TUCSON, Ariz. \u2014 There are millions of different ways to do drag, and you can find a taste of almost every type here in Southern Arizona.<\/p>\n
\u201cI have the luxury now of traveling the world doing drag,\u201d said Tucson-based drag queen Tempest DuJour. \u201cI always say that the queens in Arizona, and specifically Tucson and Phoenix, are as good as anyone I\u2019ve ever seen in the world.\u201d<\/p>\n
From queens like Tempest who lean into the campy, slightly controversial side, to performers like Tucson\u2019s longest-performing drag queen Lucinda Holliday\u2014who prefers a more comedic take on the art\u2014and queens like Vera DelMar, who brings back classy vintage flair.<\/p>\n
However, the now-vibrant drag scene wasn\u2019t always out of the closet. Lucinda Holliday says before you could find drag performances at brunches, fundraisers or 5k fun runs, performances were kept inside gay bars.<\/p>\n
Holliday has been on stage since the late 1980s, and for decades he and his partner have made crowns, pins and other jewelry for drag performers and their pageants with \u2018Made for a Queen\u2019 Jewelry.<\/p>\n
He\u2019s watched the drag scene change around him.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt actually became much more visible because of RuPaul,\u201d Holliday said. \u201cAnd now with RuPaul\u2019s Drag Race, it\u2019s everywhere, and we\u2019re widely accepted.\u201d<\/p>\n
RuPaul\u2019s Drag Race, a reality TV show drag pageant starting searching for \u201cAmerica\u2019s next drag superstar\u201d in 2009 on Logo TV. The show has since earned millions of views and several Emmy awards over 18 seasons.<\/p>\n
Tucson-based Patrick Holt\u2014known as queen Tempest DuJour \u2014 was featured in Season 7 of the series, showcasing her costume-designer background.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re the only art form that does our own hair, does our own makeup, does our own costumes, choreographs, makes our own mixed songs, presents ourselves by ourselves,\u201d Holt said. \u201cWe\u2019re a self-contained unit. No other art form I know does that.\u201d<\/p>\n
Nearly every aspect of that art form is changing from the concepts and costumes to the performances themselves. As drag has grown in popularity, the show has also raised expectations in drama and pomp.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s something Vera DelMar noticed here in Tucson. As the city\u2019s oldest performing drag queen, DelMar says she prefers to stay performing upright.<\/p>\n
\u201cSome of the younger ones do a lot of the acrobatics,\u201d she said. \u201cYou know, the somersaults and the death drops. If I did a death drop, they\u2019d have to call 911 to come get me up.\u201d<\/p>\n
But evolution and pushing performance is necessary to keep the art alive.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt has to [stay alive] because politically our world is so different,\u201d Holt said. \u201cWe have to continue to be aware of what\u2019s going on around us and be a part of that or be a respite from that.\u201d<\/p>\n
While DelMar says, \u201c[drag has] been around since time immemorial, and I don\u2019t think it\u2019s ever going to go away.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"TUCSON, Ariz. \u2014 There are millions of different ways to do drag, and you can find a taste…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":256675,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[100011,5615,100012,100013,9,24,63,122,124,123,100014,100015,100016,100017,100018,100019],"class_list":["post-256674","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-queens","tag-drag-brunch","tag-drag-queen","tag-lucinda-holiday","tag-lucinda-holliday","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc","tag-queens","tag-queens-headlines","tag-queens-news","tag-rupauls-drag-trace","tag-tempest-du-jour","tag-tempest-dujour","tag-tucson-drag","tag-vera-del-mar","tag-vera-delmar"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/256674","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=256674"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/256674\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/256675"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=256674"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=256674"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=256674"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}