Margaret Dragu

Margaret Dragu (born 1953) is a Canadian dancer, writer, performance artist and feminist.

Dragu is a writer and artist who has worked in the genres of performance art, video and film, installation, and choreography. She was born in Regina, Saskatchewan in 1953, and moved in her adult years to New York, Calgary, Montreal, Toronto and Vancouver. She began her dance career in Calgary in 1969, studying under Yone Kvietys Young, who was an instructor of movement using elements of Dada. From Calgary, Dragu moved to New York in 1971, where she began working with Alwin Nikolais, Murray Louis, and the Laura Foreman dance company, as well as members of the Judson Church. Her work with movement evolved to include elements of "burlesque, tap dancing, flamenco, and theatre." In 1973 Dragu moved to Montreal where she began a lengthy career as a striptease artist.

In 1975 Dragu moved to Toronto and became affiliated with artist-run collectives including A Space and 15 Dance Lab. She taught classes in aerobics and strip at the A Space gallery. In Toronto Dragu attempted to organize around strippers' rights with the help of the Canadian Labour Congress and the Association of Canadian Radio and Television Artists. The short lived strippers' union was called the Canadian Association for Burlesque Entertainers.

In 1988 Dragu co-wrote Revelations: Essays on Striptease and Sexuality with A. S. A. Harrison, a collection of essays on the topics of striptease and sexual entertainment. In 2002 Fado Performance Inc. published a book entitled La Dragu: The Living Art of Margaret Dragu which included a DVD with some of her site specific and video performances.

Dragu has stated that she has a "multi-personnae" disorder, becoming Lady Justice, Verb Woman, Art Cinderella, and Nuestra Señora del Pan. For a performance at Edmonton's Vision of Hope monument, with a sword, salt, wine and scales that viewers associate with Lady Justice, she honored the women killed in the massacre at Montreal's École Polytechnique.

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