Christina Lake’s Community Centre was looking fabulous on Friday night ad guests donned their shiniest and brightest clothes to celebrate diversity and cheeky fun for the first-ever Drag Night.
A fundraiser for the Christina Lake Arts and Artisans Society (C.L.A.A.S), the sold-out show featured two drag queens from Kelowna – “BC’s Mistress of Fine Arts” Sasha Zamolodchikova and sassy and brash Ella Lamoureaux, presiding over an evening of singing, dancing and adult jokes and games. It also featured the Boundary Region’s own Les Folles Jambettes can can dancers opening up the evening.
The audience reflected the excitement, with people from as far as Vancouver and Calgary showing up for the festivities.
A drag night wasn’t the original idea, nor was it C.L.A.A.S’s intention to have it on International Women’s Day, explained board member Cherie Delaney.
The society was looking into a drag-themed paint and sip night, then it snowballed from there.
“I was looking for another art show to put on for paint and sip, and I came across Ella and Sasha online and I thought that would be a great idea,” she said. “We are looking for diversity in the arts.”
The drag paint and sip night was held on Saturday.
There was definitely an appetite for drag, as the first block of tickets sold out in 24 hours, and the second in 18 hours.
While the evening was hailed as a smash hit, it didn’t come without controversy. Shortly after advertisements went out for the show, C.L.A.A.S received some hateful and even threatening messages and letters, some of which were turned over to the RCMP.
Despite the meanness, there has been a lot more support from the community.
“There’s been a lot of chatter around the lake about this for the past two weeks,” she said. “There’s been so much support. Everyone I talked to has been really positive.”
On the funds, after covering costs, the event raised $1,700, which Delaney said is a lot for C.L.A.A.S.
Zamolodchikova explained she’s been a drag queen for 15 years, starting when there was no real drag scene in Kelowna or the Okanagan. She has a drag paint and sip show in Kelowna she brings out on the road, but after talking to Delainey, they decided to do a drag show as well.
She and Lameroux have been working together in drag shows for that same amount of time and
they are always happy to bring drag shows to smaller communities.
“We love it. We’ve been doing this for 15 years and we’ve been the first a lot of times in many communities,” she said. “We love it because people go wild and are so excited to see this.
Shows like Rupaul’s Drag Race and Canada’s Drag Race has made the art form more mainstream and accessible for everyone, said Lamoureaux.
She agreed drag shows in smaller communities are more exciting, saying from her point of view people want something more “queer.”
“There’s so much joy, excitement and love in the room,” she said. “In larger cities, where drag is more commonplace, you see shows every week and it’s not that big of a deal. Out here, it’s so different.”
In comments during the show, both did address the hate they and the show received, but brushed it off and even took some time to mock some of the messages, without naming names. Zamolodchikova did address a message calling drag anti-woman, countering drag for them is a celebration of women and mocking traditional gender roles.
Lameroux added in that the hateful voices are fewer, but loud, so the best way for people to show allyship and support is to give little gestures, like heart reactions on social media to LGBTQ2S+ friends and family, so they know they aren’t alone.
