Diane Torr - Drag King

Diane is best known internationally as one of the pioneers of 'drag king' performance (female to male drag), and has taught her renowned 'Man for a Day' workshop across Europe and North America, and in India. Her performance DragKings and Subjects features prominently in the documentary Venus Boyz (2002). Sex, Drag and Male Roles; Investigating Gender as Performance a book about her work co-authored by Professor Stephen Bottoms of Leeds University, is forthcoming from University of Michigan Press. Her installation work, Ideal HOMO, is presently on view at the Gallery of Modern Art, Glasgow as part of the sh(OUT) exhibition, and also at the Incheon International Women Artists' Biennale in South Korea.

After graduating from Dartington College of Arts in 1976, Diane moved to New York and over 25 years developed her career as an artist as an integral part of Manhattan's lively downtown art scene. She was involved in the start-up of WOW Cafe in 1982, and pioneered the fusion of feminism and erotic dancing, twenty years prior to the advent of 'new burlesque'.

As an educator, she began teaching workshops and seminars as a visiting artist at New York University, and was an adjunct professor at CUNY 2000-02, She has held residencies at the European Dance Development Centre in Arnhem, at the School of New Dance in Amsterdam, and at Helsinki Theatre Academy. Recent engagements in the UK include lectures and workshops on gender performance and the history of performance art at institutions such as Glasgow School of Art, University of Glasgow, Plymouth University, University of Leeds, University of York, and Queen Margaret University College, Edinburgh.