Catherine Saint Jude Pretorius (b. 1990) grew up in Cape Town, South Africa in an area called the Cape Flats. She has studied Politics and Public Policy Administration at the University of Cape Town. In 2012 Catherine founded South Africa’s first drag king troupe and was featured in the Mail and Guardian South African Women. In 2013, Saint Jude retired her drag king act and developed the character Dope Saint Jude, a persona she uses as a prism to explore and dismantle the problems that face young women. Saint Jude has headed up the Intombi Workshop, an informal arts programme in the Cape Flats, focused on using drama, music and poetry as tools for empowerment among young women. Saint Jude recently spoke at the 10and5 Creative Women’s Conference about innovative and creative artistic strategies to address issues of race, gender and class in post- apartheid South Africa. She has recently recorded a 4 track EP for Redbull Studios and is currently working on her debut EP.
Dope Saint Jude is performing together with Angel-Ho and Koko Hubara at the Aalto University's In-Between conference's art program that is curated by Ahmed Al-Nawas and Chirstopher Wessels. Read more about the conference here.
Listen: Dope Saint Jude's Soundcloud