Cherdonna Shinatra sprang into being five years ago as half of the dance-drag-comedy-burlesque duo Cherdonna and Lou. Her preposterous countenance and voluminous bouffant teeter above akimbo limbs to uproarious effect in various ensemble shows around town, but this October Cherdonna strikes out on her own in The Cherdonna Show: Worth My Salt. The evening-length work is a first for dancer/choreographer Jody Kuehner, the woman behind Cherdonna, and it’s about her lifelong existential crisis.
“Enormity—it’s so insane, that we can just go about our day, like, whatever, space goes on forever; let’s get a coffee!” Kuehner says. “That kind of juxtaposition is hard for me. To not want to run around the world screaming my head off.”
The show presents what Kuehner calls “the darker side of Cherdonna,” drawing inspiration from Cosmos, Kate Bush and Diane Keaton’s hysteria in Baby Boom.There are three male dancers in the cast, but it’s more of a solo show. “I really wanted it to be a little ensemble, but it just isn’t that way with Cherdonna,” Kuehner laughs.
Mark Mitchell designed the costumes, including a ’70s-style macramé dress, and Corrie Befort designed the stage. “I want the space to feel infinite,” Kuehner says. “There’s no offstage, no entrances or exits. It’s just: We’re in this.”
The show’s creation process started a year ago as part of Velocity Dance Center’s Made in Seattle program, which commissions, produces and presents experimental work. Cherdonna is evolving away from cabaret and burlesque toward modern dance and performance art.
“This one will be a little more abstract,” Kuehner says. “I just want it to be a run-on sentence for 50 minutes—like one big transition, one big idea.”
The Cherdonna Show: Worth My Salt
Velocity Dance Center
Oct. 17–19,
Oct. 24–26
Photo by Eric Paguio