Back before there was Passing: Fashioning Drag, there was an American literature class at Transy being taught by Kremena Todorova called “Passing” that dealt with successfully portraying a false front.

And before that, there was a documentary called Paris Is Burning that explored New York City’s culture of balls in the 1980s and the poor African American, Latino and transgendered individuals involved in it.

Todorova saw the documentary, was fascinated by it (as was Sundance and the New York Film Critics Circle, among others) and decided to incorporate the film into her class. Fellow professor Kurt Gohde, who’d been photographing drag queens for an annual calendar, introduced Todorova to local performers, and the two decided to collaborate on the body of work coming to LAL on April 23.

Paris Is Burning, which explores drag as much as it does race, culture, class and individual identity, is good enough in its own right to be given the top spot in your Netflix queue, but its contribution to Passing makes it even more deserving of a look. And if you’re still not convinced, check out this minute and 12 seconds of genius insight.

~ by lexingtonartleague on April 9, 2010.

Posted in Goodness
Tags: drag, drag performance, drag queen, film, jennie livingston, kremena todorova, kurt gohde, NYC ball culture, paris is burning, passing, passing: fashioning drag, transgender