Drag Ball Reaches High in Second Year Below Ground
April 13, 2012
Drag Ball is back to life and the ’Sco is getting hotter. It’s been two years since the Drag Ball-less spring of 2010, but on Saturday April 7, the event came back for its second season at its new home, the ’Sco.
Famous drag performance artists, DJs and queens with wild costumes were brought in from areas all around the U.S., including New York’s famous Box Club and New Orleans’ celebrated “Queen Diva” Big Freedia.
’Sco-goers were consumed by the psychedelic spectacle of glamour, divas and the exuberant decorations. But Drag Ball here at Oberlin is about far more than this glamorous extravaganza; it’s also an educational event that represents Oberlin’s socially progressive values. Drag Ball, which has been an annual event here since the early 20th century, speaks [loud and proud] to Oberlin’s historic and continuing commitment to racial and LGBTQ awareness.
The origins of Oberlin’s Drag Ball can be traced to the culture of Harlem Drag in 1920s and 1930s New York. During these years new trends were established for upper Manhattan’s artistic culture along with its local night scene. Harlem’s earliest drag balls looked to accept people of all identities including lesbians, gays, bisexuals, transgenders and queers.
These balls were intended to integrate interracial communities, but nevertheless there was often an imbalance in racial power. While white men usually hosted and planned the events, the black men were the standard performance artists at balls. The balls were known for their gay beauty pageants, which are still alive in today’s drag ball scene, but unfortunately black men were often restricted in these events so that they were unable to perform and participate in the pageants and were seldom chosen as winners in the pageants.
The black community began to form its own exclusive drag ball scene in the 1960s. As hostility toward the black gay community grew, efforts were made by historic gay activists such as George Chauncey to fuse the drag ball culture with gay houses. These houses arose in an effort to provide refurbished homes for the increasing population of homeless African-American youth.
Themed housing became a fad and soon there were numerous major houses in cities with some of the worst political and socio-economic conditions. It was in this context that the drag ball culture that we are familiar with at Oberlin emerged.
Oberlin’s Drag Ball is a celebration — a celebration of this history and of the future. It’s permissible to dress down, up or sideways at this event. Most students take it as an opportunity to express, experiment with and take pride in their own distinct gender identities.
The gender binary seems almost to become obsolete at this annual event, prompting a unique intimacy between friends. Girls help their male friends apply makeup, gowns are exchanged, hair done up; males stumble in high heels while girls struggle to paint on convincing facial hair. Friends of all genders crowd around the mirrors in the bathrooms to have a closer look at themselves, an experience reminiscent of prom night, only of the gender-bending, role-reversing kind.
The Drag Ball committee has been doing an excellent job of planning the event on its own for the past two years, focusing on making the ball fun and memorable, while also purposeful and on track with Oberlin’s core values in gender or LGBTQ issues. The 2012 Drag Ball was all of these things; the event hasn’t lost momentum since it was moved to the ’Sco. Now, the question remains: With a major success under its belt, what will Drag Ball look like next year?
