Creating safe spaces for LGBTQ+ teens to express themselves is now more important than ever. Organizations in Colorado are working to create more of these spaces, including Longmont’s Firehouse Art Center and the Boulder Public Library. Together they created Slay the Runway in 2021, which is a design program for LGBTQ+ teens.
KUNC’s Samantha Coetzee spoke with co-creator and Faculty Director for the B2 Center for Media Arts and Performance, Steven Frost, about the program.
Interview Highlights:
These interview highlights have been lightly edited for length and clarity.
Samantha Coetzee: To start, can you explain what Slay the Runway is and how you got involved in the program?
Steven Frost: Slay the Runway is a program that runs for about two weeks now. We've done it in a couple different forms. And essentially, what it is, is that we work with LGBTQIA+ teens. We teach them how to construct and deconstruct garments and put them together into looks. And then we bring in a bunch of community volunteers and a bunch of collaborators from the ballroom scene, from the drag scene, and from the CU Boulder media production scene and put on a full-scale professionally produced runway show for their looks.
So the concept for Slay the Runway came from Elaine Waterman, who is the Artistic Director for Firehouse Art Center. Elaine was working with LGBTQ teens, but there were no LGBTQ-specific programs for them. And actually, one of the people who had been in Slay the Runway for both those years that we've done it said to them, ‘Hey, it would be really cool if you did this fashion workshop but more focused on something like drag.’ I had just finished working with a group of LGBTQ teens in Maine, and I knew that I wanted to do a program just like that here in Boulder. So the timing was absolutely perfect.
We got a grant from Arts and Society and through the Red Line Project in Denver, and that actually helped us launch this first year of the program and carried us through here to the second year. So we have a lot of different people that were part of the founding of this program and making it happen.
Coetzee: I'm so glad that you mentioned Community. It seems like the program is a great way for LGBTQ+ teens to get involved in and participate in their community. So what are some of the goals of the program?
Frost: Well, I'm glad you mentioned community as well. That is one of the major goals. Our students come from all different high schools and middle schools across the region. We actually had two out-of-state students as well. We had a student from South Carolina and a student from Arizona this year who came in to take the workshop. And they essentially have an opportunity here to meet each other, but also for the older students, the kind of older teens to be mentors to the younger teens as they all work together on their looks.
And it's amazing because, you know, some come with totally amazing sewing skills that are beyond mine even. And then some of them have never sewn before, never walked in play, or been on a stage before. And so we're all there to support each other. So it's this kind of affirming environment for everybody where they're not only having affirmation, but they're also leaving there with some great new skills that they can use on their own. There's a lot of sewing machines being purchased after the workshop.
Coetzee: That's so fun! And what do you hope students who participate in the runway take away from their experience?
Frost: Well, I want our designers to not only learn some really great skills, but I also want them to learn how to build community for themselves and how to connect with other LGBTQ people IRL and their own communities. And that becomes really important. I also want them to know that there are adults, families, cities that all affirm and support them.
This project is really supported by Firehouse Art Center, like you said, Boulder Public Library, CU Boulder. All these organizations are here to support them. And so this is a place where they can really feel welcome, they can make new friends, and then they can also leave with that confidence of walking down a runway. I want them to walk into the world the same way they walk down that runway after the workshop is over.
