Kat Cunning to Make Headlining Debut at The Dinah

After endless months of lockdowns, social distancing, pandemic restrictions, and isolation, The Dinah, the largest all-girl music festival in the world, is finally about to celebrate its highly anticipated 30th anniversary milestone.

In addition to dance parties, nighttime soirees, and celebrity meet and greets, The Dinah has grown into a globally celebrated event famous for picking the next big thing in music. Founder and producer Mariah Hanson has year after year tapped the most promising up-and-coming talent that have gone on to become world-renowned performers. This year, festival-goers can make a splash at the Girl Spot Pool Party on Friday, October 1 with leading queer artist and actor Kat Cunning.

With a traffic-stopping voice and powerful presence, Cunning adds soulful grace to anthemic alternative pop. During Pride Month, they released their hit single “Boys,” which celebrates transmasculine joy. Billboard called the track “a life-affirming new single that deserves your attention.”

This will be Cunning’s first time attending and performing at The Dinah, and OFM had the opportunity to catch up with them to talk more about it.

How excited are you to be the headliner at The Dinah this year?
I am so excited! I have heard about this festival for a very long time but have never been. I am so humbled to headline, particularly this year because I am a huge fan of Rina Sawayama, who is going to be there. I am low-key geeking out to be at the festival and watching the show.

What else are you looking forward to the most?
That really is the main thing. I had the pleasure of performing throughout the pandemic early on, and I have been able to see 100-200 people in an intimate space safely, so now I am just excited to be in an outdoor space with a mass of, obviously, queer people, getting to see their faces and feel their energy. I have not performed a show like that in so long, and there is nothing like it. I cannot wait to see what comes out of me and look back at the faces of my community.

Do you consider yourself a festival-goer?
I grew up dancing vigorously, so my summers and winters were always booked, and I forgot to go to stuff. So, I missed a lot of festivals that I am very excited to finally see. The last festival I went to was Rolling Loud in Miami, and I had the time of my life. I love the concept of festivals, and my future holds a lot of them because it is so cool to jump from genre to genre of music. Who doesn’t love a bunch of food and booze around you when you get bored of a song? Come back later. It is such an ideal way to see music.

To you, what makes The Dinah such an iconic and monumental event?
Correct me if this is incorrect, but I think it is the biggest lesbian gathering of all, which is so cool. As the world becomes more queer, there is queer stuff everywhere. The Dinah is monumental with how long it has existed, and the fact that it was designed for lesbians. It is just really cool. I grew up with a mom who came out as gay when I was young, so there is a special place in my heart for anything lesbian back then because it took a lot more to be out and it took a lot more to create a space. I am excited because it’s historical, and I am excited to see lots of people of different ages.

You will perform at the Girl Spot Pool Party on Friday, October 1. What can one always expect from a Kat Cunning performance?
First of all, if it’s a pool party; I am getting in the pool! You can expect that from Kat Cunning—a day in the life. I am the type of bitch that would rather take a Super 8 Motel than SoHo House as long as I have pool access and can actually swim. Give me a diving board! Anyways, you can always expect, particularly from a festival situation, energy and feels. I am going to put you in your feels, and we are going to start by coming out with energy and movement. Then I am going to make you cry, so get ready for that, and you can just expect great pop music. My butt is probably going to come out at some point (laughs). Hopefully, it is just a high point of the day.

I assume your set will include your latest single, “Boys,” which you released back in June in honor of Pride Month. Is the track still being received well?
Yes! I still get messages for that song, and it is special to me because I wrote that song three years ago in, sort of, my first writing trip. It is from the first round of stuff I ever wrote, and I am just so glad that I was able to make the video the way I did, make the song at the time I did, and really take the time to get the statement right and do it with the right people. It is a part of me that I, as a queer person, don’t really get to wear as a stamp on my face because I am not super trans or nonbinary presenting, whatever the hell that all means. Nobody assumes at first glance that I am queer.

So, it really means a lot to me to have this stamp of my perspective out in the world. When you Google me, you can see that I care about trans youth, trans men, and you get to see that as a part of my artistry. It means a lot to me that the song is still out there making people cry and stuff, and I have actually played it for years prior to releasing it. It is always a hit. I almost always close my shows with it. I am excited to play it at The Dinah, and I am going to bring a couple of dancers with me because it is very lucky to have a very cool, longtime friend, queer person Tyler Phillips choreograph some movement to it that has lived on tour with me, who lives for festivals and shows, and it feels very special to have my friend on stage with me through that.

The entire cast and crew of the “Boys” music video is either transgender or nonbinary. Do you think the transmasculine experience is still not represented well in entertainment mediums?
Yes, absolutely. At the core of transphobic thinking, trans men are still women and women are always treated unequally. I think we are behind in terms of representation and equality on every level. Obviously, there has been a little bit of growth. I love seeing my friends, and some of the cast members of “Boys” who I can now call my friends, get the iconic transmasculine role in a show here and there.

It is being peppered into the world, for sure, but the main thing that I feel like we have to watch out for is not fetishizing the trans experience. We need to normalize the trans experience and show, and this is a little self-serving but it’s because I hear this echoed back at me all the time, but we need to show that trans and nonbinary people don’t always look like a poster child of queerness. I would just like to see the more nuanced representation continue to happen in the world without making a thing of like, how do trans people have sex? How do trans people get dressed? How to not exploit the trans experience.

Not only are you a staunch advocate for the LGBTQ community, but also for body positivity and several other issues. Do you like to blend your advocacy work with your singing and acting?
Yes, they are very, very blended. I am an activist, but I am really an artist who talks about what they care about. I see some people out there doing real hardcore activist work. This isn’t totally a tangent, but sometimes, people ask if I am a burlesque dancer because I have been in burlesque shows singing. I am not a burlesque dancer because the craft of being a burlesque dancer is you making a whole costume piece by piece, blah, blah. I would never call myself that. All I do as an activist, and I feel like this is important and it counts, but it is different from activists who are out there doing work with legislatures and truly getting on a soapbox. I am just saying what I think, and I think that can be valuable.

I want to encourage people to stand up for what they think and what they experience because that micro lens of your life can change someone else’s, to hear that a reflection of them exists. Also, I have to say, it is really not a choice for me. I am compulsively honest, and my art comes from needing to say something true or needing to express something that I am experiencing. Sometimes, I just write a dumb song about being jealous about a girl. That also counts, and I feel like that is its own form of activism.

When I first started writing, I was like, I want to talk about something. I actually get really nervous to sing and it helps me to sing when I have a purpose. With writing “Boys,” I want my project to be about stuff that I know, and even if I’m nervous, I have a reason to tell this story. They are inseparable for me, and I would never want to get stuck in having to make political music or having to tell political stories. Naturally, you become more passionate about being able to play roles that you relate to.

Do you have any acting projects currently in the works?
I do! I have one that I can’t quite mention, and I don’t know if it’s too early to say, but I’m going to say it. I am so, so, so, so excited to be a part of Issa Rae’s next project, Rap Sh*t, here in Miami. Insecure was the only show that I sat down at the exact time it streamed every single week to watch. I am so excited by her voice in the world, and I am very excited to be a part of it. It was also a very kismet situation because I am already in Miami.

I feel like a lot of acting stuff is coming together, but on the topic of doing stuff you care about, that’s in line with voices I want to participate with and projects I think are important to the world. I am lucky to say I have some projects coming up, and alongside that, I am finally allowing myself a chunk of time to dive into finishing my record. Looking over the songs I have written over this last year, tossing the ones out that I don’t love, and honing on the ones that I do. It was a weird year for everybody, and I was on the side of, more conservatively, not releasing stuff because I feel like I want to see myself from the lens of a little space after this pandemic and make sure I’m not just being reactionary to how crazy it all was with my music. I am going to take some time to work on that.

Before we wrap up, are there any other upcoming projects or anything else you would like to mention or plug?
Just stay in touch! There are lots of projects unfolding and stuff is always afoot. If I am ever quiet, it’s because I am working hard.

Connect with Cunning by following them on Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, and Spotify, or visit their official website. The Dinah will be held in Palm Springs, California September 29 through October 3 at the Hilton Hotel and Palm Springs Convention Center. Click here for more information.  

Photos courtesy of social media