Jody Kuehner will take drag drama to new levels of socio-feminist change, audience interactivity and intimate personal recollection this month. The Seattle-based dancer/performance artist, who performs in drag as Cherdonna Shinatra, will bring her show “Clock that Mug or Dusted” to FringeArts Feb. 22-24.
PGN: Considering your dance formalism, why do you do drag in the first place or use drag for a socially conscious performance-art manner?
JK: Lou Henry Hoover and I have worked together in Seattle and the two of us are queer and played with ideas of queerness and gender-play expression in the studio. It came out organically and with research. But it wasn’t this big drag thing we focused on. We circled around it, which I believe is different than how most performers get to it these days.
PGN: Because you were coming at it through a choreographic-arts sensibility.
JK: Yes — and what an audience felt about her too and how the references touch them. I came at it from a research realm of contemporary dance and high aesthetics and how I would express my femininity. Figuring that out with this character has been pretty life-changing for me in how I express my own sexuality and gender.
PGN: What change has been enacted? What is the most personal thing “Cherdonna” has given you?
JK: When I started “Cherdonna,” I was more androgynous in my everyday life. I am queer and I believe it came out of a fear of femme invisibility. I actually had a stockpile of high heels in my house before doing drag but I was afraid of not being seen as queer if I wore them; that I wouldn’t be recognized as part of my community. Through “Cherdonna,” though, I can express my femininity. I can wear lipstick and heels. Eight or nine years of that has shifted and figured into my regular life, and now the closets shared between Jody and her blend easier. There’s not a hard line anymore and I am femme-presenting on a day-to-day basis. And I have “Cherdonna” to thank for that.
PGN: “Cherdonna” has performed regularly with drag-queen superstar BenDeLaCreme (“RuPaul’s Drag Race”). What is your take on the democratization of drag — the mainstreaming?
JK: I have a whole lot of feelings. I love that the phenomenon has made it viable that drag queens can go out and make money and that those who couldn’t find it in the past can do so now — especially through social media. It has, however, created another empire for male domination. That gets me a little bit. I am insanely supportive of men or men-identifying people to find their femininity — but where is the return? Why is there less value in drag kings? Why are there few female-dominated queer bars? I believe that it is because of patriarchy. The benefits of that popularity are great. It just brings up another deficit for femme people.
PGN: What does catching someone in the act have to do with the show’s storyline?
JK: Because it exists in a moment-to-moment way and, playing with the audience, there is immediacy. We are clocking that. There is a risk to that. There are unknowns that are fun and scary because I do not always know when and if I will connect. I don’t move on in the work, however, until I am satisfied that I have connected.
PGN: Why do you use Cris Williamson’s “Waterfall” as part of the soundtrack?
JK: Just another touch of my past as a lesbian … I mean I heard her through my mom’s record collection. And my mom is straight and still with my dad but she has that queerness to her. There is nostalgia there as a child and as a queer person.
PGN: There are drawing canvases and squirt-bottle paints and birthday cake. How much of this show connects to childhood or innocence?
JK: [“Cherdonna”] is showing all of her emotions all of the time. There is a childishness to her. Plus that feels [like] something of a political choice. There is so much hiding that we have to do in the world. That is why audiences connect to this character; that they would do or say the things “Cherdonna” does if they only could. There is some sort of release in being able to do things that are not socially acceptable in real life. As adults, we are taught to not do that, but I have those materials on stage to conjure that feeling in an audience. It’s seen as something childlike, sure. But really it is all just human, an expression of whom we truly are, no matter what age. n
For more information or tickets, visit fringearts.com/event/clock-mug-dusted/.