Aria PettyOne is throwing a birthday party Saturday night, and we’re all invited.
It’s the one-year anniversary of Aria’s Planet Petty, which is held the last Saturday of the month at 11th Street Station, and if you ask Aria, while she had no doubt the show would make it to this mark, the response was a pleasant surprise – and a sign of a growing community in town.
“Durango’s really supportive of what I do, so I kind of always knew we would get to the one-year mark, for sure,” Aria, who also hosts Beam Me Up Starlight every Thursday at the Starlight Lounge, said. “I just didn’t think it would be as big as it’s gotten, having it expand to both sides of the patio, just bringing in more performers from Denver, I didn’t expect it to get this big this quickly.”
Saturday night’s show at 11th Street Station will feature Aria, local performers and two out-of-town guests.
If you go
WHAT: Planet Petty: A Year of Petty.
WHEN: 7:30 p.m. Saturday. (Doors open at 6:30 p.m.)
WHERE: 11th Street Station, 1101 Main Ave.
TICKETS AND MORE INFORMATION: Message Aria PettyOne on Facebook: www.facebook.com/AriaPettyOne or Instagram: www.instagram.com/ariapettyone/.
“I have King Vaughnz Spanic, who is a drag king out of Denver and part of the Spanic Family, which is a big drag family in Denver,” she said. “And then I have my good friend Salacious Behavior, who is one of the girls I have been working with for a long time, I booked her a couple of times here. She started in Texas, and then she would come visit because her brother lived here. She’s become a bigger name in Denver, she’s definitely been working hard up there too, and so she knows how to put on a show and dance the house down, so she’s definitely coming to show Durango what she’s learned in Denver.”
Also set to take the stage are Aluna Del Rey, Auspicious Behavior, DaVaiVai, Rita Booke and Vivica Validation.
Tickets for Saturday night’s show are selling fast, Aria said, so going to the party isn’t one of those last-minute decisions Durangoans are famous for. To snag yours, message Aria either through Facebook or Instagram. If for some reason you do miss the boat on securing tickets, Aria said your best bet is to get to 11th Street Station before the show to get your name on a standby list. (Not only are we famous for last-minute decisions, we’re also pretty good at not showing up for things we had plans to go attend ...)
And for Aria, there is a bigger purpose for keeping the shows going.
“What keeps me going is honestly, this new generation is so queer, it makes me so excited to keep going. This new generation – I’ve met so many youths that are like. ‘I’m, you know, pan, trans, poly,’ all these different kinds of sexuality, and I think this generation is truly a generation that’s going to change the world, and make the world a better place. I really have a lot of faith in them,” Aria said. “So for me, it’s just kind of showing them that if you want to go and move away from Durango, and go move to a big city after you graduate, do that, awesome, I would love that for you. But my goal is for people to see that there is a queer space here in Durango, there is a place for them to grow and become a queer adult that they want to in their lives as well. That’s why I keep doing it – I just want to see the queer youth survive and make it into queer adulthood.”
katie@durangoherald.com
