We were lucky to catch up with Lolita Chanel recently and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Lolita, thanks for joining us today. Can you tell us about a time that your work has been misunderstood? Why do you think it happened and did any interesting insights emerge from the experience?

I greatly believe that Drag has been grossly misunderstood and mischaracterized. People have a hard time believing that you can cater to certain audiences, depending on where you are and just because you’ll do a certain act at one venue doesn’t mean you’ll do the same act at another one. As someone who has started their journey into the world of burlesque, I do bring those influences into my regular drag shows quite often. However, Being someone that also knows there may be venues that may allow people of all different ages to attend, I’ll make sure that my performances are up to snuff. And that’s the biggest issue that a lot of times I personally have experienced this gross misunderstanding because people believe that I do a certain act one other place, they’ll believe I’ll do that everywhere. And that’s not who I am

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

I started performing in drag about almost 10 years ago. I wasn’t very good, and had no understanding of who I wanted to be as an entertainer. But through guidance of those who came before me, as well as people that I call my drag mothers were willing to help me learn and really hone in on my craft. People may not see drag as anything that is important, but it is quite literally the Personification of an active rebellion against societal gender norms, as well as what one can perceive as entertainment. Drag in itself challenges what can one person do on their own.

Is there mission driving your creative journey?

Spite. This may sound a bit dark, but my honest answer is spite. And I choose to answer this in this way because, I always tell everyone that there are so many external forces that want to see you fail, that want to see you not thrive, that want to see you in bad places… Or even worse. So out of spite, I taught myself how to sew, I taught myself how to style hair, I taught myself how to dance in heels, I even learn quickly how to apply make up for it to look good on stage. There are some drag entertainers that May be fortunate To have previous experience in makeup, but I was never allowed to experiment with makeup growing up, the closest thing I had to figure things out, was by using drawing as a medium. So because I felt like I was already so behind, I was taking advantage of a few times already. So that is why I forced myself to continue growing & to continue getting better so I can never be taken advantage of again

For you, what’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative?

Getting to see the faces of people who genuinely needed to see the performance or needed some thing in their life too make them feel less alone. It’s one of the best feelings in the world to see someone understand what the performances about but also to feel all the emotions in it’s entirety.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://Linktr.ee/LolitaLChanel
• Instagram: https://Instagram.com/LolitaLChanel