//MX. SUGAR MAMASOTA — sheddingsomethingshedding

Mx. Sugar Mamasota
Digital Composite, Brandon Perdomo 2021

Brandon Perdomo
Brooklyn, NY
Interviewer

Mx. Sugar Mamasota
Brooklyn, NY
Narrator

Session Conducted:
Zoom / Online

1 November 2020

- you’re surrounded by a wonderful set piece that looks like -

Oh, this set piece? My room! It’s a bunch of bouquets of cotton - Well, There aren’t the flowers - They’re just cotton bulbs. This is like after the flower – so I guess these are exploited seed pods. But either way, I bought like six bouquets of them last year. And I’ll probably buy six more. So I’ll have a full cotton wall.

For for a set - was it for a gig?

No, it was just for me. I’m just country - and I miss the South. So - this isn’t for anyone else but me.

Can you tell me your - venture from the South to New York?

Sure. Um, well, it was by way of Boston. I don’t have a hometown anywhere. I grew up in three basic areas. Central North Carolina, Southern Massachusetts, and Southern llinois. So my mother’s family is from the Carolinas, my mom’s first generation Mass-hole. And - half her siblings were born in Chester, South Carolina. And then her and her younger brother born in Boston. - my dad’s the Midwestern fella. Anyway, so I lived in North Carolina when I was little. I learned how to talk when I was living in North Carolina. So that’s why if I’m like, too sleepy or something, - there’ll be the accent. But - after high school, - the third High School I went to was predominately white. I was one of five black femmes in my graduating class of over 400 kids. So basically, as soon as I graduated, I half-ass broke up with a guy I was half-ass dating and moved back down South for the summer, and then to Boston for college. And after a series of ridiculous events, I went from Boston to New York City. So - but I usually try to go - back home back to North Carolina, like once every year or every other year. Help out with the farm and stuff.

The farm?

Well, farm is a strong word, sorry. Farms involve animals. Mostly a garden. My aunt lives in the middle of nowhere, and there’s like a big garden. My aunt, my uncle are getting older. So I’m teaching them how to restructure it so it’s better for their abilities.

- So that’s me being Southern.

- You told me once that that’s where the name Sugar comes from.

Yeah, exactly. You don’t know someone’s name - yeah, Sugar Darlin’,
Sweetheart. - I grew up with all those names. I’m Sugar - you’re Sugar - doesn’t matter. It’s just like a placeholder. But yeah, that’s been like one of my nicknames since I was little, or like any Southern person, that’s what they call me automatically - that’ll be easy to toss that in. - my first burlesque name was really bad - when I moved to New York City, I changed it.

Do you mind me asking what that name was?

I think it was Veronica Vaudeville. Just like – really campy and bad - you know - I did like one of those burlesque – Learn-From-A-Burlesque-Queen-In-One-Day bootcamps - spent like six hours learning how to strip proper, in a way that will be entertaining and - all that jazz.

Then I start teaching burlesque and then I was like, oh wait Boston’s racist, I’m leaving, and then I skedaddled.

Did you start performing burlesque in Boston?

Yeah, - my first show was - initially when I started burlesque, I wanted to only perform with live bands. Because at the time I was a musician, and I worked - as a bartender at a venue. And so everyone I knew was in the local music scene in Boston. So I was always making routines and stuff for local music. And me and two other performers - two artists that I knew - I kind of suckered them into becoming burlesque dancers, because I didn’t know any. I was like, Hey, I wanna start a burlesque troupe. And one of them was like, No, I don’t like looking at people at all, let alone looking at me. Why would I do this? But then once she saw that, you know, you got a cool name. And like, I was designing costumes for everybody. She’s like, wait, I want this thing. Fine. I’ll do it. So - she was like a child actress who was like, No, no, I don’t want to be involved in any of this. But eventually, she came around, and I choreographed this whole chair routine, and made all these black and white costumes for me and the other two dancers. And then when we strip, we were all colors underneath. And my friend’s band was playing. It was February, and as a place called Church. So I felt like it was really appropriate for me to start my stripping career at Church. Just felt right - my mom came. Yeah.

And what was there a response to this?

She was like, you’re really good at this. I don’t know how that reflects on my parenting. She’s like – you’re a natural - I don’t know that what that says about - one way or the other about me being a good mother. Not but yeah. You’re really good at stripping in front of people so - it was like my mom standing next to like this guy I had only been dating for like a week. I was like, hey, just you know, starting yesterday, I’m a stripper - . So I hope that’s okay with you. If not, dump me. Anyway, here’s a show flyer.

And his response?

He was like - I can’t explain to him what burlesque was - and he’s also from the south. He’s from Tennessee. I had to explain to him what burlesque was, - I also had just told him that I was a witch. And he was staring at me like, All my Mama’s gonna hear is devil worshipping stripper. I was like, close enough!

That’s fine, All right. Well, you know, we’ll see how this goes. So yeah, it was - It was something - he thought it was funny. So he had a good time. It was a good show. Yeah, I think everyone had a good time. Except for one kid who thought he was going to a fashion show. He’s greatly disappointed. He was like, I thought this is your fashion show. I was like, I don’t know why he thought that - no one said that.

I do enjoy the idea of someone being disappointed by seeing my half naked body – it's like like, Oh, well, damn. [Laughs]

That’s really funny to me.

Were you ever shy? - What was that - Coming-of-performing for you?

Um, I am a really shy person by nature, which is why the career I picked - I have a fake name I have onstage so people can’t touch me. There’s lights, I can’t see them. Or really hear them that well. So - you know, on stage you don’t - The audience is just like, you know they’re there. But if I’m like, at a certain angle, I can’t actually see anybody. And I would never wear my glasses on stage. Because, I’m not trying to give myself a bad time. - when I was a kid – you know I grew up in a different time -

being an introvert was not the cool thing. No-one thought you were secretly a genius. So, also being quiet and goth and growing up during Columbine and all that stuff. It was very important for me to learn how to not seem shy and how to be extroverted. So I just kind of lived life like as opposite day like, what would a shy person not do? And I was like, shy people wouldn’t go on stage in their underwear. And I like lingerie. I like being in my underpants at home. And I get a lot of anxiety around dressing myself because I have a lot of body dysmorphia and like - gender issues. So dressing myself was always stressful. So - any job where I didn’t have to wear clothes just seemed like the best option - nude modeling. Sure. I just have to wear lingerie. Sure, burlesque – clothes come off. Great.

Don’t don’t need em,
who needs em.

- it wasn’t much of a - for me - I’m shy to talk to people. I’m not shy for people to see what my body looks like. So it didn’t really bother me at all. Like my nudes. Thank you.

It sounds - like burlesque help to channel aspects of your life in a certain way. Is that true?

Yeah for me - when I first understood it burlesque was I think - I didn’t understand how to - how to be a woman - like gender roles were very confusing for me growing up - later I obviously realized it’s because I’m non-binary – plus, it was the 90s - everyone wore nail polish and had long hair and wore lace – I was a 90s goth kid. So gender made no sense to me regardless, and burlesque was a way for me to - AS someone who WAS assigned female at birth, or I feel like - I think anybody – regardless of what your gender is - you’re told what is attractive about you. - way before you can even think about your body or what you think of it, people tell you - Oh, you have gorgeous eyes - like how I complimented your hair earlier - people are always telling you what about you is of-value - whether like you ask them or not. And from what I gather, - People more femme-presenting kind of get that more incessantly than people who are more masc, but - I was sick of other people defining me. And then I was sick about people defining what about me as a value. And what I needed to do with that. I was a model when I was little - from 10 to 15 or something. And living your life where, you can never develop an opinion of yourself - because – everyone else’s are so loud - was incredibly stressful. So when I saw a burlesque performer for the first time, which was like, on Halloween at a Dresden Dolls show, and it was a Little Red Riding Hood act. And this was actually called Grotesque Burlesque, bras with teeth - not only do you strip - but an arm comes off or something like that. So yeah, - it was a Little Red Riding Hood act. And at the end, she gets like, ripped apart by the guy just like a wolf. I was like, I don’t know the name of whatever the hell she just did was, but I like that - I would do it. And then I heard the word burlesque. And,- that’s how I learned - this is a time in my life, where I get to control how I’m objectified - What about me is objectified, and how people are going to respond to me – I’m in control of my sexuality and of my image here. And so burlesque for me, it was a way to sort out the woman - the feminine ideas in my head - like oh, if I was a woman. What would I be? So, Mx. Sugar Mamasota is my version of like, if I was a woman, what would I be?

Apparently a clown slut. [Laughter]

How old are you when when you found burlesque?
Or when it found you.

I guess - 18 when I went to that show. But - some version of that existed in my head from very early-on. Because – Have you seen the movie From Dusk Till Dawn, Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez? [No?] We’ll fix that. Basically -Quentin Tarantino had a movie – he was writing about two brothers who robbed a bank in Mexico. He didn’t finish it. Robert Rodriguez had a movie about vampires in Mexico. He didn’t finish it. They jam - the two together. And so it’s like, good movie, good movie - Now, there’s demons somehow. There’s a very iconic scene of Salma Hayek walking across a table in a bikini and she puts her foot Tina’s mouth and pours whiskey down - into his mouth. And I saw that, like when I was seven. And I was like, I don’t know what this is.

But I want that job.
Also girls are cute.

I was like that – don’t know what else is going on here – Oh and I wanted to be a fly girl from Living Color. Like how like Jennifer Lopez started her career as a fly girl - I would put my rollerblades - knee pads and elbow pads on, and dance, and try to do all the dances to the opening of - In Living Color. So I was like six or seven when I first realized I wanted to do something - in being scantily clad, dancing around, and then I discovered burlesque when I was 18.

Burlesque at its core is stripping away something - stripping away layers - it’s about being close - I think that right now, - especially since we’ve all been in quarantine - people are touch-starved, and they’re missing community, and all that stuff. So, if just going for a walk in a park is a big deal, seeing someone covered in glitter with like, streamers shooting off their nipples - It’s like massive - it’s a bigger divide between that kind of glitz and glam and like where we are now - but I’ve adapted it. - I think it’s so important to do shows – and - - also since, for me, - the biggest barrier with performing being is I don’t particularly like to be around strangers. I don’t know, like, you notice, when you’ve come to my shows, I always have like a handler. As soon as I’m off-stage – I go to a specific person is who takes me somewhere where I’m not really engaging with people who I don’t know - for me, what I get out of performing - I don’t need to hear - I don’t need to have the energy of the audience. I’ve tried - I want to present work to them, I want them to get something out of it, but I don’t need the validation part of it. And when you’re performing in person, and naked, - that validation quickly leads to a level of false familiarity, which leads to people thinking it’s okay to like touch you, - touch your hair, or touch your earrings, or pull on your pasties. So I, you know, I love performing, I’ve been doing it for years. That was a huge barrier - every time I was getting ready to go to a show - having too much of a pair to deal from variables of strangers. Now that’s taken away, I feel like I could be closer to them. Because - there’s no risk of me being in danger. So I can be as close and as familiar as I want to and show more, because it’s safer for me to do so - so that’s also why I got into virtual stripping. Because I’ve always wanted to be a stripper but like, I don’t have a fantastic temper. And if I get called chocolate, and someone - tries to grab my thong, they will have a black eye - so I’m like, - It won’t work out well - I don’t have a temperament to do it in person. - so I just started with these virtual shows - it’s been really a great way for me to connect with people and a closer and more intimate way without as much fear or concern. That’s where burlesque is for me these days.

Sugar.i, Brandon Perdomo
2017

You know, it’s always amazing to me how much you put yourself in your work - you do so much and from, you know, fabrication to, thoughtfully even camera work with with the online stuff going on. Is there is there anything you’re wearing now - did you make your sweater?

No. The funny thing is, -

You wouldn’t surprise me if you’re like, Oh, this whole thing.

The funny thing is - I made this, this is my summer blanket. So I’ve been knitting a lot. Because I’m always knitting, if I wear this sweater, people think that I made this sweater, but I didn’t. This is a gift from my ex girlfriend. And - it’s comfortable, so I kept it. It’s actually got a huge burn on the back of the shoulder - from a show that I did a Bizarre Bar before they closed. Someone threw my sweater on top of a lightbulb at a cabaret show and I came downstairs - to grab some lipstick - and I was like, What smells like – Oh! Dear! And it was like - smoking and burning. So Bizarre Bar almost caught on fire. Due to this this weird sweater.

I have my waist beads on that I made – I have jewelry that I made. This is all like religious stuff, - jewelry that I made. - this necklace is from my great-grandmother, Trinidad. I never met her. But apparently she really loved my mom and heard a lot about me. So when she passed away, about a year ago, she left a box just for me. And it was all like, gloves and garter belts and costume jewelry. My family knows what I do. So she left me like, all these necklaces, and oh, and she knows that I’m a witch. So she left me like some spell books. And like she’s a healer and she left me some of her old notes and potions, and then some - lingerie. So thanks. Thanks, Grandma, Trina, wherever you are, being awesome. Probably.

Twerking all the ancestors.

That’s incredible that ancestral - that information being shared with you.

Yeah, I think like - black femmes - sex work and stripping, are things that are not stigmatized in the same way. Because - even if you’re not involved – in life whatsoever, Black femmes do not get childhoods - we are immediately seen, by society as - being older and - facetious, - I started getting called – people started assuming that I was a sex worker when I was still a child. And it’s kind of just assumed that black femmes are here for use, of any kind. And if that’s what the kind of use you’re interested in - like my mother - she’s 60 - My mom would be walking down the street with some groceries and a guy will pull up and be like, How much? or something - because I don’t know a black femme who has not experienced some level of the stigma around sex work -

talking openly about doing it is more common. Or like, it not being such a big deal. Oh, or the way that we see our bodies is very different. - I’ll dress a certain way and not think it’s sexual whatsoever. But then - a white friend of mine will think that I’m - being really like, vampy or something. I like - No – To me, twerking isn’t sexual. Like, I have a bubble-but, - I have narrow hips, I have a bubble-butt - sticks out. I’m okay with it. If you’re not, don’t look – to me, It’s like funny, or it’s fun to do. I’m not like, trying to give boners over here - but I, you know, - being embodied and caring about our bodies and celebrating our bodies when we feel like it is really important to us because – it’s something that we have to fight every single day to do. And so yeah, it’s really nice that my great grandmother who never met me in person – ever – I don’t think she saw me as baby - just was like, Here, you too - you know the thing. Here you go. So that was – yeah it’s really special to me – like, so actually every time I do a strip show I wear my great grandmother’s beads.

So,
cute in the family.

Something you just said about how bodies are seen reminds me of what you were telling me the other day about this - an incident in the Rockaways.

Oh, the double-dutch thing?

Yeah.

Um, so

I don’t know if you know this or not - but basically, when producers get allowed a first show, they only book enough diversity to not get dragged for not booking diversity. So usually, black burlesque performers don’t get to see - meet each other. Because it’s very, very rare that we’ll get booked to the same show. And if we are, they book us back-to-back so you don’t actually see each-other perform - so there’s representation for the audience. But we don’t get the representation, because we never get to see each other. And - so I think the Winter of 2018 or something, I did - a burlesque show and, surprisingly enough, this white producer booked four black performers on same show. And we were so excited. Brandon, you’d think that we did not realize anyone else was in the room – we took so many pictures with each other. There were so many hugs. And that’s how I met three other performers. Rain Supreme, Femme Fatale, and Stella Nova - I met those three at that show. And last Summer, Rain, - or a different burlesque performer asked in I wanted to go to the Rockaways to do double-dutch because Rain Supreme was like getting all the black burlesque performers together for just - to have fun, and do double-dutch by the beach. I grew up in an all white town, so I did not get the privilege of learning double-dutch, like a lot of other little black girls do. And the other performers - were like, don’t worry about it, neither did I, they’re gonna teach us. It’s like, half of the group knew how to double-dutch. The other half was like, I’m disclosing my race card, can you please teach me. So - we all met up, went to the boardwalk, and decided to set up there. So we had a little speaker playing music, and we were just trying to have fun. At some point, a crowd starts to form. And there are people everywhere playing games, and running around and doing all kinds of stuff. But we’re drawing the attention. And it’s predominately white people. And they’re videotaping us and taking pictures without asking, - they’re coming up and asking us what we’re doing - we’re just playing double-dutch - like, they’re asking us what it’s for - like, Um, is this a show? The fact that it’s automatically assumed that black women, smiling in public is a show for you, for anyone who’s walking by, is outrageous. And - we were laughing it off. Because we’ve all been through that so much - we start talking about how often that is that, we just cannot exist in public, and have joy without it being for the service of somebody else.

Sugar.ii, Brandon Perdomo
2017

So like,

at some point, you can’t laugh it off anymore.

This older white lady came up to me and asked when I was going next - because we were taking a break, because everyone was tired. Like, oh, why are you guys gonna start up again? - I don’t know. - Well, I have to leave soon. Like, - we were supposed to be doing something for her. And she’s a stranger. And I was like, I don’t care. No one is paying me to care about entertaining you. And - this kind of messaging - like it’s okay to be that pushy to demand entertainment, from black women for free. Like, I don’t know what’s going on. But it’s obviously for me. And now I get to make demands. And now I get to record this for whatever I want to do without asking any questions or anything. I cannot imagine having that kind of confidence, perhaps with like, the assistance of hard drugs, but - it was wild - even when we went down to the beach, and we were just hanging out, talking to each other. If we start hula-hooping, or someone’s like, dancing, shaking a little shoulder – all of a sudden people are coming up like, Oh, What’re you girls doing? What’s going on over here? There were all types of people out there having fun dancing around, listening to music, playing hula hoops, doing more interesting things than us. - I’m so happy – they did not realize that the people they were harassing were all showgirls, because that would have just made it so much worse. But that was what we were getting from people thinking we were just regular black women on the street. Like, that’s not with people thinking that we are performers. That was just - this is how you talk to black femmes.

These are replicas of Fulani earrings - the Fulani people. Do you know who they are? - It’s a really big a ethnic group in Nigeria and parts of West Africa. - they’re nomadic - part of my family’s Fulani - I think because that tribe is really nice to look at - they’re really attractive people, and they make lots of really interesting jewelry - as far as like African tribes that get ripped-off a lot, the Fulani are one of them. So you can find earrings like this in a lot of places - like, I did not get these from an African person, I bought them from some site that makes replicas of tribal tribal jewelry. - the past three years, I’ve been spending a lot of time working on finding out my ancestry and who my people were before slavery. And - luckily, my grandfather, on my mother’s side, has a last name that is really unique and easy to track. And his family is Nigerian by way of Geechee Gullah people in the Carolinas. - these earrings are actually kind of funny, because I saw them on the website. And I really liked them. But they’re like $230, - they’re not cheap. And I was already buying some other jewelry. And I thought of getting these, I decided not to. And I bought these big gold hoops with like honey bees in them instead. And when the package came in the mail - the septum ring I got, and the hoops were there, and all this stuff. And another box were these earrings. And there was a note from the person who packed the order. And they said, Hey, thank you so much for ordering. I did this, like in April. So, when business was very slow for everybody. I’ve wanted like all gold jewelry since I was a kid. This person wrote a note to me saying, thank you so much for supporting us through this time, I throw in an extra pair of earrings because they seemed to match the other stuff that you got, I hope you like them. And it was earrings from my ancestral people. So that’s how I got these. I wear them a lot with other earrings that are handmade by an indigenous person who I met during quarantine via the internet. I met a lot of really good folks via the internet during this time. - I wear these with a bunch of my other ancestral jewelry. Just to remind myself, I’m not stuck here.

B
And when you say stuck here, what do you mean?

- it’s hard living in Brooklyn, when you’re from the south. The way people talk is really different. I think when even, - I grew up moving around so much, my word is really all I have for people. - If I say I’m going to do something, I have to do it. I don’t get a lot of chances to make good connections and to build trust, because I never knew how long I’m staying in a spot. So having integrity and - saying what I mean and mean what I say, being as direct and honest as possible was important to me growing up. And when I talk to other southern people who live in Brooklyn, especially in nightlife - the community is really different - people up here get really weird about talking on the phone. Like you can’t, just call. The level of care is different. - the culture is just really different in Brooklyn than it is in North Carolina. Or you know, something like the places that I’m familiar with. - My phone is perched on my altar right now, that has like plants and skulls and my usual stuff, and some handmade baskets from Cherokee and Geechee folks and things that remind me of my family, my grandmother’s ring box that my grandfather put her engagement ring in.

But it’s just like stuff to remind me that at some point, I’m going to go back home. Brooklyn, Brooklyn’s good. I like being a part of the community here. I like contributing. And I like the opportunities that I have here, but I know that this is not where I’m putting down roots permanently. And I kind of want to be where my blood is. And so until I get there, I just - dress up. I play dress up. And also that reminds me of where I’m going to be.

So that’s that bit of mush.