Get Out! GAY Magazine – Issue 532
Featuring content from the hottest gay and gay-friendly spots in New York, each (free!) issue of Get Out! highlights the bars, nightclubs, restaurants, spas and other businesses throughout NYC’s metropolitan area that the city’s gay a population is interested in.
Featuring content from the hottest gay and gay-friendly spots in New York, each (free!) issue of Get Out! highlights the bars, nightclubs, restaurants, spas and other businesses throughout NYC’s metropolitan area that the city’s gay a population is interested in.
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When you<br />
are not<br />
working,<br />
how do you<br />
entertain<br />
yourself?<br />
When I’m not<br />
working, I like<br />
to cook and<br />
watch old<br />
movies, Law<br />
and Order<br />
SVU, Tyler<br />
Perry plays<br />
and movies,<br />
and listen to<br />
music<strong>–</strong>old<br />
school.<br />
Where can your followers<br />
find you working?<br />
You can find me at the<br />
Manhattan Monster bar<br />
Tuesdays for CLASSIC DISCO/<br />
with Dj Michael Wilson;<br />
Thursdays for LOUIS GOMEZ<br />
SPUNK.<br />
Tell me a little bit about<br />
yourself. Growing up,<br />
hobbies, likes and dislikes?<br />
I was born and raised in<br />
Brooklyn, a shy and insecure<br />
little boy, not knowing who I<br />
was growing up to be, until I<br />
realized I like dancing. So my<br />
mom started teaching me at<br />
the age of five. By the time I<br />
was 13, I went with one of the<br />
neighbors to her job<strong>–</strong>she was<br />
a counselor for a day camp<br />
at our local community center<br />
and they had a dance class<br />
and a whole dance company<br />
called THE ENY THEATRICAL<br />
WORKSHOP. And I started<br />
taking classes in the fall,<br />
and that’s when my dance<br />
career took off. By the age of<br />
16, I earned a scholarship to<br />
attend the Alvin Ailey Dance<br />
Company. By the age of 19,<br />
I was teaching classes at<br />
the center, where I started<br />
choreographing and putting on<br />
many dance workshops. But I<br />
still wanted so much more, so<br />
I started sewing and making<br />
clothes. Then I discovered<br />
drag. Once I started drag,<br />
that’s when I felt the most<br />
comfortable, but I would get<br />
upset because I had to take<br />
it off until my late 40’s, when I<br />
decided to live in my truth as a<br />
transwoman because I didn’t<br />
realize how depressed I was<br />
all those years growing up not<br />
being able to be who I really<br />
am. Pretty much, I just got<br />
tired of being someone else for<br />
everyone else. Now I’m living<br />
my best life at the age of 54!<br />
What hobbies do you enjoy?<br />
I like karaoke, dancing,<br />
cooking, sewing and making<br />
people laugh.<br />
What are your biggest<br />
challenges and triumphs<br />
when on stage?<br />
My biggest challenges are not<br />
knowing if I’m doing a good<br />
performance until I’m done with<br />
the performance and I get the<br />
feedback from the people<br />
My biggest triumph is knowing<br />
that whatever I bring to the<br />
stage is my absolute best and<br />
I can feel it from my people<br />
that let me know I’m doing<br />
my job, And that’s why I love<br />
doing what I do and that is to<br />
ENTERTAIN on and off stage<br />
and that’s what a true ICON<br />
does and her name is MOTHA<br />
JASMIN VAN WALES!
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