Conquering the World of Drag, Zuckerman Claims Denali

At the core of it all, figure skaters are performers. The best can combine the athleticism required to be at the top of the sport with that special je ne sais quoi that brings audiences to their feet, often with tears in their eyes.
 
Cordero Zuckerman (he/him/his), a 31-year-old native of Fairbanks, Alaska, has made his mark in the sport as an entertainer — first on the competitive ice, qualifying for the 2010 U.S. Figure Skating Championships as a novice man, and later as a professional skater on various cruise ships. Zuckerman's passion for performing afforded him the opportunity to see the world but would also indirectly lead to a career in drag and the birth of Denali Foxx (she/her/hers) , the wildly popular contestant from season 13 of RuPaul's Drag Race.
 

While competing on the ice, Zuckerman balanced training with his studies at the University of Utah. As graduation approached, Zuckerman began to feel the lure of life outside the rink and the classroom, so he made the decision to close out his competitive career after the 2012 season.
 
"You train your entire life, and you develop this incredible skill, and I really didn't want to just throw that all away," he said. "A lot of skaters transition into coaching or professional skating, and since there were so many professional skaters that came out of the Salt Lake City area, I was inspired to follow that path. I didn't love competing, but I loved to put on shows, so this was perfect for me."
 
Zuckerman auditioned for a job with Royal Caribbean and was offered a job skating in shows when he turned 21, which he held for four years.
 
"My professional skating career was a lot more fun for me because it was what I was truly wanting to be doing," he explained. "It's also how I started to develop the muscle and skill as a choreographer. During my downtime, I would do random gigs with places like Sea World and Cirque du Soleil."
 
While working on the cruise ships, Zuckerman was immersed in an LGBTQIA+ positive environment and discovered the courage to be his true and authentic self. With the support of his ship family, Zuckerman began to experiment with the art of drag.
 
"Anytime that we had an opportunity we would watch RuPaul's Drag Race on the cruise ships as a little gathering of the queer people," he said. "When we would watch, I was just like, 'Oh my God.' It was something I obsessed over, and I am pretty extremist when I find something that I love, and I realized it was something that I wanted to try.
 
"When you're a small-town kid, I think you're innately born with this 'There's got to be more, there's got to be something bigger' kind of a thing, especially if you're if you're a queer person. I obsessed over this interest in drag and since I wasn't very happy in life at the time, I was looking for an escape, so drag was a natural progression for me."
 

Zuckerman soon began to experiment with the craft and started to attend parties for the crew in what he called "very bad drag."
 
"I would try my best to perfect my skills, but it wasn't until I got off the cruise ships that I said I wanted to pursue it professionally," he said. "When I moved to Chicago that's when everything just got even more expedited in terms of my improvement."
 
Selecting a drag name and crafting a persona is paramount to the success of any drag queen, and Zuckerman knew that he wanted to combine his background in figure skating with his roots in Alaska. After some time and consideration, Zuckerman settled on Denali, in honor of the highest peak in North America, located in Alaska.
  For Zuckerman, the name Denali is not only significant as a landmark, but also a nod to his grandmother, who received treatment at the Denali Center as a young woman and was cared for by his mother. As a result, Zuckerman also associated Denali with feminine strength.
 
"When you're a baby drag queen, you ask yourself what is my name and why do I want to be called that," Zuckerman said. "I was influenced a lot by feminine characteristics of Alaska — both as a reference to Mother Nature's role in a very untouched land, but also because of the women around me — my mother and grandmother, who were the first examples of powerful women in my life."
 
When Denali arrived in Chicago, she was ready to start cutting her teeth in the local drag scene, and soon discovered her place within the community. As a queen with strong dancing skills, Denali's bookings calendar started to fill up, and her confidence began to grow.
 
"At the time when I arrived in Chicago, there were a lot of incredible artists, club kids, theater queens, and comedians, but there were not a lot of dancers so when I got here," she said. "They saw that I was a dancer and ice skater, and I was booked constantly because they needed to fill the dancer role in a lot of shows. That helped me improve a lot and I'm really grateful for the people that were here to give me those opportunities."
 
In Chicago, Denali also found a drag family, including her drag mother, Chamilla Foxx, a self-branded Chicana (American of Mexican descent) who not only welcomed Denali into her family, but also helped her to connect to her Latinx roots.
 

"I'm what's considered a 'no sabo kid.' I grew up in a white Latin household but that was predominantly raised white," Zuckerman explained. "We didn't speak Spanish in the house, and I became disconnected from my Latin heritage and practices because my mother wanted us to assimilate more into American culture. So, connecting to my drag family, who are generally all of Mexican descent, really helped me kind of reconnect back to that culture and now it's something that I'm really proud to represent."
 
On New Year's Day back in 2021, Zuckerman's life changed in an instant with the debut of her drag persona, Denali, on RuPaul's Drag Race.
 
"Every girl wants to go to the Olympics so Drag Race was always the dream," she said. "The first year that I did drag, I auditioned for the show – which was crazy because I was so young and not ready – but I wanted to go through that process to understand it for the next year. Sure enough that worked in my favor because the production team had a file on me, so they could see my development and I got cast the next season. I put a lot of skating in my tape, and they were really impressed by something that was so unique."
 
Denali was ultimately eliminated halfway through the competition and finished in eighth place. Before her departure, however, Denali made a strong impression on viewers, earning high praise for her skating-related lyrics in a contestant version of RuPaul's "Phenomenon" and winning two lip syncs, including an iconic performance to Crystal Waters' "100% Pure Love."
 
"That was definitely the highlight of my entire Drag Race experience, and it is something I'm very proud of," she said. "When I got on the show, I was hoping that I would be in the bottom because I'm a lip sync artist and a dancer—that is what I do. I wanted to show people that and that's what gets you booked in the real world. So even though it's a punishment on the show, it is something that I was really looking forward to."
 
Since her appearance on the show, Denali has traveled the world — touring South America, Europe, Australia, Asia and Canada.
 
Though she has not yet appeared on an All-Stars version of the RuPaul franchise, Denali says that she is open to the possibility when the time is right.
 
"I think oftentimes drag race will hire a younger queen who's a little inexperienced in order to build an All-Star storyline where she improves and she works in the real world and she comes back just a totally new upgraded queen," she said. "I definitely think that that's something that they've been kind of crafting for me. They may or may not have offered me a few All-Star spots, but I really want to make sure that I'm respecting my own development. I don't just want to go back and be on TV again. I really want to go back and make a huge splash because I have improved a lot, so when I feel like it's the right time for me, I will absolutely go back."
 

Zuckerman still has his foot in the world of figure skating and has choreographed for Olympians Mariah Bell and Ashley Cain and Timothy LeDuc as well as U.S. medalist Amber Glenn.
 
"It's so cool because I was out of practice with a lot of the skating technical choreography, but the reason why I was hired was to get a little bit of some outside influence because I have been exposed to drag and vogue culture and different styles of dance and movement that are queer art forms," he said.
 
"Working with Mariah was really fun, and it was a dream to co-choreograph with Adam Rippon. I worked with Ashley and Timothy on their 'The Great Gatsby' free skate, which was hard because choreographing for pairs is just difficult, but I really enjoyed it because working with them was just so much fun. Amber is an unreal talent when it comes to movement. She truly understands how to move her body and it was a great pleasure to work with her."
 
Though Zuckerman does not currently have any skating choreography on his schedule, he is definitely hoping for the opportunity to bring new ideas to the ice. He is particularly intrigued by the 1980s themed rhythm dance requirements this season and hopes to see athletes continue to push the envelope with regards to traditional gender roles in the sport.
 
"It would just be nice to see some more gender representative dances that kind of like break the mold of the traditional men and women skating together," he said. "It would be really exciting to see some of that represented in skating."