Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

‘Keep the best of you, “do” the rest of you’: passing, ambivalence and keeping queer time in gender performative negotiations of popular music

2013; Cambridge University Press; Volume: 32; Issue: 3 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1017/s0261143013000305

1474-0095

Rachel Devitt,

Diversity and Impact of Dance

Abstract This article considers the integral role music plays in drag in general and ‘femme’ gender performance (or queer performances of femininity) in particular. Drawing from ethnographic interviews with performers and observations of their performances, I delineate some of the purposes music can serve in these contexts: a tool for character development, a musical lingua franca with which to establish a dialogue with the audience; a part of a nuanced intertext that troubles the cohesiveness of a musical plot or ideological discourse; a fan strategy for staking ownership over a beloved song or genre. I argue that femme gender performers critically stage their own consumption of the popular music they enjoy, interrupting its narratives and rhythms with their choreography and reterritorialising it with their dancing bodies.