CHERDONNA SHINATRA: GOODNIGHT COWBOY
written and performed by Jody Kuehner / Cherdonna Shinatra
If the children’s book Goodnight Moon crashed into a spaghetti western you would get Goodnight Cowboy in the wreckage.
This work includes performance, theater, dance, and film. Goodnight Cowboy investigates themes of life and death, propaganda, toxic masculinity, soft endings, and how we invest our worlds with meaning.
About Jody Kuehner / Cherdonna Shinatra
Jody Kuehner is a Seattle-based dance artist, director, and drag queen Cherdonna Shinatra. Cherdonna takes what you recognize about dance, what you believe about drag, what intrigues you about improvisation and what delights you about entertainment, Cherdonna effortlessly tosses it in a mason jar, shakes it up, and opens the lid. Cherdonna exists between dimensions and quantum shifts in time through everyday objects and emotions. While she provides a brightly decorated avenue to explore and question what is “normal,” she remains a child, innocent of rancor. Cherdonna is aggressively sweet. The subtext is the made-up surface belying what exists beneath and the commentary of truth beyond what’s advertised. She is always seeking (even while struggling), what is beautiful and shiny.