Björk Friday by Corbin Smith In 2018, a confluence of Icelandic singer Björk's birthday and a night of drag gave birth to an epic, anti-consumerist annual event: Björk Friday. This year, on the stage of the Clinton Street Theater, queens, burlesque dancers, and other performers celebrated the non-traditional, anti-Thanksgiving show's seventh iteration. Marla Darling, the event’s organizer, recalled that the original night was called Pagan Poetry—for a single off Björk's arguably most-winter-sounding album Vespertine. Björk's birthday fell on the Black Friday of that year, and when a friend of Darling’s—gutted after “eight days at a really bad job"—said: “...and then I have to go perform at Björk Friday," the pun name stuck. "Ever since then we’ve done it on Björk Friday, as a kind of ant-consumerist response to Black Friday,” Darling explained. Ry Bred (left) and Jocylen Knobbs (right) perform at Björk Friday. PHOTO BY CORBIN SMITH Björk Friday 2024 featured lip sync / dance performances set Björk songs, one from each of her 10 albums and one from a single she issued in 2023. There were two expressionistic, intense dance performances set to guttural Björk classics, a performance piece about two doll-people building and destroying a woven blanket on stage, a tribute to protest set to the 2008 track “Declare Independence,” and a drag debut from a performer called Oatmeal. "[Björk possesses] the raw energy of a true artist. I think a lot of us—there’s probably three generations in this show—have that one thread in common. She’s been a weird freak icon to all of us since we were kids," said event's co-producer One-Half NelSon. The night's performances were interspersed with video from Björk interviews. In the ’90s, the singer-songwriter spoke about feelings and expressing oneself through art. In another, the artist seemed older and more vocal about the various ecological, moral, and political collapses that destroy personal expression.  Oatmeal (left), Tomboy and U-Phoria (right) perform at Björk Friday. Photo Corbin Smith To Darling, Björk represents the choice to do things based on art, for art’s sake, the kind of practice that is threatened by the consumer monoculture and forces of capital that Black Friday represents. To perform a drag show with Björk at its center is a small attempt at wrestling back something from the orgy of consumption that the holidays bring.  Asked if Björk evokes the spirit of the holidays, Darling replied that they aren't a particular fan of the holidays. As an Indigenous person from the San Carlos reservation in Arizona, Darling expressed a particular contempt for Thanksgiving, but offered that music does have a more natural resonance with the time of year. “She invokes fall and winter for me." they said. "The vast landscapes she creates, especially in albums like Vespertine, which is snowy and wintery sounding to me. There’s a lot of music box sounds and beats that invoke that desolate, quiet day that you would have after a snowstorm. In a snowstorm, especially in Portland, no one comes out, so it’s very quiet, and all you can really hear are the breezes and the wind chimes. So that album, it invokes winter, to me." Marla Darling (left) and One-Half NelSon (right) co-organized Björk Friday. PHOTO BY CORBIN SMITH