 From the legendary ‘La Baker’ to a Bond Girl via Tina Turner
and Beyonce, Joseph Cardona likes to play strong, aggressive women.
“Yes, I love to project strength and aggression in my
performances,” Cardona, better known as resident Throb drag queen Josie Baker, tells GayNT.
The popular drag performer says she made her frocked
debut at Throb four years ago, after first performing as one of the club’s
dancers, the Tom Kats.
“I had danced as a boy at Throb, but they needed a drag
queen for a show so they asked me to do it. I said no, but they asked again and
I gave in. I guess I’ve always fancied heels,” she quips.
When Josie made her solo debut without the pussycats, she
was an immediate smash with the Throb throng.
“My boss said I got a standing ovation, but I don’t know
about that. I couldn’t really see,” she confides.
It wasn’t Joseph’s first brush with fame. He had been a
child model since the age of nine, having appeared in Euro Man magazine and in catwalk work around Darwin.
“I found my love for the stage and thought I could do more
with it, so I decided to go on and do dance in high school,” he says.
But the aspiring dancer didn’t cop any Billy Elliott
dramatics at home.
“[In my family] I was known to be the gay guy as a
teenager, and I think my parents knew all along,” he says.
Homophobic teasing wasn’t an issue at school either: "I come from a big family. You mess with me, and you mess
with half of Darwin!”
Having studied hip hop and jazz dancing at school, Jospeh
moved to Melbourne in 2002 to study musical theatre at Bartuccio Dance Studios.
“I studied all types of dance there: ballet, hip-hop, all
musical theatre. And when that finished, I moved back to Darwin and started working
at Throb.”
Though celebrated for his drag performences as Josie,
Joseph still likes to dance with the Tom Kats as well.
“Apart from Throb, we also do a lot of Christmas parties and
government functions as well as women’s functions and birthday parties.”
For the future, Joseph said he’d like to get himself a
manager and do more performances outside nightclubs and outside Darwin – though
he’s quick to add he also loves performing on the gay scene.
"I just want to broaden my horizons and get my name out
there as a cabaret performer,” he says.
If there’s one project he’d love to do, Joseph says
it would be a cabaret tribute to the great Franco-American dancer Josephine
Baker (known in France as 'La Baker'), to whom he plays tribute with his drag
name.
“I’d love to do a show on her songs, a musical show about
her and what she used to be. I just love her character, her fascination with
sex and aggressiveness when she dances and sings.
“She’s someone I really admire."
In the meantime, clubbers can catch Josie as a Bond Girl in
the current Throb show.
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