Gatita Negra
- sangfroidbooks
- Jan 19, 2019
- 6 min read
Upcoming shows:
Lingerie Lounge Open-Mic, February 21st @ Oakland-Secret
Organized Chaos’s First Ever Soiree Highlighting Herstories for Woman’s History Month on March 21st @ Oakland-Secret (monthly show every third Thursday of the month.)
Medusa Act: https://youtu.be/Kmx4XRVwCLw
Descent of Gatita Negra Act: https://youtu.be/7qFLYAmi4kA
Questions contributed in part by Angsty Andy:
Introduce yourself with a brief description of who you are. Please be sure to include your location and pronouns. Taglines are also welcome.
GN: “I am Gatita Negra, I go by she/her pronouns. I am an Afro-Latina burlesque dancer… and a woman of the moon.”
What influenced you to get into burlesque originally? Is this the same reason you are doing burlesque nowadays? Why or why not?
GN: “… the reason I got into burlesque originally is the same reason that I’m doing burlesque now… I remember the first time I saw rhinestones… and everything was in 3rd grade… I saw [the film] Moulin Rouge, I thought they were burlesque dancers but they are courtesans, (I was in 3rd grade) and I really loved the singing [and performing]…when I was in college Burlesque came out… I remembered how much I loved burlesque… After college ended I was like ‘I’m gonna do burlesque.’”
What observations have you made in the demographics of burlesque performers, and what would you like to see change?
GN: “I see that there are a lot of dancers who get a lot more attention if they are… more girl-type… they glitter everything out and they just do ‘pretty’ dances… very… gendered, skinny, femme people…I feel like there needs to be a lot more people of color who are in the spotlight for burlesque… I also think that people who just want to do more artsy or message-based performing should have a bigger platform…also basic-body stuff… especially in the Bay Area where people are more out there you go and see all body-shapes performing but when you go to…competitions, or you see all these people who have the most follows or likes, it’s always performers who are… typical, glamour girl standard body-size… there should be a lot more emphasis [on different types of dancers who make different kinds of art than the typical glamour girl] in those competition-based things specifically since people watch those a lot…”
In what ways do your performances/ productions forward or embody intersectional feminist thought and advocacy. Why is this important to you?
GN: “…I make performances based on a reclaiming of my whole personality and life… since I cut my hair…in 2011…I’ve had this whole (and I think a lot of other Afro-Latinas, specifically) have had this whole redefinition of what it means to be Latina and what it means to be a Black person and…I bring a lot of that to my performances…I’m working on a new performance that’s based on money-disparity between white men and women of color, specifically how Latina and Black women get paid 50-60 cents off the white man’s dollar…Big space[s] like… Hubba… bring good aspects of a different view of burlesque… Especially women of color, stripping… women of color who strip have always had this stigma on them… if you see a Black woman who is a stripper as opposed to [a Black woman] who is in burlesque… it’s the same stigma put on them… whereas, if you see a white woman stripping in a strip-club vs. burlesque it’s a more positive view… as a woman who doesn’t necessarily need to strip…I like to do it, I do it for money and I’m trying to change the narrative around what it means to be a Black woman stripping and confidently doing so for every day of the week.”
Are there any specific cultural and/or systemic issues that you address in your performances/productions?
GN: “I would bring up again the performance I’m doing about pay-disparity and equality … My first debut-act as well as Quimbara, which I’ve performed a few times, are both only Spanish… the other act I’ve also worked on, my Medusa act, with the Spanglish version of [Cardi B’s] Bodak Yellow… I like to bring in a lot of music that hasn’t been danced to yet but also music that I grew up with…. as Mynx [Demeanor] says, ‘no one listens to the lyrics in the songs you perform anyways’, so why shouldn’t I perform a song in Spanish if no one is even listening to the lyrics?…it brings a good part of my burlesque-identity to my performances…”
What do you hope your audiences take away from these performances?
GN: “I hope to bring a wider view of what it means to be an Afro-Latina to an audience because, especially on the West Coast, and parts of the East Coast like New York City… for me, people know what Puerto Ricans and Dominicans and every type of people look like and they are really positive about that African Diaspora to the Caribbean… further away from the Caribbean you get people who do not really understand how you can be Black and Latina at the same time so… performing in a place where I’ve had several questions before I even started burlesque about like, ‘how am I Black but I’m also Hispanic?’… I like to have my audience understand. I’ve had people come up to me after a show and tell me I’m super awesome or talk to me in Spanish which is really cool because it’s not often something I get out on the West Coast where other Latinx know that I’m Latina because Colorism is rampant in that community too… it’s important to me that at least other Latinx understand the difference as well as people who aren’t Latinx at all.”
What are some unexpected reactions you received from audience members, and how did you deal with those interactions?
GN: “I once had a girl full-grope me and then try and kiss me after a show which was… the weirdest thing in the world to me… it was a very small space… First Friday Follies… it seemed very apparent to people that the stage was closer to them so don’t touch [the performers] but I don’t know if she saw the show or not. I think she was very attracted to the fact that I had glitter-lips on, and then she just ran off to go… find her boyfriend… That was one of the only shows where I was alone, no one came to see me, my boyfriend at the time wasn’t there to see me… it was just me….of course it would happen when no one else is here… but I also think I… handled it where I literally leaned back and was like, “uh, pardon miss, please do not touch me!” I’m not the type of person to not deal with things at that moment…This is something that has happened to me [outside of performing burlesque]… once I was out dancing with my friends and my cousin for her birthday and this girl beckons me down because she’s shorter than me like she wants to tell me something and what she wanted to tell me was how my hair is beautiful, while touching my hair…I completely leaned away and looked at her with a look where she just walked away from me…I usually tend to take care of things right then and there. I don’t get hostile or anything but I definitely make it apparent that what you did was not cool, don’t do that anymore to people.”
Any upcoming performances or events you are doing that relate to feminism and intersectionality?
GN: “My new pay inequality act, which I’m just gonna call “Money,” that I so far am debuting at Angsty Andy’s show [at the Lingerie Lounge Open-Mic on February 21st and Organized Chaos’s First Ever Soiree Highlighting Herstories for Woman’s History Month on March 21st in Oakland.]”
What do you think the future of burlesque, in regards to intersectional feminism, will look like five years from now?
GN: “It’s starting to become a wider situation…I know the focus is usually on women… in burlesque, and there are some guys who are brought up and do burlesque and do it well…I think that shows like Company XIV which is one of the best burlesque-productions I’ve ever seen in Brooklyn, New York… bring a lot more femininity in their burlesque with more masc- characters and I appreciate that…There needs to be more of a mix of burlesque dancers that aren’t just ‘pretty women’… like Violet Chachki who performed with Dita Von Teese recently, even Aja the Kween who did burlesque this year… she’s a drag-queen who was on RuPaul’s Drag Race, and we hung out in high school together [laughs on the phone during interview] we smoked cigarettes together in Union Square… she’s a rapping drag-queen who does burlesque, she’s amazing and I love her so much…. That’s becoming bigger with… Boylesque that’s more femme or… regular girls doing more masc in burlesque. There needs to be more blending of those things because not everybody wants to be like that beautiful [cis] person onstage… I feel like that’s changing, little by little, but of course I’m in the Bay Area so everything here seems great with burlesque…you can always find a great burlesque show… one of the first shows I went to here was Macabre-Cabaret, and everything was [covered in] blood, I loved it so much…. People love it, especially with things like… Black Manarchy, and Black Manifest that I think is coming up and I can’t wait for it… platforms where Black men can just be what they feel like being onstage is phenomenal and I love it so much….Hopefully those things get taken across the country and everywhere… I need to see more men and masc performers in that Top 50 Burlesque Dancers for sure.”
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