After a brief hiatus in 2015, the Colorado College Drag Show returned with a bang, bringing spirit and excitement to Cornerstone Arts Center for a fantastic Friday night. In order to raise both money and awareness for the local LGBTQIA+ community, the queens—comprised of both students and professionals—took to the walkway and dazzled the audience with an engaging performance. Throughout the night CC was able to offer an enthusiastic and supportive environment, as well as some singles tucked into underwear.
The Drag Show was filled with spectacular performances featuring high kicks, splits, twerking, a 1,400-rhinestone dress, and a swooning audience—those in attendance were eager to tip their dancers for the evening, and the dancers certainly deserved it.
They further thrilled the audience with cartwheels, pyrotechnics, and an old YouTube hit about “shoes” (you know the one). All the while they kept true to their mission; all proceeds were donated to Inside/Out Youth Services, the only LGBTQIA+ youth organization in El Paso County.
Most residents of Colorado Springs don’t take the opportunity to interact or get involved with the transgender community, and they certainly do not experience the lifestyle. “The point of a Drag Show is to be very disruptive to the status quo,” said Senior Drew Turley, a.k.a. Iris Ahaddaman, the drag show’s emcee. “It should take yourself outside existing circumstances to experience a piece of reality that you don’t interact with on an everyday . . . it takes these aspects of life that we’re not used to confronting on a regular basis and places it at the center.”
This disruptive power of the drag show allowed the community to transcend societal norms and mores, providing an almost revelatory experience and understanding.
Drag performances display an inherently intersectional culture that doesn’t align with the dominant, white, heterosexual culture that tends to prevail in American institutions. “The fact that you can see these intersectionalities reified in drag performances is something that adds to the disruptive power; it would not be unheard of for a Latinx drag queen to perform a Britney Spears song, or a white drag queen to perform a Beyoncé song,” said Turley. “Drag frees us of those essentializing roles given to us by a dominating system, and gives us a new exploratory tool,” he continued. In this way, drag truly breaks societal expectations. The art of drag becomes one of exploration. Performers as well as audience members are able to delve into new viewpoints or perspectives that they may have been blind to before. “As an artistic tool, the performance can allow us to break down those boxes,” Turley affirmed.
Additionally, the drag community is extremely tight-knit. Artificial families form within the culture as a means of support and connection. Veteran queens adopt those new to the game and act as maternal figures. “Everyone is so supportive; they’re always asking ‘how can I help you?’ or ‘come over here let me do your makeup’ . . . it’s all very much a part of drag culture and getting to experience that with [the professional performers] was so nice,” said Turley.
Not only are members of the drag community immensely supportive of each other, some credit must be given to CC for providing a safe, supportive space for the Drag Show to take place. Everyone was engaged and smiling all night, there was patience through technical difficulties, and no one was afraid to march up to the walkway and slip a dollar bill in a bra. “I was talking to Portia beforehand, asking about what it is like to be a queen in the Springs . . . the way she talked was like ‘yeah it’s hard, but so what?’” mentioned Turley, “but it was so great to see how supportive everyone was . . . I was so proud to be at CC.”