Event Details

Date: Saturday, Oct 3, 2026
Performance & talk: 19:30–20:30 JST (60 minutes)
Venue: EN CIRCLE, Synapse Festival, INN THE PARK FUKUOKA
Language: English (with some Japanese)
Format: Drag performance followed by an informal conversation
Performer: BENI SHOGA
Conversation partner / project organiser: Po-lung (Alex) Huang
Capacity: 40 participants
Age restrictions: None

Synapse Festival Admission Ticket Required

This event takes place inside Synapse Festival and is open only to holders of a valid Synapse Festival admission ticket for the event day.

・Colive Fukuoka pass holders: Please complete the ¥0 checkout for your Synapse Festival admission ticket on the dedicated Entryticket page. Holding a Colive Fukuoka pass alone does not replace this ticketing step.
・Guests without a Colive Fukuoka pass: Please purchase your Synapse Festival admission ticket through the official Synapse Festival website before attending.

Get your Synapse Festival ticket — Colive Fukuoka pass holders

Synapse Festival official website

About the Session

This is the first of two connected sessions. Drag queen BENI SHOGA takes the stage, then talks about their own experience and research on drag and queer migration. They are joined by the project organiser, Po-lung (Alex) Huang: a fellow migrant from their graduate-school days and a lasting friend, for an honest, off-the-cuff conversation.

Rather than peeling off the labels the world sticks on us, BENI SHOGA puts them on, big and loud. By exaggerating them, playing with them, and turning them into something to laugh about, we start to see that gender, and “being a foreigner” too, are things we perform a little every day. Drag is a way of taking those labels back into your own hands.

That playful act opens a bigger question, one this project cares about: what makes a place somewhere people can truly belong? Who we are is not fixed by where we started; it also grows with every place we pass through and every person we meet. Seen that way, someone arriving from elsewhere is not a threat, but a chance to make a place a little more interesting.

Held ahead of Kyushu Rainbow Pride, this session is a step toward a Fukuoka that feels more open and inclusive, for LGBTQ+ people and for anyone who has ever felt a little out of place. No heavy talk: whoever you are, wherever you are from, come to laugh, to be surprised, and to look again, together, at what we call “normal.”

What to Expect

・A drag performance, followed by a relaxed conversation between long-time friends.
・Personal stories and perspectives on drag, queer migration, gender and the labels we live with.
・A playful invitation to rethink “normal,” belonging and what makes a place more inclusive.

About BENI SHOGA

“Couldn't help being ginger, so I became a show girl.”
しょうがないから、ショーガール。

BENI SHOGA is a drag queen who brings performance, personal experience and research on drag and queer migration into this session. Expect an evening of humour, surprise and a fresh perspective on the labels we carry.

Project Organiser & Conversation Partner

Po-lung (Alex) Huang

Assistant Professor at National University of Kaohsiung in Taiwan, Alex researches digital nomadism and organises this two-part project. A long-time friend of BENI SHOGA from their graduate-school days, Alex joins the conversation with a shared experience of migration.

Part of a Two-Part Project

What makes a place somewhere people can truly belong? At Synapse, we open this shared question through drag, talk and laughter. On Oct 6, 2026 at poool Fukuoka, it carries into the second session, Be FUK. Queer & Grow Your Ikigai.

Nobuhisa (Nobue) Miura of Kyushu Rainbow Pride and project organiser Po-lung (Alex) Huang will sit down with everyone present, with Taichi Senoo guiding the conversation. This time, the focus is Fukuoka itself: how can this city become more open and inclusive, both for those who come from outside and for those who live here? Two sessions, one shared question, leading into Kyushu Rainbow Pride.