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WhAT a DRAg(qUEEn!)
A few moments with Dinah Lux
Words by Flora Macdonald Johnston
When did you first start doing drag?
I was always dressing up as a kid – I was obsessed with Peter Pan, and wanted to dress like Captain Hook so badly (truly a queer icon – terrified of a ticking clock? Very Halberstam’s In a Queer Time and Place…). I loved his tights so much that whenever my aunt came home from work I made her take off her pop socks so I could wear them and prance around the house. Shockingly, no one was surprised when I came out. But my first ever time in drag-drag as an adult was at Denim, a drag night at Cambridge Uni. My boyfriend at the time was producing it and he got me to interview people in the queue for CUTV – the birth of Chelsy Buns!
Describe your first drag persona?
Chelsy Buns was the very first… She was a nod to my Essex hometown, a Romford/Brentwood mix, truly where I first discovered glamour. Chelsy had a love affair with leopard print, wearing it exclusively, down to the shoes, with brassy red hair – bought from Smiffys that day – and a fake Birkin in the crook of her elbow. In many ways, Chelsy never left.
You’re now a lecturer at Oxford, what's it like balancing drag life and normal life?
Normally, the balance isn’t so bad, and my drag inflects my lecturing quite a lot. My doctoral thesis was on lip-sync performance, so you can always tell who my students are because their exams invariably include lip-syncing…! Occasionally it can be a bit of an organisational nightmare, though. Too many times I’ve dragged a suitcase up to Oxford, taught, leapt on a train back to London, straight to the gig, performed till 3am, and then back on a train to Oxford by 8am…
"i LIkE HoW PeRFOrMANcE AllOWS yOU To InHAbIT DiFFeRENt ChARaCTERs"
How was Dinah Lux, your current persona, born?
I began to realise that Chelsy was perhaps not the perfect fit, but it wasn’t until I went to New York, where I got to meet queer icons like Amanda Lepore, and Rose Wood, and Kyle Farmery, that I began to see the sexier, darker side of drag, gender, and performance. Dinah was a conscious decision to get more into that kind of world. But, in hindsight, I think I misunderstood that world as being aside from camp, and really camp structures so much of that glamour, so Dinah is definitely camper now.
Do you think Dinah has elements of Jacob?
Oh absolutely, she’s like an extension of me, rather than something different, but also somehow a person apart from me. I’ve always loved that curious self-alienation of drag. Borges writes about something similar when he says that “the other Borges is the one who does things”, and at the end of his essay says “I don’t know which one of us has written this page”. To be honest, I’ve got no clue if it’s Dinah or Jacob writing this: we’re one and the same.
What does performance mean to you?
In the literal sense, I enjoy performance. I don’t think I’m a particularly seasoned performer, but I do love being onstage, for all sorts of reasons (not least, the rapturous applause). I like how performance allows you to inhabit different characters. The night at the NoMad you came to, there was that sort of sexy, glittering Dinah, and also the silly balloon-clad Dinah, and I like how performance allows the two to exist.
"In All HOnESTy, DReSSINg LIkE A mAN sOMETiMES FeeLS MOrE dRAGGY tHAN DrESSInG LiKE dINAh"
You've described having an epiphany, seeing dressing like a boy just as drag as dressing like a girl. Why do you think this? How did that moment come about?
Absolutely. I used to really struggle with my gender, until I started leaning more into the “boy”; I’d leave my stubble, I bought that sort of baggy boy underwear, and didn’t shave my chest, and rather than seeing this as returning to a sort of neutral boyness, I began to see it as donning a similar kind of performative masculinity. In all honesty, dressing like a man sometimes feels more draggy than dressing like Dinah. Understanding that I don’t exist at one of the poles, but at a point in the middle, makes me feel so much more comfortable, as suddenly it doesn’t matter what I look like so much.
Do you think you ever truly know gender? Or one's own identity? Or does it keep evolving?
I absolutely think people can be very certain of their gender, and I also absolutely think that people can know that their gender is in constant flux. Gender is such a mercurial, mellifluous thing that it so easily slips into different definitions for people, which is surely its power. In terms of identity, I’m a little post-structuralist so I would say it’s in a constant state of creation. My students make fun of me for this, but my favourite quote ever is this by Foucault: “from the idea that the self is not given to us, I think that there is only one practical consequence: we have to create ourselves as a work of art”. Chic!
What makes you happiest when you're Dinah Lux?
Looking fabulous xoxo (I wish that was a joke).
Do you ever think about Jacob when you're Dinah?
There are times when I’m not “in it” as it were, either not feeling it onstage, or wishing to be somewhere else, and then perhaps Jacob creeps in; but usually, once the wig comes on, she’s there.
Top tips for someone wanting to start doing Drag.
Absolutely do it! And not to worry about looking perfect – looking perfect is so passé, much more chic to look like you’re having fun.
Best piece of advice you've ever been given?
Never explain, never complain x
Do you ever think about Jacob when you're Dinah?
There are times when I’m not “in it” as it were, either not feeling it onstage, or wishing to be somewhere else, and then perhaps Jacob creeps in; but usually, once the wig comes on, she’s there.
Top tips for someone wanting to start doing Drag.
Absolutely do it! And not to worry about looking perfect – looking perfect is so passé, much more chic to look like you’re having fun.
Best piece of advice you've ever been given?
Never explain, never complain x