Meet Christopher Cayari

Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Christopher Cayari. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Hi Christopher, so excited to talk about all sorts of important topics with you today. The first one we want to jump into is about being the only one in the room – for some that’s being the only person of color or the only non-native English speaker or the only non-MBA, etc Can you talk to us about how you have managed to be successful even when you were the only one in the room that looked like you?

Throughout my life, I was always a little different from my peers. I was one of only a handful of kids in a predominantly White school who had browner skin than everyone else. I realized I was queer in high school in the late 90s, and I came out to people in my school band weeks before Ellen DeGeneres came out on her sitcom. In 2012, I had arguments with my dissertation advisor about using they/them/their as singular pronouns instead of “he or she,” which was so common in most academic writing. While I was never the first queer, trans, person of color to walk in the schools and performance spaces that I trod as a kid, teen, and young adult, it sure felt like it. There were no role models anywhere! Sure, sometimes I didn’t feel those differences. Occasionally, I was attacked because of those differences, and other times, I was celebrated because of my differences.
So how did I learn to be effective and successful when I was the only one in the room? I celebrate diversity. Sure it sounds cliché, but when you seek to understand people who look, act, sound, or believe differently than you, you start to see how you can relate to them. And as a researcher, performer, and educator, understanding others really helps you do your work better. That’s kind of an outward-facing answer to your question. And if I were to look inward, I believe that my resilience is what helps me continue to preserve in my endeavors. From being raised by a single mother to never being sure if I didn’t land an audition because of how I looked, each setback provides an opportunity for me to learn about myself, hone my craft, and push me to new levels of impact and creativity. I think adversity coupled with this resilience has led to become a non-conformist in so many ways. And as a non-conformist, I look to do things that are outside the status quo. That means that I get to take all the stuff that people are used to and put my own spin on it, whether it’s singing songs in different ways, wearing clothes that make people go, “huh?”, or write articles that really challenge people’s thinking to get them to consider new ways of growth, empowerment, and prosperity!

Thanks, so before we move on maybe you can share a bit more about yourself?

What a great question pivot, Olivia! They say, whenever you meet someone new, you should never start with “What do you do for a living?” because it kind of pigeonholes the conversation and reduces someone to their job. But I’m “Dr. Cayari” on all socials and in my classroom, I have a Ph.D. in Music Education, and I’m so lucky that I have such a cool job as an academic who gets to enhance my artistic and activist work through my profession and hobbies. If I were to give you a tagline for my life’s mission, it would be to empower people through creating, learning, and teaching; and let me say, that includes myself, as I’ve learned that creating, learning, and teaching have empowered me in so many amazing ways. I am an associate professor of music education, so you can see how those three things fit into my profession. I grew up performing in bands, choirs, and theaters, and that is what inspired me to pursue a degree in music. I’ve been teaching private lessons since 2000, and I’ve been teaching in classrooms from kindergarten to graduate-level since 2004! Day-to-day interactions with students gives me life and I get to make music, explore concepts, and dream big with preparing performances, projects, and studies with my students. My favorite way to perform is as a musical theater performer. I just moved back to Chicago, my hometown, and have been auditioning and performing at Cabarets and other shows across the city. And to return to the idea of non-conformity, I am gender non-conforming. I am a genderfuck individual. To help others understand my gender, I like to say, I am gender fluid and vacillate between masculine and non-binary. Notice I said masculine, and not man. I get the ick when someone calls me a man. But I like to challenge the status quo in my gender presentation and performance, and a lot of my musical and theatrical performance involves pushing against the norms we see in society. So you’ll see me with a beard in a dress singing Elphaba songs from Wicked. But I’ll then follow that up with singing in my lower range as Tom Collins from Rent, which was the favorite role I ever embodied on stage. I like to play with gender. F*ck it up, in a way: get it? Genderfuck. And a final thing I’d love to share with you is that I’m a Sister of Perpetual Indulgence. The Sisters are an international organization with houses of secular queer nuns all over the world whose mission is the promulgate (spread) joy and expiate (fight and diminish) guilt. You might have seen us at your local pride resembling clowns and/or nuns as many of us paint our faces white to depersonalize our appearance and then paint—what most onlookers would call—drag make up over it. I’m SiXter ParrraDee (pronounced parody). The X in SiXter is a non-binary gender marker. My mission as a Sister of Perpetual Indulgence is to spread joy through song and be an activist for the trans, gender-nonconforming, non-binary, and agender communities. Even within my organization, I’m a non-conformist, and I’m one of the first sisters who regularly paints their face pink instead of the traditional white face because I am a person of color. I’ve had so many wonderful conversations with Sisters as well as the general public about how my race informs who I am and how I act because of it. I hope I didn’t go to long there. But there’s so much in my life that is exciting to share with you.

The most special, exciting thing for me to do is empower others. In my discipline of music education, we borrow a lot from psychology, sociology, and educational policy. So many times, the writings and research that comes out addresses issues that effect queer, trans, and racial minority people is written with a deficit mindset. For example, in 2021, the Trevor Project released some data that showed 52% of LGBTQ youth in middle or high school experience bullying either online or in person over the past year. The CDC published a study in 2024 that shows that Black adolescent teen suicides from 2018-2022 have been increasing steadily, finally surpassing the percentage of their White peers. There are so many articles and is so much discourse on all the bad things happening to people from marginalized communities. So I try to flip the script. When I write an article or coach a student in their thesis or dissertation, I ask them to think about what story they want to tell. Do they want to focus on the horrible things or do they want to bring light to the amazing things that empower the people their working with for their research. It’s kind of an academic mindfulness. Similarly with my performances. I’ve written multiple one-person shows that tell stories from my life using musical theater songs and other artistic venues. While I definitely address challenges and struggles, I try to figure out how to share with audiences the ways I overcame. This process empowers me. I reflect on my life. I use music to help me understand myself and my situation better. Then, I work through that music and become a better performer. Every time I perform it, I get to share my story and my triumph. Sure I have to live through some of the pain again, but ultimately, I push through. There’s that resilience again. And the audience hears—what I hope is—a story of triumph through adversity, and I have heard many stories from people who see my shows about how it spoke to them, how my journey helped them understand their journey, or how they understood others who were in their lives a little better after hearing my story. If anyone is interested in having me perform at their university, cabaret, concert, festival, or conference; needs music, performance, academic, or education consulting; or hold workshops on how to do any of the things I do, they can visit my website. Here’s a good link https://www.drcayari.com/booking or email directly at drcayari@gmail.com.

If you had to pick three qualities that are most important to develop, which three would you say matter most?

Resilience. Perseverance. Creativity. I’ve talked about all of them already. But here’s my advice on how to work with all of these. Resilience: You have to learn how to deal with failure and rejection. Every time someone doesn’t pick you for a part, rejects your application or journal article, or tells you that you can’t do something, you can build resilience by getting up and trying it again. The saying attributed to Albert Einstein goes, “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different result.” So then think, how can I adjust what I’m doing to do this again? Can you change your audience? Can you change how you approached it? Can you change how you’re presenting it? Can you change your mindset to enjoy failure, which ultimately leads to growth if you don’t give up? And that’s where the perseverance comes in. You keep trying until you get the outcomes you can live with. But then here’s the advice. How do you preserver from “what you can live with” to “what makes you thrive.” I’ll say it again for those in the back with the new mindset. Keep trying until you get the outcomes that make you thrive! And finally, that requires that last quality. Creativity! Be creative. Research shows that anxiety harms creativity. My motto right now is the hypothetical contrapositive. Creativity can be used to fight and ultimately lessens anxiety. As a person who suffers from chronic anxiety, being creative often pulls me out. Whether that’s painting on a SiXter face, practicing my vocal repertoire, creating digital art, or even teaching a lesson or in a classroom, putting something new into the world and sharing that with others helps me manage my mental health and put more awesome into the world. For those artists who find themselves in a rut and their challenges with creating are causing anxiety, the best advice I have is to go back to what you love. Sing the song you sang when you were 14 years old, locked in your bedroom, repurpose a thrift store find into your next fit at the clurb, or just sit back and dream! Imagine the art and communities that empower you and make you happen, and then take tiny steps toward those dreams. You don’t have to write an opera, paint the Sistine Chapel, or write a whole fanfiction novel. Hum a tune, doodle in a notebook, or write a limerick to get the joy back so that you can right that creativity joy and power!

What is the number one obstacle or challenge you are currently facing and what are you doing to try to resolve or overcome this challenge?

Woof, what a time we’re living in for people who rejoice in differences and make their livelihood helping others understand and celebrate diversity. The second half of 2024 was hard for me. I had a string of rejections that really got me down. Every time I hear “no,” my brain goes to, is it because you’re different? When I ask for tens of thousands of dollars for a grant to study trans affinity performance spaces (that’s like a theater or a choir for trans people), and one reviewer says this is the best project ever, and another says my study has no merit, that’s hard to deal with. I question is it the grant application I wrote that was bad or was that reviewer someone who does not value the community to which I belong and want to study? When people’s promises of gigs and opportunities fall through, it’s easy to get down and feel like you’re doing something wrong. But besides the ideas I already talked about with resilience, perseverance, and creativity, it is important to focus on what you can control. I can take those losses and let myself wallow in self-pity and spin in circles while I scroll on whatever app I choose for the day. Or, I can focus on things I can change. I can audition for more shows. I can write more songs. I can get lost in the interviews I’ve conducted with amazing music makers and craft research articles that inspire and empower others. Yes, repeated setbacks can break you. But I think of my friend who moved to New York to be a Broadway star. He still hasn’t gotten his break at the Shubert, Gershwin, or Majestic Theatres. But he did land a serving job at one of those restaurants near Time Square where he gets to sing in the middle of the restaurant, connect with the patrons he serves, and even gets recruited to do cabaret events across the city that never sleeps. He fell in love with the off-Broadway cabaret and theater scene and even gets to sing at his “day job.” We have the same mindset. We delight in every pickup gig and every day we make music at our day jobs. Every day is another opportunity to create and share who we are with our audiences. We get to meet new production and service staff (always introduce yourself to your bartenders and servers and encourage people to tip big)! Ultimately, I live a semi-charmed kind of life where I help others feel emotions, smile, learn, and find empowerment. I hope anyone who reads this interview is inspired to find their own empowerment through creativity.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.drcayari.com/booking
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/drcayari/; https://www.instagram.com/parrradee/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/drcayari; https://www.facebook.com/parrra.dee
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/drcayari/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@DrCayari; https://www.youtube.com/@sixterparrradee
• Other: Please note in the credits that costumes were done by Anthony James Sirk (http://anthonysirk.com/)

Image Credits

Eli Craven
Kathryn Seaman