Cult sensation Dina Martina is returning to Toronto with two evenings of unparalleled chatter and song, hideous costumes and incredible video.
Dina, whose work director John Waters has described as “[going] way beyond drag into some new kind of twisted art,” is bringing her latest show to The Flying Beaver Pubaret. Asked to describe this spectacle, which she spent last summer performing in Provincetown and New York City, she says, “I would have to get back to you on that one. It’s different.”
Dina’s humour is hard to describe. Her shows are a mixture of elements, from hilarious wordplay to what The Flying Beaver’s website describes as “unnecessary” dance. “They made me say [it was unnecessary],” Dina says. “I think it might be a little green-eyed monster, jealousy, on Maggie Cassella’s part, because I’m a classically trained gymnast and she’s not. I’m very lithe and refined, whereas Maggie is very brittle and rustic.”
Dina already has her outfits picked out for her upcoming shows. “I’ll be wearing my favourite hoop skirt/athletic-supporter combo in the first act and a frog suit and snorkel in the second act. White pumps throughout the entirety, because my mother always said to wear your black pumps during cold and flu season and white pumps during flea and tick season, and I’m kinda always itchy, so I feel like I’ve pretty much got a blank cheque for wearing white pumps whenever.”
Her show takes place during the Sochi Winter Games. “My boycotting of the Olympics is more unintentional, because I’m not actually going to be doing anything. It’ll be very subtle. The Russians won’t know what hit them when my boycott starts and neither will I,” she says.
She’s looking forward to once again performing at The Flying Beaver Pubaret, which she describes as a “very inviting, comfortable place,” in contrast to Maggie Cassella, she points out.
Dina Martina performs Fri, Feb 14 and Sat, Feb 15 at The Flying Beaver, 488 Parliament St. pubaret.com
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