Abstract
This chapter examines the intersection of sexuality, gender and race in the performances of Constantina Bush, the female persona of actor and cabaret performer Kamahi Djordan King of the Gurindji people, and in her performance in the role of ‘Queen Constantina’ in Blak Cabaret. It argues that King’s performances employ disidentification, as theorised by José Esteban Muñoz, as a strategy to resist and reject what Aileen Moreton-Robinson calls ‘The Good Indigenous Citizen’, a racist identity category produced by patriarchal white Australia. King’s performances parody white Australian constructions of aboriginality, critique colonial history and bring Indigenous and queer subjectivities into representation in ways that challenge non-Indigenous Australians to rethink their understandings of Indigenous performance, culture and identity.
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French, S. (2017). Disidentifying with the ‘Good Indigenous Citizen’: Constantina Bush and Blak Cabaret. In: Staging Queer Feminisms. Contemporary Performance InterActions. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-46543-6_4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-46543-6_4
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