Karaoke, Difficult Media and Cosplaying As Your Dad

In this lively and spirited conversation, Artbeat’s regular guest who’s anything but regular, Sukhjit Kaur Khalsa, speaks with Bec Bowman about her experience in a Victoria Park pub the night before singing karaoke to Rihanna and winning a $50 voucher by means of her boyfriend Perun Bonser winning a round of semi-literal “heads and tails” using your hands. Sukhjit, who’s been running the Blue Room Theatre in Northbridge for three years, divulges the “Blue Room Bar” upstairs which has drinks and snacks and doubles as a social drinks parlour or a quiet space for co-working with other creatives, depending on time of day it is.

The pair then share a common desire to open a business where they give blunt, truthful advice to people (like psychology but the unqualified version). After a song break that “comforts the disturbed and disturbs the comforted”, Sukhjit, a self-confessed “vanilla baby”, elaborates on her lack of desire to consume media with trauma-inducing narratives, tying in with Bec always getting recommended books and movies that challenge our psyches in disturbing ways.

Sukhjit explains that the last time she read a “traumatic book” was in 2016 and since then she has felt the need to feel happy with anything she watches or reads. Following on from that, Sukhjit explains an “artist takeover” she and others participated in at P&O Hotel in Freo where they could literally do whatever they wanted. Having heard this, Sukhjit elected to dress up as a a “drag version” of her dad and decorated the room in the hotel with religious Indian paraphernalia. Confused? You’ll have to listen to this story to get the full context!