Brightly colored, spandex-garbed men and women paraded through Goldstein Auditorium last night. The Totally Fabulous 2 Drag Show brought sexual expressiveness, dance and music together for an evening that left audience members dancing in the aisles.

‘If you can’t accept all of this, get up and leave right now,’ said hostess Aggy Dune, drag queen. ‘Feel free to give up an aisle seat for one of the dumb straight boys – the ones who are here on athletic scholarships.’

Dune went through a series of outfits during the evening, including an evening gown, shirt and tie and a Britney Spears getup complete with huge blond wig.

‘The higher the hair, the closer to God,’ she said.

Drag kings and queens performing during the first half of the show were nearly all employed by Muther’s Drag Club in Rochester.

‘I’ve been around for forever – since the Jurassic Period,’ said drag queen Ambrosia Salad. ‘I was born the middle child and got no attention, so being a drag queen was the natural thing to do – throwing on dresses and tearing up the town.’

‘I perform at birthdays, holidays, private parties, funerals – everything,’ said Naiomy Kane, drag queen. ‘I like the art and people performing.’

Drag queens found that audiences were mostly accepting of their art.

‘Now it’s much better than it was before,’ Kane said. ‘People used to think we were just pretending to be women.’

‘It takes a few minutes to warm up to me. It’s kind of a problem when you’re the size of Godzilla,’ Salad said. ‘It’s murder to find a floor-length gown.’

Celebrity impersonations filled the evening, with performances by famed drag queen Darien Lake, whose show-starting rendition of ‘Video Killed the Radio Star’ was complete with light-up breasts and florescent body lighting. Missy Elliot, Justin Timberlake, Nelly, Selena, Ricky Martin, Tina Turner and Diana Ross performances added to the melee of the night.

Despite the carefree attitude of the night, speakers made it clear that safe sex and tolerance were the real messages. Two audience volunteers were called onstage, blindfolded and made to put a condom on a banana. The point of this activity was to remind the crowd that it is never hard to put on a condom and it’s ridiculous not to use one. Salad also performed a variation of the ‘Battle Hymn of the Republic,’ with lyrics replaced to declare that lesbians, gay men, and homosexuals in general are ‘truth marching on.’

‘It sends a great message about people who are gay,’ said Brianna Kimmel, freshman in the College of Visual and Performing Arts. ‘Yes it’s controversial, but it’s out there, and I think it’s great that the school brought it back this year.’

‘I’m loving it,’ said Waskar Espinosa, junior information studies major. ‘It’s incredible. I didn’t realize I was going to have this much fun.’

Student performances filled the second half of the show, as competitors battled for the title of King and Queen of the Hill. Female competitors for king included an N*Sync group, a performance of Sir Mix-a-Lot’s ‘Baby Got Back’ and Kid Rock’s ‘Cowboy,’ while male competitors for queen included Cyndi Lauper’s ‘Girls Just Wanna Have Fun’ performed by Miss Demeanor, Just Delicious singing Beyonce’s ‘Crazy in Love’ and Christina Aguilera’s ‘Fighter’ by Eliza Moan.

‘My resident won for king last year, so I wanted to compete,’ said Curtis Tronolone, senior environmental studies major who moonlighted as Eliza Moan. ‘We started working on the act before Christmas. I started with the shoes, and things just came together. But now I’m done plucking, burning, and shaving all excessive hair from my body.’

Performances for king were mainly based on their ability to posture in a male fashion, but the queens were more involved in their performances, shaking their hips wildly and thrashing against backup dancers. N*Sync and Beyonce were eventually crowned King and Queen of the evening.

The show was co-sponsored by the AIDS Task Force, Pride Union, RHA, Kappa Alpha Theta, Sigma Alpha Mu, DanceWorks, Hillel, LGBT Resource Center, ACR, SU SAPHE Office, Open Doors, Committee on Women and Art and V-Day Syracuse.

‘Pride Union and everyone involved is awesome,’ said Danielle Tommasso, a sophomore in the State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry. ‘There was so much effort put in for so many months, and it really paid off.’

Published on February 19, 2004 at 12:00 pm