Alok comes to Rapid City

I didn’t know much about ALOK when I first saw the Rapid City date come across the calendar., but I could tell pretty quickly that people around me did and more overt, they cared… a lot. The reaction was stronger than the usual excitement around a touring comedian or performer. People I respect were talking about ALOK with the kind of familiarity that comes from having spent time with someone’s work, and I did not want to write a thin event preview about a person and an audience I did not understand. So I poked around to get their thoughts on why this performance was so important to them.

First, I spoke with my good friend Tom Whillock, who came to ALOK through Instagram and now describes himself as a huge fan. Secondly, I reached out Sabrina LaCroix, who had already traveled to Missoula to see them perform and had been hoping for a Rapid City stop for years. Their reasons for their passion were different, but both conversations kept circling back to the same thing: ALOK’s work gives people permission to show up more fully as themselves.

ALOK Vaid-Menon, who performs as ALOK brings the Eat Pray Leave tour to West River Comedy Club on Wednesday, Oct. 21. They are a comedian, poet, author, actor and public speaker whose work has taken them to more than 40 countries, with books including Beyond the Gender Binary, Femme in Public and Your Wound, My Garden. Their comedy special BIOLOGY! was executive produced by Christopher Guest, and the documentary short ALOK premiered at Sundance in 2024.

ALOK’s work often centers on gender, conformity, shame and the pressure people feel to make themselves acceptable to others. Across comedy, poetry and public speaking, they return to a fairly simple idea: people should not have to shrink themselves, explain themselves or become more familiar before they are allowed to exist openly. Their work is often funny, but the humor is doing more than entertaining, it gives people room to examine things that might otherwise turn immediately into argument or defensiveness.

Sabrina first came across ALOK several years ago, probably through Reels, during a difficult stretch in her own life. She kept watching and sharing their work, and in 2025 arranged a trip so she could see them perform in Missoula. What she remembers most is not a particular jokes, it is the room.

“I sat in a tight corner in a hot theater surrounded by people who were dressed … like themselves,” she said. “I sat in a tight corner in a hot theater surrounded by people who were dressed … like themselves,” she said.

For Sabrina, the combination is the point: humor gives people room to lower their guard, while poetry and directness can reach places that arguments often cannot. When she tried to describe what an ALOK show can offer, her list kept growing.

“Entertainment? Sure. A healing heart hug? Definitely. Permission? Absolutely.”

Sabrina talks about being oneself through fear and doubt, about people being able to show without first making themselves more understandable to somebody else. In Missoula, she saw people dressed like themselves, heard them laugh at the same jokes and watched them react to the same words.

“That’s how community is built,” she said. “That’s how a sense of safety is secured.”

Her description does not require everyone in the room to share the same identity or arrive for the same reason. In fact, Tom Whillock’s enthusiasm for the Rapid City show suggests they won’t.

“I was born in the final year of the baby boomers. I’m white. I’m straight. I’m AMAB,” Whillock said. “I’m curious what share of Alok’s fan base I represent, but I bet it’s not very high.”

He is also, in his words, “a huge fan.” Whillock first encountered ALOK when Instagram pushed one of their videos into his feed. Their appearance caught his attention first, but that quickly became secondary.

“While I was initially struck by their flamboyant, gender-bending appearance, it only took a few moments of listening to them speak to hear their intelligence and compassion shine through their words,” he said.

His daughter later described ALOK to him as one of the most significant voices of their generation. Whillock kept watching and eventually came to his own conclusion.

“I want to live in a world that more closely resembles Alok’s thoughts and observations of how it could be: with grace, gratitude, acceptance and joy,” he said. “I can’t wait to have them visit our community.”

That range of reactions makes it difficult to reduce the Rapid City audience to one demographic or one reason for being there. ALOK has spoken directly about performing outside the cities most commonly associated with queer culture, including stops throughout the Midwest and South. In a 2025 interview with Pride Source, they said those places matter precisely because queer people live everywhere and should be able to live everywhere. They also described spending time after shows listening to people at the merch table and learning what audiences in different communities are carrying with them. Rapid City is part of that same pattern. ALOK’s audience is already here. Until now, seeing them live could mean driving to another city.

I started asking because I wanted to understand why people around me cared so much that ALOK was coming to Rapid City. Tom and Sabrina gave me very different answers. Wednesday night, West River Comedy Club will be full of countless others with reasons of their own, each arriving as themselves.