Drag Performance Artist Christeene Vale Is the Music Icon We Need

Having been called everything from a "feral drag firebrand" to "Beyoncé on bath salts," New York-based singer-songwriter Christeene Vale is unlike anyone or anything you've ever seen.

The self-professed "genderqueer drag terrorist" might come across as a Divine-meets-G.G. Allin performer, but fear not: "I'm not gonna be throwing poop on anybody," she says.

Clad in ice-blue contacts, smeared makeup, shredded tighty whities and a ragged black wig, the character of Christeene evolved from a Kickstarter campaign to international notoriety in just over a decade. An alter ego of interdisciplinary artist Lake Charles, Louisiana, native Paul Soileau, Christeene was born to channel frustration with the manipulative conformity and intolerance of today's society via explicit songs such as "African Mayonnaise," "Tear From My Pussy" and "Fix My Dick."

As a perfect blend of lowbrow aesthetic with highbrow messaging, Christeene almost fits better in the hallowed halls of artistic institutions like Paris' Centre Pompidou than in a sweaty dive bar like the Double Wide, where she made her first Dallas appearance in 2012. This Saturday, Nov. 4, she's performing at the Dallas Contemporary.

"I think its important to be able to infiltrate some spaces and be welcomed into others and treat them equally," she says. "Finding myself in environments that wouldn't necessarily sign up for one of my shows, those are some of the most important shows because people who wouldn't normally see my work do and get their head cracked open in a different way. I very much enjoy being in raunchy, stanky places and clean, elegant, expensive places — it doesn't change me at all."

Recently, the performer took over Times Square in a pop-up collaboration with 81-year-old provocateur artist Pippa Garner. Commissioned by the upstate New York collective Art Omi, Garner's "Haulin Ass!" (a cherry-red Ford pickup with supersized truck nuts) arrived smack in the center of the Square with Christeene aboard. It's safe to say the surprise concert changed the lives of all the random passersby who were lucky enough to view it, at least judging from the incredulous expressions of the crowd.

The performer now laughs remembering the reactions.

"I do feel like the world needs more peacocks and wild ponies running around the street, and I feel like I am in that family," she says. "It takes a lot of courage to walk the streets and be a peacock and wild pony. You have to have the confidence to do that, the strength and the courage. Anything we can do to shake that up, I'm here for it."

"Born" 14 years ago (as she says, "I'm in the teenage zone now") as a conceptual character, Christeene began performing in Austin, where the artist was living post-Hurricane Katrina. Making music videos with her director, PJ Raval, on a shoestring budget of just $200, she also crowdfunded her debut album Waste Up, Kneez Down. This DIY method satisfied Christeene's desire to get work out on her own timeline when she felt like releasing something new.

"I very much like to stay out of the rules and confines of the music industry, the art world, and the fashion world," she says of her approach. "In the music industry, it's all about you make your album, get on the road and sell, sell, sell. When I'd first started, I'd shit out a song, shit out a video, and a couple of months later, boom! There's another one. I think our minds are more about that one song at a time. I'd like to walk away from the rules of being a musician and make my own rules and deliver what I want to musically. I want to explore these things, pervert them more, and continue to evolve."

Along the way, she spent time at the now-defunct CentralTrak Artist Residency in Dallas and garnered recognition from the likes of South by Southwest, but it was Europeans who first really understood the message and methodology of what she was trying to do.

"I think that when we went over there, they were very interested in who was making the work and how the work was being made," she says. "They were fascinated by it, and they approached the work in a more theatrical manner in terms of stagecraft, writing, and costumes. In the U.S., it was just about shock and sex; that's all they cared about. They didn't ever give a shit about the songwriting, music productions and costumes, only the shock value.

"It was much more satisfying to engage with a community of people who were into how it was being made and why it was being made. People were looking at it in a conceptual way."

Having received raves from such highbrow outlets as The Guardian (which proclaimed her 2019 live Barbican performance of Sinead O'Connor's "The Lion and the Cobra" "an uproarious and profoundly moving show"), Christeene soon found herself the darling of the French, German and British cognoscenti. Befriending the likes of designer Rick Owens (who makes a cameo in her video "Butt Muscle") and opening for Swedish artist Fever Ray, she landed in a weirdo sweet spot where she can do exactly as she pleases — be it unleashing butt plugs tied to balloons over the audience, or toggling genres between hip-hop, pop and electro.

And that's just what happened on her newest record, Midnite Fukk Train. Released on the Austin nonprofit label Spaceflight Records, the album offers everything from free jazz bangers such as "Beaucoup Morocco" to slow-mo saga "Lo Paid Runway Model" and the meditative "Piano Song." Every tune — no matter the genre — indulges the listener's id while rejecting the barriers that society places upon us, an outlook that Christeene says she hopes is also distilled in her live shows.

"I get as much from these shows and these exchanges as the audience does," she explains. "I'm too searching for an answer and a way to navigate the world we're in right now. I just hope the way I'm delivering these feelings will allow you to feel a new way — just hop on my boat for a minute, pull up, and have a different way of looking at things."

And, the artist says, she's just getting started. She hopes to expand on her "The Lion and the Cobra" performances in the future, and she plans to spend the coming season cooking up more primal music devoid of rules and boundaries.

"In these winter months, I'll be spending some time fashioning some new sounds I'd like to bring back out next spring," she promises. "I'm gonna hibernate and come out of my stinky old cave in March and have some wonderful new things for people to experience."

Christeene will perform at the Dallas Contemporary on Saturday, Nov. 4. Doors open at 8 p.m. Tickets are $25 with complimentary drinks for guests 21 and up.