she knew it had to be called Bazongas. The vision was simple: to create a playful and accepting place for all.

As King Princess explained,

“I think we all kind of saw this one tiny little space missing of queer but dyke centered dress up.”

Bozongas fills that niche that has been missing for so many years. Themes have ranged from the most recent plague-themed party to MILF and pool boy and Sopran-hoes, which had almost 800 attendees. King Princess is the creative brains behind the themes. As Pinson noted,

“We have more ideas than we could ever have parties.”

Bazongas draws much inspiration from the Club Kid era before it, which transformed the 1980s and 1990s nightlife in New York with extravagant outfits and iconic makeup looks. Most importantly, this era championed self-expression and created a much-needed space for gender and sexuality to be explored. As King Princess noted, during that era, the idea was to create an outfit out of anything you had on hand, and that’s the inventiveness behind these themed parties.

Photos by Madison Paloski

This is the first third of our cover feature from our print + digital music and entertainment magazine. As a thank you (and a celebration of King Princess's new single and upcoming new album), we wanted to share a portion of the article for free here---check out the full magazine here🧡