Kitty Kapowww
- sangfroidbooks
- Apr 19, 2019
- 8 min read
Upcoming performances:
4/17 Hex in the City Burlesque at SF Eagle
4/18 The Dirty Talk Game Show at The Armory Club
5/15 Hex in the City Burlesque at SF Eagle
5/23 Peepshow at F8 Nightclub
6/19 Hex in the City Burlesque at SF Eagle
"The Kitten that Cats Prefer," Kitty KaPowww is Bay Area born and raised. She began her work as an activist as a pre-teen with the guidance of her mother, who volunteered as a community organizer. She also has a robust background in Theater Arts and Technical Theater.
Kitty debuted her first Burlesque act on stage before she could even drink at the bar. In the few years since she has found her strength as a producer. She is now the Head Witch in Charge of a San Francisco-based coven of queer creators and performers called Hex in the City Burlesque. Hex offers monthly performances at the iconic leather bar SF Eagle featuring local LGBTQ+ and POC guest artists.
Kitty spends her days away from the stage working for Circus Center, a 501(c)3 nonprofit with the mission to spread the joy of circus arts through performance, training, and outreach. She is also a Social Justice major with an emphasis on Gender Studies at San Francisco City College.
Tagline - “The Kitten that Cats Prefer”
Website: www.kittykapowww.com
Social: facebook.com/kittykapowww / @kittykapowww on IG
Questions contributed in part by Frankie Foukette:
1. Introduce yourself with a brief description of who you are. Please be sure to include your location and pronouns. Taglines are also welcome.
KKPWWW: “Hello! I’m Kitty Kapowww, I am a burlesque performer/producer based in San Francisco. Pronouns are she or they, whatever comes out of your mouth more easily is totally fine with me. I have been performing for 3 years as of this month…I will be having a Burlesque birthday! I have been producing for…2 ½ years. I have an extensive background in theater and technical-theater so I transferred a lot of that knowledge into this new medium…I’m also a social justice student at City College of San Francisco so I try carrying my research and my background in that field as well into performing and producing Burlesque!”
2. What influenced you to get into burlesque originally? Is this the same reason you are doing burlesque nowadays? Why or why not?
KKPWWW: “I feel like a lot of little things lead to [me] finding Burlesque…The initial reason…was I went through a really, really terrible breakup…so bad my boyfriend at the time surprise-moved-out of our apartment and I needed to find something to do with myself, something that was fun…if not validating as well. So, I signed up for a burlesque class with Bombshell Betty in San Francisco and that’s where I met a bunch of people with whom I still perform and spend a lot of time with today…Now, it’s a lot more about community…Some of my closest friends are involved in Burlesque...we work together…we support each other, I make more friends…every month I meet someone new that I absolutely adore…There’s a lot of work to be done that has the emotional impact… when you see positive change in the community, or when you see someone coming up in the game…or when you see someone finally getting recognition after several years the impact feels bigger because it’s so close to home.”
3. What observations have you made in the demographics of burlesque performers, and what would you like to see change?
KKPWWW: “Burlesque is widely diverse, but in terms of who’s very visible, it’s very limited mostly to…[a] traditional European beauty standards scene. Often thinner, white performers are more visible, are more famous, are receiving recognition from… bigger avenues, but I don’t think that is the state of burlesque today… There’s a very big range of body type, body size…there’s a lot of queer folks and trans folks within the industry…Burlesque is a very unusual network in that we have very small communities across the world. Some overlap, and some get bigger…There could someone famous in San Francisco who you wouldn’t know in Portland.”
4. In what ways do your performances/ productions forward or embody intersectional feminist thought and advocacy. Why is this important to you?
KKPWWW: “We [Hex in the City] try to hold the core of intersectionality in what we do. It may not have been the… ignition of the show I produce but it has been our driving force and what has helped us grow and sustain over the last couple of years…At first our focus was just making space for performers like us who were weird and didn’t feel like they fit anywhere…especially when we started producing with performers we knew were a bit older than us and already have established social [and professional] circles… well, if you are in your 20’s and nobody knows you, you don’t get to perform unless it’s for free and we don’t believe that…Now that we’ve gained some recognition… and found the right venue, the right staff, and the right core performers our big focus especially this year in 2019 is featuring performers of color, queer performers, and making a space for our audience who is mostly young, queer…Letting everyone have this joyous, playful space while keeping some consciousness around social issues. The host of Hex in the City, Sparkles Divine, carries a lot of weight when hosting. It’s not about escapism…. There’s a bit of joy in embracing reality. Sparkles talks a lot about social issues especially regarding the queer community and regarding the performers’ community in the Bay Area…We’re all just trying to have fun! There’s a balance of 'how do you be an intersectional show in this industry' and 'how do you also have a good time because everyone deserves it'."
5. Are there any specific cultural and/or systemic issues that you address in your performances/productions?
KKPWWW: “I have no choice in offering a certain perspective being someone who is often considered plus-size or having a larger body…I get a lot of labels, my favorite, coined by Mone’t Ha-Sidi, is ‘body-wealthy’… I’m not financially wealthy but I got a big ass…I don’t get the option of not being political because me trying to be sexy and grab people’s attention is now actually political to others…Being someone who is mixed-race and…not a traditionally athletic person, taking my clothes off is a statement…I’m okay with that, sometimes it can be frustrating, especially when I weighed less I started taking offense to being coined a plus-size performer, but the truth is…I’ve always danced the line in terms of fashion labels between what is considered average and what is considered plus-size and it’s nice to just be acknowledged at the end of the day. Whether these labels are attached to it or not, some day I’d really love to be seeing performers, especially performers of color, larger-body performers, [and] queer performers get recognized by their name rather than… ‘So-And-So is a This, This, and This-type of performer!’I would [prefer] ‘So-and-So, is a Burlesque performer!’… But this is not an issue that only pertains to Burlesque and has to do with anything that is very visceral… we talk about politicians… any kind of performer… anyone who is talked about with their labels and sometimes it’s an honor, sometimes it would be nice to just be called a Burlesque performer, not a fat Burlesque performer, not an Asian Burlesque performer… I am a Burlesque performer! I have this…option of being political, sometimes I lean into it, other times I just wanna shake my butt and it’s a good time. In terms of what Hex in the City does… we’re millennial artists trying to offer a queer perspective on performance art, on sexuality… a lot of things are wrapped up in what we do and we’re really lucky to bring in a lot of performers in the community who have something special to share.”
6. What do you hope your audiences take away from these performances?
KKPWWW: “I hope people have a good time! I love going to burlesque shows as an audience member, I think that’s a big piece of why I like putting in all of this work…It’s fun, it’s silly, it’s sexy, and it feels good… I’ve always loved comedy and I’ve always loved dance and theater…I’m really about that live performer experience! It’s incomparable. I love when people have a good time, and when they are seen or heard in some way that’s really special.”
7. What are some unexpected reactions you received from audience members, and how did you deal with those interactions?
KKPWWW: “Well, that’s a tricky one… the first thing that comes to mind is the word ‘brave’ [gets] thrown around a lot… Especially from newer Burlesque audience members I hear ‘oh my god you’re so brave.’ It’s usually women who use this term with me and I would really love for it not to be brave to be a larger body, or fat, or a plus-sized person who considers themself sexy…you don’t need to be brave to do that. There’s no apparent risk involved in the identity of ‘yeah! I look hot today’… it’s a piece of the puzzle of unpacking a lot of social issues about how bodies are viewed in our culture…I get a lot of that especially when they’re not performers or if they don’t look similar to me… on the positive side, I get the most excited, most joyful reactions from younger women who are often women of color and often women who have a larger body… the respect, the joy, and the connection I get from audience members like that who make the choice to come up to me and say something to me or when it’s a young performer who maybe isn’t as well known in the community and is working on getting some recognition and getting some bookings, when people like that come up to me and say ‘hey! I had a great time seeing you, this made me really happy…’ or ‘I liked x-y-and-z…’ that’s probably one of the best feelings in the world. Someone who is like ‘I saw you and it made me see me.’”
8. Any upcoming performances or events you are doing that relate to feminism and intersectionality?
KKPWWW: “I am performing at my show Hex in the City at SF Eagle every 3rd Wednesday now thru June’… we’ll be back in the Fall for more fun. I also am a seasoned competitor on the Dirty Talk Game Show at Armory Club… I think kink should be considered an art of intersectionality because it is to me a very big part of who I am as an adult and how I walk in the world.”
9. What do you think the future of burlesque, in regards to intersectional feminism, will look like five years from now?
KKPWWW: “We’re going to see a lot more queens, kings, and people winning crowns who don’t prefer either of those words, especially coming from performers who are just starting now who are very queer and very vocal and I think we’re going to see a lot more people of color winning titles and headlining festivals... we’re going to see a lot of people who aren’t going to stand for bullshit, whether it comes to issues of sexism in the industry, which is insane to me because it’s a very femme and queer-driven industry but it happens… people who are not going to allow predators to remain in our community… people who are not going to allow racism to happen. I hope we see a whole eradication of all racial mockery that occurs across the globe in this industry because it is ridiculous that people are performing with Black-face, and that people have geisha-inspired acts when they are not of Japanese descent….We’re going to see a much more conscious world of Burlesque where marginalized communities are being recognized on the same level as non-marginalized communities…at least that’s what I hope. Who fucking knows, honestly?”
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