To be a Showboy

Abstract

Lou Henry Hoover writes about his experience of creating persona-driven performance, performing gender, and using camp to toe the line between comedy and tragedy. As an artist, Lou works at the intersection of drag king-ing, burlesque, and modern dance to create a persona—“Lou Henry Hoover—as a way to draw attention to the artifice of gende sexuality. In the essay, Hoover discusses how the stage offers a platform to borrow from the drag queen performance, the genre of queer performance most often association with play with artifice, and then remix that better known form of camp with other dance forms and a wider range of masculinity and femininity. The essay discuses Hoover’s work with several collaborators, most notably artistic and life partner Kitten LaRue, and Hoover’s work in several contexts, ranging from theatrical venues in New York and Seattle to television appearances with Tony Bennett and Lady Gag.