Kara Zmatiq is the fabulous 23-year-old homegrown performer from Wollongong, bursting on to the drag scene with a debut single and a bright, soulful performance style. Named Australia’s Best Drag Star by Focus Magazine, this new queen on the block is here to stay, and here to slay.
Kara grew up hating sport in primary school, instead preferring the rush of being on stage, and was good at it too. Starting out experimenting with musical instruments as well as performing in musical productions and community plays, Kara’s drag name originated from many words of praise. “The name came to me through a couple of things that have been said to me throughout my entertainment career,” Kara says. “People used to say that I had a stage presence that was different.” Eventually this statement was elaborated upon after a show. “One day this audience member came up to me, and a couple of the directors, and they said ‘we’ve worked out what it is, you have charisma’ and it just came from that.”
At a younger age, the diva from down under had a passion for playing various different roles, sometimes more than one role per show. The praise received from audience members inspired the persona now seen headlining hundreds of parties, as well as handfuls of festivals and business launches.Coming out in year 11 at a religious school was not the easiest thing Kara has ever done, but it was a long awaited relief after having suppressed it for so long. It is also especially relieving to hear your parents approve of what you do. “I think in terms of them handling the matter of drag, they’ve been very open minded,” Kara says. “Their hardest part grasping the idea was ‘how can you feel okay with being known as someone you’re not 24 hours a day, 7 days a week?’”
The performer wants people to be able to distinguish between the character played by night on stage during performances, and the uni student and business owner by day. “I have no interest in being a woman, it’s me and it’s just another form of performing, and showcasing different skills as an entertainer: having to do the makeup, styling, and obviously changing your tone of voice.”In year 12, Kara decided to push the limits, venturing out into the gay club scene and meeting Australia’s own Courtney Act. “That was when I first met Shane [Courtney], and discovered how he started doing drag. How he got into the Courtney Act that he is now, is phenomenal.” Courtney was the first drag queen Kara witnessed live. “When I saw him perform at Nevermind just before it closed, I was like ‘you can do that? You can combine that sort of performing art with vocals?’” Making this discovery meant that Kara found a way to show off charismatic performance skills and vocals at the same time.
Along the way, meeting with some of the well-known drag performers in the Sydney area meant that Kara was given multitudes of tips and tricks about drag queen performance. “They helped me get an understanding of how to do a face, and how to style yourself a little bit, and they injected a lot of their own style. I didn’t like them putting their stamp on me as an entertainer, I’ve always been independent that way,” the drag queen says. “I ended up walking away from them after feeling like they were subtracting from who I was as a performer. They were putting too much of themselves into my style and into how I looked and how I carried myself.”Kara, now based in Newcastle, learned to be independent and decided to put that message into a song titled ‘Queen’. A catchy, anthemic dance song about owning who you are, 'Queen' is inspired by the famous quote by drag mother RuPaul, “we’re all born naked and the rest is drag”.
Kara has recently decided to target an audience broader than the gay community, performing in pubs, clubs, and even music festivals. “The song is more about walking with a different crowd, and telling people that you can be who you want to be,” the performer says. “No one has the right to tell you that you can’t be the queen that you know you are.”
Kara hopes to get a story across, and inform others of the trials and tribulations faced along the path to success. “I collaborated with a guy in Brisbane who helped me put the song together. I told him the story that I wanted to tell, just to get the words together and the music.”
As for performance style, you’ll never see a dull show, with exotic costumes and purely live vocals being small snippets of what to expect when Kara Zmatiq makes an appearance. The queen mainly performs hits from the ‘60s, ‘70s, ‘80s and the Top 40 charts.
Performing at Raw Artists Canberra, 8 May, Kara Zmatiq’s new single ‘Queen’ is now available on iTunes.
