Drag Ball is Coming Back Strong
By: LJ Katch, Contributor
courtesy of LJ Katch
On March 16th the ‘Sco was filled to the brim with nearly 400 gender bending time travelers here to celebrate Oberlin’s very own Drag Ball. Host and glorious drag queen Dakota Cox stood at the helm of the stage in a black and gold bodysuit and a fan she threatened to spank audience members with. On the sides of the stage waiting were Obies and drag professionals alike dressed to the nines in shoulder-pads, glimmering shawls, and mugs to make the audience drop dead (for the uninitiated, a mug is a drag artist's makeup look). Dakota Cox asked the audience if they were ready to be brought higher, eyeing us carefully with her piercing green contacts. She was met with cheers. She broke into her performance, a rendition of “Haute” by Janelle Monae decorated with splits, drops, and leg spreads that earned her a shower of dollar bills.
In many ways this is a comeback for Drag Ball. No one can pin down how long Drag Ball has been going, but the general consensus is Drag Ball has been a prominent part of Oberlin since at least the 80s. Professor Greggor Mattson, the faculty advisor for the club, remembers his first Drag Ball in 2009 in glorious detail:
“It was in Wilder 101 and the balcony area was the green room…Stage crew would build a stairway from the downstairs stage up to the balcony along the wall, and so the queens would descend to the stage. The first year I went to drag ball, the escorts were baseball players who were oiled up and shirtless and wearing bow ties and escorting the entertainers who, and they very much appreciated their escorts down to the stage.”
By the mid 2010s, Drag Ball had gotten smaller and moved into the ‘Sco, but it was the pandemic that really took a toll on the Drag Ball Committee, as it did for most student organizations. For several years, Mattson watched one or two students take upon the task of organizing Drag Ball and suffer from extreme burnout.
courtesy of LJ Katch
“There were a couple times where students ended up going on leaves of absence and not finishing the semester because the stress and the strain of organizing it by themselves was too much,” he told me. “And it's why I got even more involved this year with the group winter term because I would like to see it be a regular student club with officers and people from all four classes so that nobody has to do a ton of work…And so that when people graduate, they don't take all the knowledge with them.”
To draw in a crowd, this year Drag Ball centered around audience participation. One highlight was a costume contest for Best King, won by a stoic king in a vest and a thong under low suit pants, Best Queen, won by a skeletal bride who combined sass with holiness, and Best Gender Non Conforming Person, claimed by a personality who bravely combined four loko and minecraft for a fashion statement. Audience members also appreciated a performance by Angel Mirage PHDiva in laced gloves and a handbag for tips, who some may recognize as their Organismal Biology professor.
But this year’s Drag Ball isn’t just a return to glory, it's a revolution of drag at Oberlin.
“At least in the last 16 years, this will be the first drag ball headlined by a drag king,” Mattson said. “And this year there will be an equal number of kings and queens, that's relatively uncommon at shows.”
courtesy of LJ Katch
Mattson here refers to Tenderoni, a Chicago based drag king who took the audience for a trip in his leather jacket and silicone masculine chest bodysuit through the Weather Girls’ “It’s Raining Men”, complete with high kicks and plenty of ass shaking. The night also included professional acts from Macho Grande, who’s spindly gloved fingers grazed audience members to their delight in his performance of “Sweet Dreams” by the Eurythmics, and Stevie Phoenix, who trashed recent anti-LGBTQ+ laws in the U.S. with hilarious ease in his mashup of “Fuck You” by Ceelo Green and “I Don’t Fuck With You” by Big Sean.
And we must not forget the student acts, performed by the very people who put the show together. The opening number of the show was by Twisted Transitioner, a rock star drag king who did a tribute number to Queer artist Keith Haring, including a replica of the suit he painted for Madonna and a backing video with clips from news reports and documentaries on his graffiti.
“I was the only drag king at drag ball last year,” Cecil Pulley, the student behind Twisted Transitioner, told me. “This drag ball is historic in terms of the amount of drag king representation.”
Cecil got their start in drag at last year’s Drag Ball, and has since been developing their character of Twisted Transitioner, a rockstar whose claim to fame is transitioning. “I started doing drag over the summer here in Ohio and I started HRT over the summer,” Cecil said. “Developing my character in drag and developing myself as a person ran parallel to each other.”
Drag Ball this year also featured Cera Belluh, who is a nonbinary drag artist, otherwise known as a drag thing, performed by Sarah McDonald. “[Drag] feels very liberating in terms of gender expression. Specifically for me being non-binary and my character being non-binary, it's important for me to kind of have that duality.”
Cera Belluh is a vibe more than a character. They are a Y2K, punk and emo inspired persona who revels in unserious, edgy, theatrical glamor. They performed at this year’s Drag Ball to “Scotty Doesn’t Know” by Lustra, running across the stage to hype up the audience. Through it all, they continuously evade the gender binary by combining masculine and feminine. “I’ll be dressed very masculine, and have my drag mug very masculine. And then do things that are very feminine and kind of like blur the lines for people.”
courtesy of LJ Katch
Drag Ball this year also stands out as a celebration of drag in the Midwest, with all of the performers coming from the area. Dakota Cox is from Michigan, Macho Grande is from Cleveland, and Stevie Phoenix is from Toledo. Sofia Tomasic, treasurer of the Committee said, “We wanted to focus on the Midwest because we're concerned with drag as a community event and having local performers was something that we thought would be important.”
Bella performed at Drag Ball as their drag thing persona, Patricia Swayze, who’s campy performance of Whitney Houston’s “So Emotional” featured them in a DIY mesh skirt attached to booty shorts and a crop top reading “Patricia” in the font of the “Dirty Dancing” movie poster. Patricia Swayze is not the only artist you can find performing in Cleveland; both Twisted Transitioner and Cera Belluh have done shows at bars and are making a name for themselves in the Cleveland scene.
Advertisement and Volunteer Coordinator Erin Duckett spoke on the disconnect between Oberlin students and the greater state of Ohio, and how she sees this year’s Drag Ball as a step towards bringing the two closer. “It was important to all of us to start to create that bridge,” she said. “I think sometimes [students] feel like there's only gay people at Oberlin College and everywhere else is just the heterosexual world. But that's really not the case.”
“As someone who lives in Ohio, I think sometimes people's perception of their community is a bit insular,” Jay, Talent Coordinator for the Committee, told me. “It's important to remember that queerness exists everywhere, including Cleveland and including the greater Ohio area.”
“This drag ball is our love letter to Ohio,” Sofia declared.
Drag Ball 2024 took breaths away and made hearts swell. Whether it be a blown kiss, a graze of the hand, or a bend over, audience members could feel the love from the drag artists on stage, and through our cheering (and money), we tried to scream our love back. When I asked Professor Gregor Mattson why drag matters so much to us, he had this to say:
“[Drag] shows you can craft yourself and be the person you want to be, and that person can be extra, can be too much, can be over the top. I think that's why the community really finds drag inspirational, because we have had to craft our own selves….[Drag artists] are our role models.”
And as the audience watched Dakota Cox on the prowl downstage, stealing our hearts with her confidence and poise, I think we all agreed: She is who we aspire to be.
courtesy of LJ Katch
