Scream Queen: Drag, Dance, and the Grotesque Beauty of Queer Imagination

Abstract

Scream Queen is, if anything, an act of adoration for the medium of horror and the power of queer expression. This paper will detail the process and culminating product of my choreographed work, Scream Queen, presented in October 2024. I will discuss persona, drag, and the intimate relationship between horror and queerness. As a queer alternative movement artist, I hope to honor the subversive and revolutionary voices who have come before me. I will explore the belief and theory that queer people gravitate towards that which is grotesque, horrific, and villainous because it allows them to feel a sense of power within their otherness, actively witnessing aspects of their identity within figureheads that oppose the world which has demonized their existence.