Cheerleader | Film Screening

The video Cheerleader is part of the project In Art Dreams Come True by Katarzyna Kozyra, a series exploring identity, gender roles, and the construction of femininity through performance, music, and video. The project was initiated during the artist’s residency at the DAAD in Berlin. With the help of Gloria Viagra, a well-known Berlin drag queen, and the opera vocal coach Grzegorz Pitulej, Kozyra began an artistic journey inspired by her dream of becoming a singer and exploring the idea of the “perfect” woman. Through vocal training, performance, and transformation, she tested different feminine roles while pushing the boundaries between reality and performance, identity and disguise.

In Cheerleader, conceived as a pop-style video clip to the song What You Waiting For?, Kozyra performs as a cheerleader in a men’s locker room. Initially ignored by the athletes, she later reappears transformed into an exaggerated operatic diva figure. This sudden shift alters the dynamics of attention and desire within the scene. Blending humor, parody, and self-transformation, the video reflects Kozyra’s ongoing interest in the body as a constructed image and in the performative nature of gender. 

A film by Katarzyna Kozyra
Presented by Persons Projects
Duration 4 minutes and 30 second
2006