Drag Artists Breaking Into the Contemporary Dance World

Belinda Mathieu

The transdisciplinary art of drag combines make-up, hairstyling, comedy, fashion, textile design, singing, and, of course, dance. CN D magazine looks at the ways in which drag artists are embracing the discipline, at a time when some of them are emerging on more traditional stages.

The screen dazzles with wild lip-syncing, acrobatic tricks, or choreographed parody. The popular reality competition RuPaul’s Drag Race, launched in 2009 by influential American drag queen RuPaul Charles, has proven that dance has its place in the art of drag. Fans of the franchise will remember Laganja Estranja's virtuoso splits (RuPaul’s Drag Race US season 5), Alyssa Edwards’ prowess (season 5), Keiona’s voguing (Drag Race France season 2), or Misty Phoenix’s fouettés turns on pointe in front of Paris Opera Ballet principal Guillaume Diop who was sitting on the panel that day (season 3). This effervescence begs the question: what are these artists borrowing from more traditional forms of dance? Is there a recognizable, characteristic style? How porous are the boundaries between drag and choreography?

Whether he’s performing at Paris concert hall La Flèche d’Or’s Habibi cabaret night or on Drag Race France season 2, Matthieu Barbin (aka Sara Forever) always seems to be one step ahead. “Being a dancer helped me a lot, because I was already used to being on stage,” explains the man who has collaborated with contemporary choreographers Boris Charmatz, Marlène Saldana, and Jonathan Drillet, among others. Though some queens – like drag performers Perseo and Misty Phoenix, who studied at the Paris Opera school and the Avignon conservatory, respectively – have formal dance training, most seem to have a much more DIY approach to the discipline.

“There are surprisingly few trained dancers who do drag,” observes Barbin. “Some people are incapable of executing choreography correctly, but have an acute awareness of how their body looks when they move. They have an instinctive approach to dance.” Soa de Muse, a finalist in the first season of Drag Race France and the co-founder of La Bouche cabaret in Paris, agrees: “Drag is necessarily connected to a corporality. You have a way of walking, a posture... wearing heels for twelve hours straight is already a form of dance!”

Many drag queens and kings learn to wing it when it comes to dance, often with the help of a few YouTube tutorials or, like Lee (aka Levo Evolove), through sharing dressing rooms with other performers. For this 27-year-old French-Vietnamese artist, it all began at the King Factory, a regular party held at La Mutinerie, a Parisian lesbian bar. His discovery of the art of drag, which, for kings, consists in embodying and hijacking the codes of masculinity, was a liberation for him. “I was assigned female at birth, but it’s always been much easier to embody masculinity. Going on stage still scares the hell out of me, but when the music starts, everything I’ve been holding back inside explodes on the floor,” he laughs. “Like I’m in the shower!”

Levo Evolove has risen in popularity for the past year and a half, thanks to his piercing gaze, classy yet sensual gestures, and big splits. Despite his apparent ease in both artistry and technique, he doesn’t consider himself a dancer. “I’m more of an expressionist,” he says. His lipsync numbers could give 20^th-century German cabaret artist Valeska Gert’s ‘face dancing’ a run for its money and are inspired by the facial expressions of his own father and American actor Jim Carrey. Despite the finesse of his interpretation, Levo Evolove’s routines include quite a bit of improvisation: “I train very quickly, without going into detail,” he says. “I really want to be in the moment and let myself be surprised. In fact, it’s rare for me to do the same show over and over again.”

Spontaneity also appealed to Barbin when he made his debut on the drag scene, shortly after creating his 2020 show Les cent mille derniers quarts d’heure [One-thousand final fifteen-minutes]. “When I started out, I tended to do very long numbers, like in contemporary dance, where you’re very interested in process. But in drag, that doesn’t work, it’s the desire to have an impact that prevails over everything else. You have no choice but to capture the gaze that’s cast upon you.” He asserts that the fourth wall “simply doesn’t exist” in drag performance, a feature that he says makes it “the most egalitarian art form”. He explains that “while dance is an important element, it is just one of the tools that are available to us, without hierarchy. I mean movement is used in the same way as make-up or sewing skills”. Soa de Muse adds: “In cabaret, as in drag, there are no limits. We allow ourselves to explore the seemingly impossible.”

Drag seems to be a world away from issues many traditional performance venues have been grappling with for years, such as diversifying audiences and showcasing work that has social relevance. Perhaps that’s why, for the past few years, more traditional arts organizations in France have been taking a serious interest in drag. Barbin, under his drag identity Sara Forever, has created a new show, Dynasties, that’s touring a circuit of festivals and venues that typically show contemporary dance and theatre.

And this autumn Soa de Muse will present Diaspora at the CN D, an Afro-futuristic cabaret that draws on her background in burlesque stripping to and collaborations with contemporary choreographers Nina Santès and Eve Magot. For the performer, who navigates with ease between cabaret venues, TV shows and conventional theaters, questions of space and types of audiences are ultimately of little importance: “It’s like you’re changing channels, but it’s the same show. The important thing for me is to bring what I do to the place that’s offered to me, and let’s go!” Her words hint at the political charge of drag: wherever it goes, it dances in the space between struggle and its freedom, without ever losing its spark.

Belinda Mathieu is a journalist and dance critic who works for several publications, including Télérama, Mouvement, Trois Couleurs, Sceneweb, and La Terrasse. She holds degrees in French literature (Université Paris-Sorbonne), journalism (ISCPA) and a BA in dance from Université Paris 8. She is currently enrolled in their MA program and she continues to reflect on her practice and what is at stake for critical texts in the ecosystem of contemporary dance.

Dynasties
Choreography, direction: Sara Forever
From November 5 to 9 at  Théâtre de la Cité, CDN de Toulouse, France
November 16 as part of the  Small arts, Ljubljana, Slovénie
January 30, 2025 at the MC2 à Grenoble
From February 11 to 15, 2025 at Maison des Métallos, Paris
April 3 and 4, 2025 at Théâtre Dijon Bourgogne CDN

Diaspora
Choreography, direction: Soa de Muse 
November 7 at CN D, Pantin

Levo Evolove
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