Aurora Kills discusses the moment she knew she wanted to become a queen
It was 29th November in the year of our Lady 2002. The bleakest of midwinter evenings. And in a small sitting room in South-West London – a dazzling new future was being created for one queer little 8-year old boy. It was the second annual Top of the Pops Awards– a quick scan of the winners list is a wild ride back to early noughties pop nostalgia. Top Newcomer was won by Will Young but the nominees included Ms Dynamite, Gareth Gates, The Streets and Holly Valance (I think we can all agree Holly was robbed – sorry Will!).
But the real draw was a performance by Kylie Minogue. I’d fallen head over heels for the Aussie princess ever since I’d heard ‘In Your Eyes’ and seen the video. My parents misguidedly believed my obsession to have grown out of a lust for those gold hot pants…the truth was I wanted to be wearing them.
Finally, after what felt like hours, out of a sea of dry ice appeared a line of warrior dancers (dressed in leather, feathers and mesh) frenetically moving from ballet pose to pose. As smoke billowed across the stage, the moves became ever more staccato, the music grew to a deafening crescendo and a goddess in a white-fringed outfit of dreams appeared in the mist. Kylie spun and twirled and belted as confetti exploded across the screen and into my subconscious. I was enchanted. My world was changed. I wanted what I saw. It’s not that I desired the adoration of an arena of screaming fans (although that is also undeniably true). But the powerful declaration of femininity she projected was the stuff of dreams. It was a lifeline. A view into a world where all the trappings of my effeminacy were not met with pity or disdain but rather celebrated. In that moment I became a drag queen in waiting.
Over the next 14 years – I devoured all of Kylie’s outpourings then became obsessed with Lady Gaga. I was fascinated but terrified of makeup. I could be found every morning and evening dancing wildly around my room to the latest pop offering, creating ambitiously over-the-top performance concepts. But it remained a private fantasy world. It was only in the midst of a drag craze thanks to a certain infamous US reality TV franchise – that I even conceived that drag might be my calling.
And so it came to pass that Aurora Kills was born lip-syncing to Kylie’s ‘Your Disco Needs You’ (How could it be anyone else?) in the Soho Theatre Downstairs as part of their Drag and Cabaret course (shout-out to the class of Autumn 2017!!). I spun; I twirled and I constructed a barely-there, paper-thin metaphor about military recruitment as queer conscription equipped with a multitude of rainbow flags…subtle I think you’d agree. I was undoubtedly a mess but it felt like I had arrived. All the things that had drawn me to Kylie and her tasselled extravaganza in 2002 – I lived and breathed in defiance up on that stage. The drag queen in waiting had become a fully formed Queen.
Aurora Kills will be performing as part of Antic Productions’ Carmina Victoriana: A Thoroughly Modern Music Hall at Wilton’s Music Hall 18th & 19th October.
