Arctic Talent: Goth glamour shines on stage

The blood was fake, but the standing ovation on July 7 was bona fide after Mistress Aurora’s first-place drag performance at the Lookout Bar and Nightclub in Ottawa’s Byward Market.

Mistress Aurora is the G-rated version of the stage name used by Iqaluit’s Nuka Fennell, a transgender woman rising up in Ottawa’s professional drag scene. Before her second act, the crew covered the stage in plastic.

In gothic attire and glamorous mascara, the artist strutted into the spotlight wearing a long black dress with the sides cut out to the waist, like an elegant ankle-length loin cloth.

She rocked tight-laced knee-high stilettos, puffy pirate sleeves, and a bright red wig that glowed in the shimmer of the disco ball above her.

Mistress Aurora then went on to lunge and rhythmically writhe to the tune of Drag Me to Hell by Italian-American musician Lizzy Trouble.

At the song’s climax, Mistress Aurora pulled an audience member onstage and tore a prop heart from their chest with her teeth.

The dancer squeezed the heart in her fist above her head then took a bite. Spurts of dark viscous fluid cascaded down her chin, neck, and chest.

The crowd roared. After all, they knew what they were getting into. “Fierce performances” that feature “up-and-coming drag superstars” is how the night was billed across social media.

Fennell later wiped off the fake blood and got real about how she found her gender identity and her voice.

Growing up in Iqaluit, horror was Fennell’s happy place, she said.

During the dark winters, and in bright summers with blackout curtains pulled tight, Fennell relished watching scary movies on DVD that she and her sisters picked out upstairs at Arctic Ventures.

“These were my favourite memories of being a teen,” she said.

May 1997: “I don’t think I’m supposed to be like this,” said five-year-old Fennell to a mirror, years before her decision to transition into a female.

“Ever since a young age, I was effeminate and different,” she said. This created “really complicated and intense feelings as a kid.”

1998-2004: Fennell’s older sister helps dress her up in scarves and makeup at playtime.

“I’d be ecstatic,” Fennell said.

She asks Santa for Barbie but gets Ken.

2005-2018: Fennell is labelled “gay” and leans into the identity.

“I was dressing the way other people would perceive positively,” she said. “I sank deeper into masculine presentation — but it didn’t feel right inside of me.”

Summer 2018: Fennell experiments with drag, attending bonfires in costume with trusted friends.

Fall 2021 to summer 2023: Fennell teams up with the Nunavut Theatre Company to co-produce a drag show at Iqaluit’s Franco-Centre. She co-hosts a Pride cabaret at the Aqsarniit hotel lounge in the spring.

One night she falls asleep in drag and wakes up to an epiphany.

“It made me realize how at-home I felt in that presentation — I felt so at peace,” she said. “I owed it to myself to pursue what felt authentic.”

She co-organizes more burlesque in the winter of 2022 and summer of 2023.

Around this time Fennell starts taking hormone therapy to assist the gender-transition process.

Spring 2023: Sexy Bingo is born in Iqaluit, organized by Fennell and Brandon Villeneuve at the Nunavut Brewing Company’s tap room. Villeneuve carries on the tradition after Fennell heads to Ottawa.

Talent Tip: “Don’t be afraid to put yourself out there and try something new.”