BETHANY CLANCY
Special to The Leader
Bethany Clancy / Photographer
For over 10 years now, Fredonia’s Pride Alliance has been throwing drag shows. It’s a great event that gets the queer community together each semester, and on Friday Oct. 7 in the Williams Center, many entered with high energy, anticipating the start of the show by singing and dancing along to the music.
Hosting the show was Countess Mascara, who strutted around the stage to a trap remix of Adele’s “Rolling in the Deep,” which got the crowd going wild.
Things moved along promptly, jumping into a memorable first performer, R.O.B., who strutted the stage in a unicorn onesie to Sir Mix-A-Lot’s “Baby Got Back.” This was only one of the many incredible performers at the drag show.
The crowd was really drawn into the acts done by Androgynous Andy’s Twenty One Pilots medley, Tess Tickles’ Fergie mashup, and Jack M Hoff’s Nick Jonas mashup, just to name a few.
It’s no secret that Fredonia loves their alumni, so much that they had an alumna come to Friday’s event to judge the performances.
Graduating in 2015, guest judge Golden Delicious didn’t get her start in drag until after her time spent at Fredonia. Focusing on the fact that Countess Mascara is her drag mother, a term meaning an experienced drag queen who acts as a mentor and guide to a younger, up-and-coming, less experienced or apprentice drag queen, it is no surprise that her performance was phenomenal.
The time in between acts seemed to be a crowd favorite, and it gave everyone a chance to get up on stage to dance and strut as they pleased. It also gave the judges time to think about and discuss the first set of performers.
Competitions for the attendees had also taken place. The “twerk off” seemed to be a favorite amongst the crowd, but a “strut off” also occurred.
Before the next set of acts, the 2014 champion, Claire Voyant, made an appearance during which she danced to a very fitting song for her, “Dancing Queen.”
Finally, after a full night of high energy performances, came the time that everybody was waiting for: the announcement of drag king and queen. This year’s winners were R.O.B. and Expira Mentame.
All contestants excelled in their performances, but these two really captured the judges along with the audience’s attention.
After the event Abigail Truax, a junior musical theatre major, had a lot to say about the drag show and drag races in general.
“I’m definitely a drag enthusiast,” said Truax. “I really enjoyed the turn out for drag kings this year, usually people overlook the fact that drag kings are a thing, and it was great to see people recognizing that there are more ways to enjoy drag.”
She also mentioned that all of the performers had very high energy and how great it was to see alumni judging this years show.
“It really shows that drag can turn into something more after you do it in college,” said Truax. Her favorite contestant performer was Lolita Trippin, and she loved the fact that Claire Voyant made a return to the stage.
After a successful drag show this semester, anticipation is already in the air for the Spring semester.