Alexandria Storm invited some of her girlfriends to Moab: Champagne, Flame Fatale, Maiden Taiwan, Cartel Fenice, Willard and Indi Skies
All of them will be at the at Eddie McStiff’s after 10 p.m. on Saturday, June 8 for the Rhinestones and Red Rocks: Drag Show Extravaganza organized by Moab resident Edgar Fuentes.
“Everything started as a joke,” Fuentes said. “We started talking about having a show here in Moab.”
This will be Fuentes’ debut as drag queen Storm. He started playing with it a few months ago, working with clothes and makeup.
“It’s all about illusion,” he said. “The first time my mom saw me in drag, she questioned it. ‘You look like a girl,’ he said. For me that’s the fun part about it. To make people wonder. To see their faces questioning themselves, ‘is that a guy or a girl?’”
The art of drag has a long history.
It began in the time of Shakespeare, when women weren’t allowed to act on stage. Instead, men portrayed women’s roles, and were called ‘drag’ performers.
Storm said that there are misconceptions about drag performances that include confusion with transvestites or transgendered people.
Transvestites are men that dress as women as a fetish, or out of sexual pleasure. A transgendered man is someone who identifies and lives as a woman.
“This is not a fetish, it’s not about sexual satisfaction. It is something I want to pursue and become better at,” Storm said. “Drag is performance. It is an art.”
Drag has found more mainstream popularity in the last several years with the performer RuPaul and her show RuPaul Drag Race.
“It’s like America’s Top Model for drag queens,” Fuentes said.
“Some of the girls that are coming for the show on Saturday have won pageants. Such as as Willard and Indi Skies.”
Fuentes says there are different ways to explore drag, “there are pageant queens that display perfection and beauty, then you have your dark side of drag that is beautiful as well, but it is different. And then there is everything in between.”
In addition to the six performers from Salt Lake, there are three additional girls from Colorado who said they are willing to come and perform.
The show begins at 10 p.m., Fuentes advises people to come early at to find a place to sit.
“The entire Eddie McStiff’s is becoming a drag show,” he said.
But the next day, Fuentes will return to normal life.
“After a full day of wearing wig, makeup, big eyelashes, five-inch stilettos, I’m ready to go back to being a boy.”
What: A Draglicious Show hosted by Alexandria Storm and Indi Skies
Performances by Champagne, Flame Fatale, Maiden Taiwan, Cartel Fenice, Willard
When: 10 p.m., Saturday, June 8
Where: Eddie McStiff’s, 57 S. Main St.
Cost: $10 Admission
