New Brunswick·ProfileKessa Lulle, a two-spirit, Mi’kmaw drag queen from Moncton, says her drag is fairylike, a “spirit,” but the character goes beyond aesthetics; it’s her own personality, both melancholic and sharp, elevated to “the highest degree.” Kessa Lulle uses her struggles with depression and anxiety to connect with peopleRaechel Huizinga · CBC News · Posted: Oct 31, 2025 5:00 AM EDT | Last Updated: 2 hours agoListen to this articleEstimated 6 minutesKessa Lulle is a two-spirit, Mi’kmaw drag queen from Moncton. (Raechel Huizinga/CBC)Kessa Lulle likes to think about death, make people cry and listen to music that ruins her day. These are traits most performers would abandon for the stage, but for Lulle, a two-spirit, Mi’kmaw drag queen from Moncton, they form an edgy star power. Her drag is fairylike, a “spirit,” she said, but the character goes beyond aesthetics; it’s her own personality, both melancholic and sharp, elevated to “the highest degree.” “People will enjoy a drag show,” said Lulle, 24, in an interview with CBC News. “It’s fun, it’s very immediately entertaining.”“But then I come out and I’m just haunting the room, and people are mesmerized.”Kessa Lulle’s look has a gothic, ethereal nature. She draws inspiration from artists like Ethel Cain, Florence and the Machine and Mitsky. ‘I just like to be a weird little swamp witch,’ she said. (Sa Mmy/screwsocietysam (Instagram) )One of her earliest ventures into the discomforting entertainment space was through music, and it was a song her mother wasn’t so sure about: a performance of Johnny Cash’s ‘Drums,’ a 1964 ballad critical of colonialism and government residential schools. Still, Lulle picked up her own grandfather’s drum and dove in. The audience responded — and not just emotionally. “I made over $300,” Lulle said. “That was the most I’ve ever been tipped.”While Lulle’s performances are imbued with her Indigenous culture, she also pulls from her own struggles with depression and anxiety to still people in their seats, make them think and confront their feelings.“We’re being bombarded with horrible news every day and we have grown numb from that,” she said. “So something I try to do is get rid of that numbness and make people feel again.”WATCH | Kessa explains her drag persona and puts on makeup:Drag for sad people: Meet Moncton’s Kessa LulleKessa Lulle is a two-spirit, Mi’kmaw drag queen from Moncton who uses satire and pulls from her own struggles with depression and anxiety to engage her audience. Lulle remembers driving across the bridge from Campbellton to Quebec while growing up to visit with her mother’s family in Listuguj First Nation. Born and raised in Moncton, she said the physical separation from her Indigenous community wasn’t easy, especially for someone who was also 2SLGBTQ+.“I have a little bit of difficulty in finding a real kinship in my community, in terms of being queer on top of being a weirdo,” she said.Lulle is two-spirit in both gender and orientation — not exactly a transgender woman or cisgender, gay man, she said, but her “own thing outside of that.” She was raised as a boy, but loved women’s powwow dances like Fancy Shawl and would try to learn the footwork quietly, alone.In high school she stumbled into the world of drag. It was a messy start, Lulle said. She tried different looks and names, throwing everything out there to see what stuck. In the end, she landed on Kessa Lulle as her drag name, a sort of pun based on the Mi’kmaw phrase for I love you, kesalul. “I try my best to Indigenize whatever space I’m in,” she said.Lulle didn’t have her first real drag performance until the summer of 2022, though she spent some time building local “folklore” about herself online through memes and jokes before stepping out on a trailer stage at Centennial Park in downtown Moncton — more afraid of the heat melting off her eyebrows than anything else.At that moment, though, she said the drag community realized she was more than just a funny person on social media — she could actually perform. It was a personal moment for her, too.“I felt alive again,” she said.Access to traditional powwow dance wasn’t easy for Lulle, growing up in the city and away from her community. In adulthood, she says she’s trying to Indigenize whatever space she’s in. (Raechel Huizinga/CBC)Her drag has only grown from there, though not without its challenges. As the only BIPOC drag artist in Moncton, she said at times allyship has felt performative.Land welcomings, for example. Lulle said she tried to institute them at drag events and performances, but after a while, it was clear she was the only one doing them. As an Indigenous person, she resented this: she didn’t need to welcome herself to land her people had lived on for centuries.“I decided to do something satirical,” she said. “This feels very stupid to me, so I’m going to do something that’s objectively stupid.” So Lulle continued to do land acknowledgements — as Jennifer Coolidge.The impressions came naturally, Lulle said — “she lives inside of me, I can’t get rid of her” — and people loved them, requested them, until for Lulle, they lost their charm. The point was going over people’s heads, she said, so she scaled back. “It did blow up in my face a little bit,” she said. “Unfortunately, I’m too funny for my own good.”Lulle is focusing on building her skills as a costume designer, but hopes to elevate her drag to a level where she could present it to television shows. (Pierre Fournier/CBC)She’s more subtle with references to her Indigenous culture now, likening them to easter eggs; if you know, you know, she said. Those dances she learned as a child find their way into her performances, though they’re much harder in six-inch heels than moccasins, she joked. Aside from the heels, Lulle often wears outfits of her own making. An avid sewer, she puts her own spin on traditional Indigenous clothing; a “jibbon” skirt, for example, a ribbon skirt made of denim. “It was the rage at all the powwows last summer,” she said.Lulle has performed in most Maritime provinces, but doesn’t have big plans for her drag career at the moment. She works at the Atlantic Ballet Studio in Moncton as a costume designer, improving her sewing abilities and is considering going to the New Brunswick College of Craft and Design next year. She does hope to elevate her drag to a level where it could catch the attention of television shows, bringing the attention to New Brunswick’s drag scene it so “desperately needs,” she said. “I thought I was going to die immediately out of high school, if I’m speaking in all honesty,” she said.“But now I’m in my twenties and I’m trying to get my life together. I don’t know what I’m doing, but I’m doing it.”
This Indigenous drag queen uses satire and sadness to make you feel again
