Nico Ortega for The Criterion

Grand Junction has a modest community of drag queens, performance artists that dress in feminine clothing and dance, sing and otherwise entertain the audience.

The Genders and Sexualities Alliance (GSA) hosted one of their signature drag shows Friday, April 12 and invited a few select queens from across the city to put on a show at Colorado Mesa University.

“We put on a drag show every semester to have a fun event on campus, while also bringing an LGBTQ awareness and inclusion,” GSA Coordinator Avery Ashby said.

Among the performers were Coco Jem Holiday, Lady Houston, Javier Van Dyke, Natalie Samone and Onyx Rose. They all danced and lip synced to various songs that they individually picked to entertain the audience while Coco also hosted and told jokes to warm up the audience.

The Criterion can’t publish any of those jokes due to mature content.

Drag as an art is a complex topic, one that some of the queens themselves have varying opinions on.

“Gender and art coming together makes drag. Drag is taboo and a conversation about breaking stereotypes. I do drag because I want to be a part of that conversation,” Coco said.

Many drag queens are gay men, though there are plenty of performers who vary in orientation and gender identity. Javier Van Dyke is a transgender man and a drag king.

For drag artists, their persona in drag can be drastically different than their everyday personality. Natalie Samone’s name outside of performing is Kyle.

“Drag allows me to be someone other than myself. Kyle is very shy, and I don’t feel as confident as I do when I’m Natalie. For me, it allows me to live those dreams that I have and do it confidently,” Natalie said.

For the evening, Coco got the audience ready. She spoke about a variety of subjects before and in between each song, ranging from job advice to how difficult it is to wear high heels and a bra.

At one point she declared that we needed to show more appreciation to the ladies that wear high heels on dates. For her songs, she wore a leopard pattern dress and black corset and later donned a white shirt with the famous drag queen Shangela printed on it.

“When I do drag, I try to create a message that is a statement about whatever is happening at the current time. I will do black girl magic songs, or big girl songs, something that breaks down the stereotype that you can’t be those things and be beautiful,” Coco said.

Lady Houston was the first to dance for the show. Dressed in layers of tights that had a drawing of panties and garterbelt printed on them, and wearing bunny ears, she danced to Selena Gomez’s “Love You Like a Love Song,” and later Katy Perry’s “Extraterrestrial,” for the latter song wearing and rainbow wig, white top with spiked shoulder pads, tights and silver boots.

The audience loved her sets, and occasionally tipped her dollar bills, which she took while lip syncing to the songs.

Javier Van Dyke came out to “Let’s Get it On” by Marvin Gaye. He interacted quite a bit with the audience, dancing on or near them. He wore as suit to start things off and later donned neon lights and a sparkly white hat.

Onyx Rose had a performance set to “Sweet Dreams” by Eurythmics, and for that song wore a curly blonde wig straight out of the 80s, to pair with a leather jacket.

Natalie Samone got one of the biggest cheers during her sets, as the audience certainly loved her, offering dollar bills to her as she threw herself into her performance. Wearing a blue and green skin tight top, light reflected off of streamers attached all over her top.

“I went to Forever 21 and bought my first dress when I was 14. I’d get all dressed up and run down the hallway and look at myself in the bathroom. We did drag at night, in secret, until we got to college. It was kind of taboo when I first started,” Natalie said.

“I’m always late submitting my music to shows because I have to feel the song in the moment. I like the audience to feel what I’m feeling. One of my favorite songs to perform is Say You Love Me by Jessie Ware, and it just talks about being in a relationship and the words “I love you” mean so much more than you think,” Natalie said.

The show went on for a few hours, before concluding with a meet-and-greet with some of the artists. The queens perform often in Grand Junction and the GSA hosts a drag show once a semester.

The crowd was satisfied with the show, and many stuck around after to take pictures with the performers.

Image courtesy of Nico Ortega | The Criterion