GO! PUSH POPS / Katie Cercone & Elisa Garcia de la huerta

“QUEEN$ DOMIN8TiN” was a performance loosely based on Egyptian queen mythology, pop culture and drag, accelerating our current global shift toward enhanced moon energy and the Divine Feminine. The work was a neo-shamanic ritual celebrating the cosmic, sensual creative Kundalini Shakti or “serpent energy” coiled at the base of the spine. Sexuality, trance and the healing use of vital sexual energy merge in Shamanic activity.

Barbara Tedlock Ph.D, defines shamanism as a means by which drumming, combined with dancing, singing, storytelling and metaphor have been used cross-culturally for ages to bring on trance, spirit journey and soul connection. Ideal gender is commonly found embodied in an androgynous deity, a creator of shifting gender or a co-gendered cultural hero. Our performance highlights the feminine in shamanic practice, despite her historical erasure, and the central role contemporary Goddess Archetypes play in the cult of popular culture with respect to queer, racial and feminist politics. Riding the technicolor coat tails of the exploding contemporary drag scene, Go! Push Pops drummed, sang and slowly wrapped Untitled Queen in shimmering fabrics we pulled from our bodies. We prepared the Queen for mummification, celebrating the ecstatic cycle of birth-life-death. We adorned Untitled with precious gifts for the afterlife and a neon serpent head.

Shamans use metaphors and symbols—in our case a snake—to help their subjects manipulate sensory cognitive-emotional information in a way that alters one’s perception of inner dis-ease. The serpent has many meanings, among them its association with the yogic Kundalini Shakti energy and, within Mayan mythology, its identification as the personification of the sky. As a performative, neo-shamanic ritual, “QUEEN$ DOMIN8TiN” celebrates the queer body as transcendent figure of the Nu Age.