Dorian Corey

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Many people in our audience will have seen Jennie Livingston’s 1990 documentary Paris Is Burning, an exploration of Black and Latinx ball culture in New York City. One of the film’s primary interview interlocutors is Dorian Corey, who is one of the film’s most quotable characters. Corey's life helps us explore the history of drag from balls for enslaved people in the 1870s to today. And did you know that Corey knew, during all those serene interviews in Paris Is Burning, that the man she had murdered in self-defense and not trusted police to handle it (would you?) was mummified in the closet behind her. 

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SOURCES

https://archive.seattletimes.com/archive/19931218/1737662/deceased-drag-show-star-leaves-mummy-mystery-behind-in-closet

https://www.theguardian.com/film/2015/jun/24/burning-down-the-house-debate-paris-is-burning

https://files.eportfolios.macaulay.cuny.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/5381/2016/06/16101213/hooks_paris-is-burning.pdf

https://www.nytimes.com/1993/04/18/style/paris-has-burned.html

https://www.swervmagazine.com/entertainment-2/pioneers/

https://queermusicheritage.com/drag-pearl.html

https://www.chicagomag.com/Chicago-Magazine/November-2005/The-Gay-30S/

https://www.thenation.com/article/society/drag-queen-slave-ball/ 

https://www.harlemworldmagazine.com/the-legendary-hamilton-lodge-ball-home-at-the-rockland-palace-dance-hall-in-harlem/

https://americanhistory.si.edu/explore/stories/queens-and-queers-rise-drag-ball-culture-1920s

https://www.jstor.org/stable/2935316?seq=1

https://www.theguardian.com/film/2015/jun/24/burning-down-the-house-debate-paris-is-burning

https://zagria.blogspot.com/2010/08/dorian-corey-1937-1993-performer.html

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