“I’m the beauty, and you’re the beast,” Ms. Boogie proclaims on stage in front of an entranced audience — but she’s not talking to us. She’s talking to the trade. Under a spotlight at The Shed, one of New York City’s most paramount arts institutions, Rose Rayos, AKA Ms. Boogie, takes center stage. In a one-night-only performance, the Dominican-Colombian diva delivers cyphers, soliloquies and sonnets in The Odyssey, a theatrical reimagining of her debut studio album The Breakdown. […]

A key intention behind The Odyssey was bridging the gap between trans people and cis people. Through scenes onstage, Ms. Boogie channels her inner thespian with moments at the beauty shop, discussions with secretive men and monologues about the struggles of being a Black woman. […]

In a culture war-torn country full of far-right commentators spewing anti-trans sentiment on the news and across social media platforms, cis people are more aware of trans people now than ever before. However, their education seldom ever comes from the horse’s mouth. “Everybody’s talking about, ‘Well, I can do this and you can do that’ or ‘Your existence impacts my existence in this way.’ I rarely hear the ways in which cis women and trans women are affected by men collectively," she says. […] Ms. Boogie aims to heal tension between both communities by creating a space for all to commune rather than compete.

- Eva Reign, PAPER Magazine