Melting the gender gap

[Felix]

The Age
Steve Dow
http://www.theage.com.au/entertainment/theatre/melting-the-gender-gap-20120316-1va0h.html

IT'S worth the wait for a lick of Le Gateau Chocolat.

You can feel the 29-year-old British-Nigerian's presence as he enters the Kings Cross cafe. Solidly built, Le Gateau - a drag performance artist at night - is wearing a blue parka and black nail polish.

Soon, he'll be in Melbourne flying solo, giving us the stories of his life and making himself vulnerable to a room full of Spiegeltent strangers, where his repertoire may include the hits of Shirley Bassey, Sinead O'Connor and Radiohead or Pavarotti's aria Nessun Dorma. So how does he see drag: is he showing us that everything's drag; that gender is something we perform and the differences between us are superficial? ''I see it as a heightened state of being, in terms of exaggerating where I'm at,'' he says.