Charles Wrapner

CV

Actor, director, playwright, scriptwriter. Theater pedagogue in Junge Bühne Bern.
Born in 1993 in Cuba. Studied acting, puppetry and theater studies-dramaturgy at the University of Arts Cuba and Master in Contemporary Arts Practice: Performance Art in University of Arts, Bern.
Director in Teatro La Quinta Rueda, Cuba and Collective 4gatos, Bern.

PhD project

Drag Performance: Technic, theater/dance relation and social impact.

Most discussions of drag performance are concerned either with its development within theater and dance, or with drag as an expression of gender associated with certain queer communities. In both cases, drag performance is studied as a result of socio-cultural or identity processes with little attention to the ways in which drag performance has influenced and influences the surrounding context. How many processes of social transformation related to gender identity and minorities have begun in drag shows? How has this happened? To what extent has drag performance contributed to social thought and inclusion? Does it continue to do so? Drag performance is not only an outcome or expression, but also an increasingly influential generator of social change. Certainly there is a special relationship between drag performance and theater, fundamentally in the performative technique of both. There are several principles that intertwine drag performance and theatrical traditions from various parts of the world. Investigating these points of coincidence is also part of this research.

While established theories of gender performance provide a fruitful basis for the study of drag, it is also important to consider drag performance as an artistic technique of increasing social presence. In the visual and performing arts, television, live streaming, and social networks, drag seems to have a unique capacity to communicate with the public and contribute to current cultural narratives. This research project seeks to explore drag performance in the context of these wider social and cultural contributions. It will investigate the specificities of each community with which it engages, and consider how useful it can be as an artistic tool to question and contribute to identity formation processes in an inclusive society.

Supervisors

Prof. Dr. Alexandra Portmann, Institute for Theater Studies, UniBern.
Dr. Sadie Plant, Bern Academy of the Arts HKB