I started off in burlesque.
♪ ♪
Naturally through performing Burlesque
I started to play with identity and drag persona.
Mx. Wolverine came out of that.
I describe Mx. as
the guy who left the rez to pursue his rock star career.
My drag name is Mx. Wolverine
and I also go by Midnight Wolverine.
♪ [dreamy]
I grew up in the Northwest Territories,
treaty eight territory.
I grew up in a town called Hay River
which has about thirty five hundred people.
About two hours outside of Hay River is my mother's community
which is called Deninu K'ue First Nation.
My grandma actually grew up in a residential school,
so there is a lot of intergenerational trauma
in my family.
I struggled with some depression and anxiety,
some abusive relationships from a really young age and so
there was a lot of stuff going on around me.
Growing up there was no Queer visibility in Hay River
and even in Yellowknife.
if you were gay, you were not
you were not out, you were not outwardly gay.
So it wasn't even like a thing
that crossed my mind growing up,
it wasn't even like, you know,
Queer is something that you can be you just never saw it.
Coming out was really hard.
It was a long process.
I denied that part of my identity for
many, many, many years
and I would use every excuse under the moon
to tell myself that I was not gay, but I was.
[laughs]
♪ ♪
I left the North at 18.
At that point in my life I was like
I need to move as far away as possible,
and so I moved to Ontario.
♪ [hip hop]
♪ ♪
I used to hate Toronto because it was so big and
I am very much a small town person.
I love being around very few people.
[laughs]
So I never thought I would live here.
It was the best decision that I could have made because
finding my burlesque and drag community in Toronto has been
instrumental in my own identity and my own self understanding.
♪ ♪
Often I find myself wanting to tell Indigenous stories
through my art and through my performance.
But when you're performing
among non-Indigenous performers and you're performing for
non-indigenous audiences,
there's like a real level of vulnerability. Not everybody gets it.
Not everyone connects to it.
So my favourite thing in the world is performing for
Indigenous audiences and alongside
Indigenous performers,
which is why the 2-Spirit Cabaret was so magical.
♪ [ends]
[background conversation]
[laughter]
[conversation continues]
[laughter]
Way back when, we were having a feast on our reservation...
Mx. Wolverine:My performance at the 2-Spirit Cabaret
was something that I've been looking forward to
for a very long time.
I got to do an act that I had in my mind forever
and it was a character
based off of a movie called Smoke Signals,
which is a very popular movie in like Indigenous pop culture.
And a lot of non-Indigenous folks may
not actually know what Smoke Signals is all about.
But that's what I love,
to be that representation that I otherwise don't see.
I have a way to feed you all.
She took a piece of frybread.
She held it over her head and she ripped it in half.
It meant a lot to debut that act in front of a
mostly Indigenous audience
because they get that connection to it.
And the response was incredible.
♪ whenever I'm down, we in the rez... ♪
♪ ♪
♪ whenever I'm down, we in the rez... ♪
♪♪
I feel like so few people would
think of Indigenous men as these like
strong, sexy, attractive people.
But they really are and so I get to
portray that through my drag.
♪ ♪
And that braid
which would typically be associated with femininity
in many other contexts
within the Indigenous context that braid is a source
of strength and masculinity.
♪ ♪
[laughs]
Skoden!
♪ ♪
Skoden is another piece of indigenous
pop culture, so to speak.
Skoden is the Native way of saying "Let's go then."
♪ ♪
And it's actually been used in a lot of
protest and activist spaces.
So this idea of like "Skoden" -- Let's do this.
♪ ♪
The frybread is the best part of the Thomas act.
A lot of kings do pack.
I am a king that doesn't normally pack
because I just don't connect with that part of masculinity.
If you would even call the penis a masculine thing.
But for me to have the like
dick pouch packed with a piece of frybread
is I feel like it's very layered.
[laughs]
And at the very end of the piece
I just pull out this big chunk of frybread
and I eat it.
[cheers and applause]
And also I feel less weird having
my pouch packed when it is frybread.
[laughs]
♪ ♪
When I started off performing,
I was really unsure about how
public I wanted to be with Mx. Wolverine.
Is it something that I keep very hidden
and is it kind of this like
other world or other life that I live?
And I would say it kind of is and it kind of has been,
but it's been about a year and a half of performing
and I'm starting to feel like it's not something
that I want to be hidden.
I put on high heels and lashes
and I feel a hundred per cent like myself.
But when I put on a beard and boxer briefs,
I also feel a hundred per cent like myself.
And so for me it's a way to
feel like myself in completely different ways.
♪ ♪
But both are equally me.
[footfalls echo]