Known for outrageous and unique performances, the late local drag performer Phatima Rude (Leigh Pankonin) will be remembered at a gathering on Sunday, August 1 at Public Works.
Compared to -and inspired by- the late Leigh Bowery, Rude s costumes and performances were more than mere drag, but a transcendent eccentric journey, often involving shocking body manipulation and themes with a dark edge.
Pankonin, also known as Sister Phatima la Dyke Van Dick/Sister Hateful Sow of the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, died May 18 while sleeping in their Portland, Oregon apartment. They were 55. (See the
https://www.ebar.com/news/news//305134 |B.A.R. s May 20 obituary>).
Leigh Pankonin, best known as Phatima Rude, aka Sister Phatima la Dyke Van Dick/Sister Hateful Sow of the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence Inc., died May 18 while sleeping in their Portland, Oregon apartment. They were 55.
Phatima also performed as reTarded Panda and Taffi 3.14, according to the Sister Kitty Catalyst, the former mistress of archives who wrote an obituary.
Born in 1966, they grew up in Fergus Falls, Minnesota, a small city in the mid-western part of the state. Their mom, Cleo Rude, worked at a state mental hospital, so they grew up at the institution and studied the people there later using them as the basis for drag characters. Phatima treasured Cleo Rude, saying she had a wicked sense of humor and swore like a sailor. By the late 1980s the two moved to San Francisco and Phatima was introduced to the art of drag in 1989, by drag mother MichaelAngelo. Phatima said, Once you do drag it s in your blood . It became my medium, and my dialect, for what I wanted to convey