Split Personality
Along with his alter-ego, Summer Camp, party promoter Shea Van Horn is determined to make the D.C's nightlife scene even more weird, wild and wondrous than it already is
Photography by Julian Vankim
MW: As a kid you pursued theater. Did you want to be an actor?
VAN HORN: I don’t know if I ever wanted to be an actor. I knew as a kid that I was not an athlete. I didn’t have natural athletic skills, or physical strengths. I just had lots of energy. And I imagine that teachers probably encouraged me, go do drama, probably as a way to channel that creativity and energy. In elementary school, I remember being in the gifted program, which I think is a weird name. But once a week I would go off to this other place with other kids that were probably just as weird as I was. There’d be role-playing and acting things out, and scenes. So from a young age there was just always that kind of playing at things.
MW: When did you get engaged to Andy and decide to marry?
VAN HORN: Actually he asked me to marry him at Mixtape. It was the first time we had Mixtape at the 9:30 Club, this past January. They have the dressing rooms upstairs for us, and they set up the dressing rooms with the 9:30 Club cupcakes, beers, hummus plates. It just feels so special. We’re treated probably the same way they treat any rock star who comes through town.
Andy said he had something he needed to ask me. And then he explained how he had wanted to say something me for a long time, and had been thinking about a way to do it. And then he said, “I just want to ask you to marry me.” And I said “Yes.” I even know what song was playing when he asked me. Icona Pop’s “All Night.”
After he asked me, I was like, “Oh, I need to go back on. I’ve got to DJ.” I was just giddy. So the first person I told was Matt Bailer. It was fun looking out in the crowd and watching Andy slowly tell people. They would stop and look and point. It was sweet.
MW: Where did you meet?
VAN HORN: We met socially before we hung out. But we started hanging out at the gym. I asked him if he would help me with my workout. It sounds so cheesy. But we were working out, just chatting about stuff. I started talking a little bit about some of the stuff that I do, and I told him that I was going to go to Value Village to buy a bunch of ceramic animals for a video that I was making for Crack — it was a spoof of the Sarah McLachlan ad, but instead of ASPCA it was ASPCCA — American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Ceramic Animals.
So I told him about this. He was like, “Oh, I love thrift stores.” So we had our first date at Value Village, while he helped me pick out ceramic animals. He started making voices, making the animals talk and stuff. And in my mind, I was thinking, “Oh, this guy is funny.” That’s when it started to shift a little bit that he’s not just a workout partner. And then our second date, we called it Champagne Dress-Up Party. Crack has a huge storage unit. We brought a bottle of champagne and cups and went to my storage unit and just pulled stuff out and he tried on tons of our costumes. One of the best moments was when an employee comes walking down the hall. There were just costumes everywhere, us drinking champagne, and then Andy, this 6-foot-3 guy wearing a costume that probably is my size, so it’s just this giant guy wearing this little costume. And the guy just keeps on walking. And I was like, Andy is just so cool, just willing to have a super-fun time. And that’s been the theme of our relationship. Everything is just always fun. A lot of adventure and play.
MW: He doesn’t perform with you though. What does he do by day?
VAN HORN: He works in government contracting. He and I actually have very similar day jobs in the sense that we work for companies that have government contracts. His contract is with the Department of Homeland Security, and mine are all through Health and Human Services.
My company is international in its focus, but all of my work is domestic. I’m a project manager. I work on social marketing and communications campaigns. It ranges from working with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, to the National Institutes of Health, on issues that range from childhood obesity prevention. I work a lot right now on HIV testing awareness.
I worked for about seven years on a project that ended that was about raising awareness of HIV vaccine research, clinical trials and it grew to include biomedical HIV prevention — so PrEP and all that stuff that’s come out into the world now.
MW: It sounds rewarding and fulfilling. But also very different from how the general public knows you.
VAN HORN: It’s true. I’ll meet people who have no idea that I have any of that going on in my life.
MW: It also sounds like the type of job you might not want to give up to pursue a drag and DJ career exclusively. Or would you?
VAN HORN: I don’t know. That goes along with what I was saying before, about being a little more introverted, being a little more kind of quiet. I like things that are stable and secure. So the idea of having a job that has really great benefits, and a retirement plan and a salary that’s coming in on a regular basis is really appealing to me. And the fact that it’s tied to work where the mission of the organization is something that’s trying to make the world a better place, I’m okay with that. Where that job is lacking for me is a little bit of creativity. Certainly there is a whole segment of the work that we do that’s designed and focused group and interacting with people, crafting messages, coming up with the exact right wording. There’s a creative element to it, but it’s not Summer Camp creative and it’s not DJ Shea Van Horn creative.
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