Performer

Johnny Blazes is known throughout Boston’s drag and burlesque scenes for hir genre-bending, gender-blending, tongue-in-cheek performances. After training in traditional performance arts, theater, opera and ballet, Johnny started to develop hir own style of performance and art. While attending Oberlin College in Ohio, Johnny continued to expand and assert hir own personal style of performance while testing the limits of gender and genre in the performing arts. It was there ze founded OCircus! and directed the 95-student group for three years. Projects with OCircus! included a small ensemble circus that drew upon vaudevillian traditions to create a dark and sexy narrative with a cabaret feel. The show toured in the summer of 2007 and wowed audiences in Cleveland, Columbus, Detroit, New York, DC, Richmond, and Boston.

Upon return to hir hometown of Boston, Johnny directed The Madcap Rumpus Society’s production of Mischief in the Machine, a circus-theater performance set to the boisterous music of Emperor Norton’s Stationary Marching Band. The show made use of mask-work and combined non-verbal storytelling with poetry and music to tell a steampunk-inspired narrative. Ze also contributed choreography and staging to Big Moves’ 2008 show Big Top. Johnny continues to be involved with Big Moves as a “movement consultant,” aiding with auditions and character embodiment.

Johnny is a regular performer at Truth Serum’s TraniWreck and a member of the now-touring Femme Show cast. Ze is often seen performing at The Theater Offensive’s Works-in-Progress showings and at Jacque’s Cabaret. Johnny has emerged full force with art that refuses to be labeled. As Heywood Wakefield, MC for TraniWreck, once remarked, “I like having Johnny on board to confuse us all…”

By day, Johnny is a teacher of movement, drama and social activism to kids ages 2 through 16. Ze strives to be a role model that kids can look to as a positive example of gender non-conformity.

Johnny is currently working on an evening length piece, entitled wo(n)man show. This sequence of comical vignettes will incorporate physical theater, prop manipulation, puppetry, dance, lip synch and classical voice as it explores the question: How does one arrive at one’s present gender? Johnny plans to tour this show nationally in 2009, and hopes that hir use of physical comedy and recognizable archetypes will make this a show accessible not only to folks who are already interested in gender fluidity, but also to folks who have never been introduced to the topic.

Links to Johnny Blazes:

• Official Website of Johnny Blazes
• Friend Johnny Blazes Myspace
• Find more Youtube videos of Johnny here
• The Femme Show