Comedian Marley Gotterer knows what it takes to snap a twink. As the two-time reigning champ of the infamous Twinks vs. Dolls competition, Gotterer is Brooklyn’s most fearsome competitor. But she didn’t get to champ status overnight; it takes skill and spirit to earn a trophy.
That’s why Gotterer invited hopeful contenders to train with her at her very own “Lick My Boots Camp” at Camp Singers, the new rural outpost of Singers, Brooklyn’s favorite gay bar, which specializes in hyperbrain programming year-round (Twinks vs. Dolls, most notably). A charming homestead inn on 88 acres of upstate heaven, Camp Singers’s serene environment was the perfect place for Marley’s trainees to focus their minds, bodies and spirits on garnering strength.
At Gotterer’s Boot Camp, “next-gen fighters were trained... in tap, jazz, and contemporary,” Gotterer reports. Features of the weekend included strict 7 AM wake-up times, a “wig-off” where trainees donned new hair and performed musical numbers for an esteemed panels of judges, donkey yoga, hikes, wood-chopping and a high-stress HIIT workout led by Gotterer. “You could hear coughs and gags echoing in the woods,” she recalls. “I worked them good.”
Even though there was blood, sweat and tears, Gotterer says that “people left with new friends for life,” as the group bonded over the joy and pain of training. “It was really cool to see a bunch of city people come up to the woods and create new relationships that you might not have had before,” she shares. “And it was really cute to see queer people in a space where they could lean into skills and activities they might have experienced at a camp or through Boy Scouts, which are experiences that might hold some trauma for them.” It was a “reorientation” and a “reclamation of that camp type of energy,” she shares.
As for how this batch of next-gen fighters will stack up when it’s time to enter Twinks vs. Dolls arena? “I think there are definitely some trainees who will be taking to the twink side,” she offers coyly. “But then the next year they might be on the doll’s side,” she adds. “I am accepting people for who they are and planting the seed in the egg’s head.”
Those looking to join the ranks of trainees should keep their eye on future weekends at Camp Singers. The inn will continue to host “camp-themed events, courses and lodging,” Brooke Peshke, co-owner of Singers and the mind behind the Camp, tells PAPER. Plus, this winter, Peshke and Gotterer are thinking up a “winter-long ‘X’ games competition,” featuring three teams going head-to-head in a wide range of “mini competitions (i.e Chopped campfire edition), where they will test different skills each weekend.”
We’ll buy our snow gear and check our calendars, but in the meantime, we’re thankful that Gotterer shared some of her favorite moments from her first-ever bootcamp upstate with PAPER.
Photography by B
