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| I'm sitting with my girl-posse and a theater full of gorgeous
dykes and various types of cohort, a Guinness in one hand and
a cigarette in the other. The lights dim, a bright spot lights
the red velvet curtain, and I'm welcomed by the Gentleman King, her suit fitting her gorgeously, her diction delightful and
her gaze shy, but sly and certain. In the next hour, I may be
entertained with Etta James, with a crew of half-dressed dames
doing a rousing and slinky Chicago sendup, with a gorgeous androgyne sexing up Carole King, with
a striptease -- on trapeze -- from male to female drag before my eyes, with various recreations,
revisions or reinventions of Steven Tyler, Kid Rock, Van Morrison,
Rod Stewart, Frank Sinatra, Mae West, Bette Midler, Tom Waits,
the Andrews Sisters or Dolly Parton. I'll be feasting my eyes
on kings and queens and every shade of genderblurred royalty and
peasantry in between, on legs up to there or collars up to here,
and the cheers, laughs and sighs of a rollicking crowd filling
every seat in the house (and often abandoning those seats to join
the troupe in dancing at the show's end). I know I'll laugh at
least once until my sides ache, and that on more than one occasion
I'll have cause to squirm in my seat a little, while issuing a
soft growl or a longing sigh. I know I'll be turned up and turned
on, intellectually, politically, sexually, and have a damned good
time, and that's a helluva deal for my twelve bucks. I never quite know what to expect, but I know it'll always be my best night out of the month, and like everyone else in the audience, I'll be sure and get tickets in advance so that I don't miss it. Ever. Because as far as I'm concerned, it's the best ongoing entertainment Minneapolis has to offer, the coolest dyke bar-for-a-night around (it was even crowned this year as the Best Lesbian Bar by The City Pages, despite being an event, not a bar), and the only place to be on every third weekend of the month. Dykes Do Drag plays once a month, for three nights running, at the Bryant-Lake Bowl on Lake St. in Minneapolis, a venue that's a fantastic fusion of wine and beer bar, ungodly good eating, retro bowling alley and local alternative theater and cabaret. The ever-changing and evolving troupe has been found there since 1999, when Gentleman King Heather Spear -- the only performer yet to garner the title of the Minneapolis City Pages Best Drag King -- and co-producer Rudy Renaud first founded the troupe. Since then, it's gone from an every-once-in-a -while booking to solidly packing the house in its now monthly venue. Filmmakers Amanda Taylor and Kim Brown recently completed a documentary of the troupe and its history. In a word, these dykes have arrived. At its conception, Spear felt there was a dearth of dyke-directed entertainment for women (let's leave out the spoken word performances with the teeth-gritting breakup poetry, shall we?), and that the drag playing in the cities at the time wasn't pushing any quality boundaries; nor gender boundaries, for that matter. One goes to a gay bar, one expects Drag Queens. One goes to a dyke show, one expects Drag Kings, and a lot of drag performance tends to both start and end there, creating an interesting irony: queer entertainment seemingly trapped in the same old heterosexual gender modes. But from the onset, Dykes Do Drag has been mixed gender, mixed orientation, mixed identity and mixed media. Some of that diversity may well lie in how Spear defines the term "dyke." She doesn't see it as a sexual identifier so much as a holistic identity, encompassing social consciousness and awareness, political activism, challenging the boundaries of cultural and sexual programming, and an embracing of sexuality as well as sexual creativity and whimsy. That given, the "dykes" at DDD are not all biologically female or even female identified. They're also not all lesbian. Initially, Spear took on some backlash from the lesbian community for trying to diversify dykedom in that way: apparently, in the early beginnings of the show some audience members cattily remarked that the show should be called "femmes do drag." (A few of the troupe members responded in kind by considering making t-shirts which proclaimed "Femmes are dykes too!" and a show this past spring with an all-femme theme was titled "Revenge of the Femmes") There are myths to shatter. For instance, the idea that all dykes are political to the point that any rally is foreplay, that we're all serious, sullen sapphists who can't let loose and just have a fucking good time, for the love of Pete. After all, if I had a dime for every lesbian joke whose punchline was "That's not funny," I'd have funded five years of Michigan Womyn's Music Festival trips by now. A Dykes Do Drag show, and many dyke drag or drag king shows, are chock-full of sidesplitting laughter. Dykes do drag, and lesbians love laughing. Or the prevalent notion that we're sexless after either the third date, or the third day of the first date, whichever comes first. Well, halfway through a show, the estrogen in the audience and onstage both is laced with enough juicy girl-grown testosterone that it's going to take more than your beer to quench your thirst. Under Spear's direction, Dykes Do Drag is not only undaunted by such reactions and stereotypes, they seem to spur the troupe and its performers further. We often take for granted in queer community that we stand well outside the kinds of borders and restrictions in terms of gender and sexual identity one sees in straight communities and arts, when in fact, we not only often have our own stereotypes and tiny boxes we want to squash everyone into, sometimes those boxes differ very little from those heterosexuals or more traditionally gender-minded folks find themselves penned in by. But is making gender identity into entertainment really a means to embracing more fluidity in gender, a way to climb out of those tiny boxes so few of us fit into very well? And does playing with gender in this way dismiss those with gender dysphoria, or make light of transgendered or transsexual people through parody and genderplay? Spear doesn't think so. She posits that, "The performances could be taken as dismissive, but I wonder if the idea of transitioning to 'felt' or 'true' gender is not still buying into binary gender/gender duality. Seeing questioning binary gender, entertaining with genderplay as not taking [the discomfort of traditional models] seriously -- some of the point is to show the audience not to take these roles so seriously in a way that makes them identify how crazy it is." For instance, Spear has noticed that some kings bring misogyny into their performances or personas, something which may not be all bad. Spear, most often a king in performance herself, says, "By playing up misogyny, one can play up what an act it is. Part of what is more challenging about being a drag king as opposed to a queen has to do with the nature of the fact that in our society maleness is considered the basis, and femaleness the alternative, so the standards that we judge gender by and people's roles/place in society by... there's this concept of 'the man' as just fact, just 'is.' If you're a woman, female behavior is often in response [to male behavior and identity]. To avoid being perceived as a man, put on makeup clothes to show oneself as other." She says that "It's easier for drag queens to put on flamboyance -- eyelashes, heels, falsies, feminine markers. Whereas to be a drag king it's about taking away all of that, stripping down decoration, active as well as physical sense. To 'be' masculinity, to perform it, it is easy to go to the misogyny, to go to baser types of people/men, but we may need that to examine that weird little zone of what masculinity is in the ideal, as well." Which brings us to the F-word. No, the other f-word. How is a show like Dykes Do Drag feminist, and what can genderblending and drag bring to feminism? Spear grew up in a feminist household, never questioned that she was and is feminist, but had a clear sense and feeling that what feminism was was feminism of the sixties and seventies: very heterosexual and unaccepting of the dynamics of roles between or within varying genders and gender identities. As she sees it, queering up gender is something that really needs to happen in feminist arenas to take us further along the process in the feminist movement, and get us out of such straight gender roles (think for instance of how hard both lesbian and butch women had/have to struggle to get acceptance in feminism at all, and look now at how hard transgendered women are having to struggle to seek same). In Spear's mind, in the same way she diversifies the word "dyke," feminism needs to diversify itself similarly: opening itself to all sorts of different people to create a greater awareness when it comes to racial, social and class consciousness, so that we can start to get where we need to be in terms of feminism being exactly that. And yet, queer culture and genderqueering are often seen as a threat to some sects of the feminist movement, and transphobia runs rampant. I wholeheartedly agree with Spear: if feminism really is about addressing gender inequality, it seems imperative to recognize that a great deal of that inequality arises from the narrow confines of accepted binary and biological gender, and of those ideas determining what is masculine and what feminine. If less division between women and men, between dykes and fags, between biology and identity is threatening and abhorrent to feminism, then we're never going to be able to even come close to anything resembling equality. If we can't even bear to entertain the notion of losing those divisions, maybe we don't really want that equality. If we can't accept that much of gender in daily life is, like gender in drag performance, artificial, an impersonation, we can't very well learn how to shed that dead skin. If we can't evaluate and question the ways in which sexual identity and behavior are assumed and expected to be linearly aligned with biological gender -- when in fact sexual identity, orientation and behavior, and gender identity and behavior are likely only linked to biological sex because we arbitrarily link them -- then we can't very well have a good look at why and how we are bound by those ideas and the institutions and power structures that enforce them, nor how to rid ourselves of that bondage. A show like Dykes Do Drag, and drag in general, isn't just for dykes, queers, third-wavers or fag hags. Asked about the relevancy of drag performance to heterosexuals and more mainstream community, Spear waxes, "I think it's relevant, and at least as important, for people outside the queer community to think about these issues as it is for those of us [within it]." Spear was recently asked to participate on a panel at a small college in upstate New York on drag, followed by a drag ball the following evening. " I had a set of assumptions of the world I was entering into based on the world I was leaving here, that among straights people know what queer is; have GLBT friends and neighbors. I went into this panel discussion with more [academic and theoretical issues] to talk about, but it turned out that I needed to explain that a drag king is someone who is a woman who pretends to be a man, and be much more basic. Even at the drag ball I should have been less minimalist than I was. I didn't realize how unusual the pieces that I do are, especially to a straight audience unfamiliar with queer culture. It was important: I showed a room full of students something that they'd never seen before, but there are ways in which I could have been more effective if I had been more conventional, with songs they recognized or more obvious characters." It is as important, if not more so, as it is to people who more automatically question gender and gender identity. With one or more feet outside the door of mainstream culture, it's easy to forget how confining heterosexual or heteronormative roles can be. For as much as we ensconced in queer culture might balk or whinge at how in our communities some of those boundaries are watchfully guarded, in much of the straight world, they're not only guarded, they've got big dogs and stun guns for those who brave it and try and cross over. Whether it's her long history in the performance arts -- she's been dancing professionally in Minneapolis for over 8 years -- the easy but energetic flow of conversation, or the fact that her presence is dynamic and strongly compelling, it's hard when sitting with Heather not to keep brining the focus of conversation back to her alone. When she's the Gentleman King she makes it look effortless and easy. Often she goes without a lot of the usual king trappings: the facial hair, the sideburns, the package, yet, she's got it all going on, and it's heady and sexy performance to watch. I want to know how she does it, especially because her onstage persona and her offstage person seem intrinsically and gracefully linked, but can also clearly be separate. She says a lot of it comes down to physical movement. "There are specific physicalities to keep in mind," she says. " A few years ago, I had a gig as a drag king consultant for a play, and I primarily talked about the physicality of how to move as man; how [one's] center of gravity is in a different place, how the body gets carried in such a different way. I try to embody, in myself somewhere, the people and models I'm taking it from: rocker boys I've known, classic gentlemen like Frank Sinatra, Gene Kelly. When I first started getting into it, it really changed me and helped me define things in my life and myself. I've always been that classic kind of performer who performs because of shyness in life. Onstage, I get to be as big as I want to be; I get to be other characters, but I'm still me. I feel like that's a lot of what masculinity is: taking up space; lots of my pieces tend to be very stripped down and bare, with little light or set. Part of the challenge for me is to see how little I can do but still hold [the audiences] attention and take up that space. I think part of the male assumption is that they can fill a whole room automatically." Her approach carries through the other performers. Many of the kings take a minimalist route to costuming: the facial hair is spare or absent, the costuming simple. I didn't ask and don't know if any of them are usually packing, and I'm kicking myself for missing such a golden opportunity to find out. The bio-male queens aren't waxed and plastered to the nines. Voices in performance aren't often modulated to "fake" biological gender. One of the original aspects of Dykes Do Drag is a merging of character and the performer's own identity: there is a sense of union and fusion, rather than the feeling of two separate entities; a sense that gender is being earnestly explored, not merely taken on and off in a pair of pants or a set of false lashes. So, Spear is not the only performer in the troupe exploring her own identity through stage identity, nor her own identity as a performer. A well known local queen, Barbie Q, has played in the dyke troupe with a very different persona: as Buck, a leisure-suited, buck-toothed, mullet-haired and platform shod strutting geek, who clearly thinks he's the coolest thing to sliced bread, crooning "Eye of the Tiger" like an anthem. Esme Rodriguez is a flamboyant, glittering drag queen, but whether she's bio-male or bio-female, the audience can only guess. One performer, within one show, will play a cool, suited crooner, sensually singing Van Morrison's "Moonlight," then later on, dominate the stage crassly as Kid Rock, thug homies in tow. PrinceAss Maggie Mayhem could be the secret lovechild of Annie Lennox and Boy George, with a body he moves in such a way that you'd be hard pressed to find folks of any gender or orientation who didn't drool. During a show in June, two performers dragged and gender-swapped White Stripes Meg and Jack White in brilliant parody but with startlingly creepy accuracy. Ettagirl walks on stage and you may as well be in the room with Etta James; she's got all the funk and the cool spiced with a slick dose of camp. Spear herself shifts from the Gentleman King to a character she calls "whiny boy," based on boys she'd known in college, who are well intentioned, but who often end up coming off as creepy in their adopted sensitivity. she feels identification in that persona as well: she wants to be a smooth and charming gentleman, but she also has what she calls "whiny boy questions." Above and beyond the original approach to drag, the diversification of dyke, the genderblur and the enthusiastic atmosphere, a lot of what sets Dykes Do Drag apart is the quality of performance, and the earnestness and attitude of the performers. Above and beyond all that? It's ungodly sexy. I've asked a lot of people why drag is so sexy, and the usual answer is a flat look followed by a Hello, Captain Obvious response of "Because it just fucking is." Even Spear has a hard time with that question, saying she hasn't quite answered it yet. I haven't either, but I have my theories. Personally, from my sexual coming-of-age through my adult sexual life, what has compelled me most in terms of gender identity has always been the "tweeners," the androgynes, the butch girls, the femme boys, those whose gender identities are so fluid and original we don't even have a handy label for them yet (suffice it to say, butch women and femme men are often misinterpreted as mimicking the opposite biological gender, when instead, it's often crystal to those of us who love, lust after and adore them that what they've done is invent new gender models entirely). It's always a hard call to say why we're attracted to what and whom we are, and tends to devolve quickly into a lot of extended, tired navel gazing. But I know that for me, a lot of that attraction lies in the fact that when I see someone who clearly isn't stuck in binary roles, who is creative with gender and sexual identity, who I can't classify easily, I know that not only means they aren't likely to expect me to be stuck in them either, but that they too, may reinvent themselves several times over. There's a fluidity, a whimsy, a spontaneity, a celebration of imagination and a camping of artifice in that, combined with the livewire energy and rapt attention of a performer working the crowd. And if role fluidity, whimsy and imagination, celebration, energy, rapt attention and a damned good time doesn't sum up what I want in my sexual life, I'm not sure what does. David Bowie and Mae West knew that, and I've little doubt the performers of Dykes Do Drag know it, too. Drag and genderblur are sexually, intellectually and emotionally transformative, and not in a fluffy way: you don't need to purchase a caftan or crystals. You just need to show the hell up and enjoy yourself. So, what happens when I'm not thinking about anything at all but what I'm watching? With my singular fixation on a set of cufflinks or a soul patch, on a clipped nape or a gently held rose, on a long swath of leg under a bias-cut gown, a slow and subtle movement of a bare arm, or a swagger in well cut trousers? With my abandon in wild laughter, good cheer and en-masse arousal? I'm dragged, kicking and screaming, with a cigarette in one hand and a Guinness in the other, surrounded by gorgeous dykes, catered and played to completely, tuned in and turned on, transformed and transgressed, queered up to the nines, with a cramp in my side, a tickle further south and a smile a mile wide. It ain't every day you can get all that going on in public without breaking some laws. And certainly not for twelve bucks. Dykes Do Drag plays every third weekend of the month, in Minneapolis at the Bryant-Lake Bowl. For tickets, schedules or more information, call the BLB at: (612) 825-8949. And stay tuned next month for an exclusive webcast at SL of the nest performance! |
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| see portraits of the performers • see slideshow of recent shows | |||||
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12.07.06: Scarlet Letters -- in case it isn't glaringly obvious -- is currently
on an extended hiatus. The web has changed, we've changed, and
we're trying to figure out how we both fit together now, which isn't a process we want to rush. If you're looking for more current SL-related content, you can
have check out upcoming books from editor Heather Corinna and previous co-editor Hanne Blank, check out Heather's current sexuality sites, or explore sites through the femmerotic network. We hope to be back with you soon, as fresh, challenging and
unexpected as ever.
In the meantime, by all means, enjoy our years of past content,
all of which still remain in the public and subscription areas.
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