Diamond Bracamontes, psychology major, and stage name Dante Hardon, felt nervous backstage at the Drag King and Queen Show, but once she came onstage, she was inspired to put on a great show.
The drag show took place on Thursday, May 1 at the Student Center. Although it faced a microphone malfunction halfway, the host Veronica Pop, along with the audience’s enthusiasm and energy kept the show on the right track.
Pop kept the audience from boredom with her anecdotes and jokes. The contestants were:
- Lauren Didio, as Shae D. Cobain sponsored by the Anthropology Club
- Brenna Varney, as Brandon Loverock sponsored by International Student Association
- Bracamontes, as Hardon sponsored by the Queer Straight Alliance club
- John Kerlegon, as Anida Mahn sponsored by the K-Pop Club
- Dana Ramos, as Dan “the Handyman” Ramsbottom sponsored by the Order of the Falcon Club
- Eric Banuelos, as Princess Erika sponsored by the Chicanos and Latinos for Community Medicine Club.
The show was split into different parts. First the contestants walked the catwalk for the judges, then they were asked a question by Pop and finally a performance of song or dance.
The six different criteria for the judges were personality, performance presentation, response to the question, acceptance by the crowd and walkway presentation and appearance.
Robert Arthur, board of trustee member representing trustee area 1, was one of the judges at the show. He enjoyed the show, “It was very entertaining, comical and just a lot of fun.”
It was his first time judging the drag show, since he wasn’t able to attend the first drag show last year.
“I’ve been around numerous Mr. Cerritos and other events. Last year I wasn’t able to attend the inaugural drag show. I couldn’t be present but this was a lot of fun.”
Bracamontes as Dante Hardon, who was crowned drag king, felt that despite the technical issues during her performance, it was the audience’s enthusiasm that helped her win.
President of the Queer Straight Alliance Club and chair of the Gay Pride Taskforce, Austin Garrido, was amazed at the reception of the show.
“The event was really for the students. We had this last semester and it was a huge success. When we started it people came up to us and said ‘oh let’s have a drag show’ and we kind of took it as a joke. Like ‘ha-ha, we should have a talent show; get some drag queens.’ But you know we were like ‘why don’t we do a full on drag show? They have Mr. Cerritos,” he said about the planning.
“We decided to do it again this semester with the Gay Pride Task Force and hopefully make it more LGBT friendly. We had to get our amazing host Veronica Pop, and we had to get all the decorations and everything,” Garrido added.
The winners of the drag show were Banuelos, as Princess Erika taking the Drag Queen and Bracamontes as Hardon taking Drag King. This is Bracamontes’s second win as drag king.
Daniel Schaper, linguistic major, said, “My favorite would have to be Dante Hardon.”
“We’re maybe going to try again and it’s going to be ‘watch out,'” said Garrido.
