CLAIRE O’REILLY
Staff Writer
Glitter, eyeshadow pallets, bedazzled heels and tubes of lipstick littered Steele Hall’s lower-level bathrooms on Friday night.
It was time for Evolution of Drag.
For some performers, this was their last show at Fredonia. For senior visual arts and new media major Maegan Clark, Evolution of Drag was her final show, for which she was pumped.
“I’m excited to get out there and give it my all,” Clark said before the show, in which she would perform as drag king Kyle Queerhart.
Clark started dressing in drag about three years ago, and she serves on the executive board of Pride Alliance as the publicity director.
“I kinda got into it because it was a way that I could express differently and delve into performance,” said Clark. “Other places, I never really felt comfortable … I felt really accepted by Pride and love the group absolutely.”
Before Clark was a student, she would visit her cousin Tomi Stratton and go to the drag shows on campus.
“Drag shows are the reason I came to Fredonia,” she said. “You can see videos on YouTube of me in the crowd.”
For freshman political science and journalism double-major King Scrappy, Friday night’s show was his first time on the stage.
“I came to the drag show last semester and had always been interested in it,” he said. “I wanted to explore my masculinity and ended up coming out as trans-masculine at the beginning of this semester.”
Claire Voyant, a junior graphic design major and queen started dressing in drag in order to experiment with gender.
“I’d experienced what life was like at the hyper-masculine side of the spectrum,” she said. “I wanted to know what it was like experiencing hyper-femininity, and then that allowed me to realize that my gender is somewhere in between.”
Starting the night off in huge excitement, the performers strutted their way down the runway to songs like Rihanna’s “Work” and Justin Bieber’s “Sorry.”
Senior women’s and gender studies and public relations double-major Amanda Pruden’s favorite performer out of that line-up was Queerhart.
“We’re actually dating,” she said. “Plus he’s wearing eyeliner, so what’s not to love?”
After the runway introductions, host Kimmi Moore brought down the roof in the field house when she took the stage.
“Fredonia is incredible,” she said in her opening remarks. “We’re here to celebrate our love and our passion.”
Before the show, Moore spoke about loving to perform in Fredonia.
“I love to go up on stage and put on a concert-style performance, and it’s hard to do that everywhere,” she said. “I think Fredonia gives me the biggest opportunity to do that because of the audience that’s here and the stage set-up. It’s really easy to put on a big show here, and I love that.”
The theme of the show was evolution in drag, and the performers each performed an evolution of a famous musician.
Sly Todd, a king, performed the evolution of Adam Lambert. During this performance, he kept coming up to freshman English major Makenzie Smith, touching her arms and singing close to her face.
Smith said the pair actually went to Queer Prom together. She also commented on the difference between this Spring’s show and last Fall’s.
“It’s not as energetic,” she said. “I think that’s because we’re in such a huge space.”
Eventually, two volunteers were asked to take the stage to compete in a lip sync and dance battle. The crowd voted freshman social work major Kelsey Lombert the winner.
“It felt crazy and awesome,” she said. “I didn’t expect to be able to kick my leg up that high.”
After the battle came Queerhart’s performance. He brought out everyone’s punk-rock side with the evolution of Panic! At The Disco. Interestingly, during his performance, he had people on stage walk around him on the runway holding signs up reading, “Love is not a choice.” At the end of his act, he waved a white flag with “Fuck Gender” written on it in thick, black paint. It resonated with the audience. Those directly in front of the stage all knelt down and starting banging on the stage floor.
During intermission, there were two more audience battles. The first was won by junior art history and arts administration major Shannon Bentley. Bentley had a few words to share after she was crowned the winner.
“Be yourself, shake your ass, show off your body, love yourself and be a feminist,” she said.
The second battle winner was none other than our own President Virginia Horvath. Horvath got up on stage, shimmied off her jacket and danced along to Chris Brown’s, “Run It!”
“I was very surprised [to win],” said Horvath. “This is obviously not like me, but that’s what this event is all about — trying things you normally would not do.”
Following Horvath’s shot at the runway came Amanda B Rekonwit’s evolution of Lady Gaga.
“[Gaga] went from generic pop-star to truly unique individual,” Rekonwit said. “Like her or hate her, you can’t deny that she has talent.”
Scrappy brought some middle school nostalgia to the audience when he kicked off Justin Bieber’s evolution with the song “Baby.” Scrappy ended the evolution, of course, with “Sorry.”
“I picked the songs that best showed the evolution in his career,” said Scrappy. “I chose one from before he hit puberty and got a lower voice, one from when he came back and finally cut his hair, and one off of his current album. It’s a three stage sorta thing.”
The last of the student performers was Oliver Clozoff, who made the “King of Pop,” Michael Jackson, alive again in Steele Hall by performing classics like “Smooth Criminal” and “Thriller.”
The finale of Evolution of Drag was Moore performing multiple Jennifer Lopez songs, like “Jenny From the Block” and “On The Floor.”
At the conclusion of her J-Lo medley, Moore thrusted her arm straight into the air and pointed her finger towards the sky, signaling the end of a night fit for kings and queens.