On Saturday morning, the Yupiit Piciryarait Cultural Center in Bethel held tables of vendors for the community’s Saturday Market. By the evening, it had transformed into a runway stage for Bethel’s first-ever drag show. Makeshift blackout curtains kept out the midnight sun, while spotlights illuminated the stage.
A performer wearing a sparkly rainbow qaspeq stepped onto the stage as the opening notes of “Colors of the Wind” from Disney’s "Pocahontas" played. The crowd erupted in recognition.
Drag is an art form rooted in the exaggerated expression of gender, which can be feminine or masculine. A drag show is kind of like a live theater performance and usually involves dancing and lip syncing to musical arrangements. Part of it is the costumes — big hair, colorful makeup, glitter, and sequins — which create these hyper-femine or masculine personas known as drag queens and kings. And these personas come with their own stage names. They can be played by anyone, regardless of the performer's gender.
The queen, known by her stage name Ice Watah, floated around the stage and into the audience, flicking the waves of her long black wig over her shoulder. After the number’s concussion and rampant applause, she addressed the audience.
“As someone who is Indigenous, Koyukon Athabascan from Tanana, Alaska, to do something like this is truly an honor. You have no idea,” Ice Watah said.
Watah was part of the evening’s all-Indigenous cast of drag queens, in a show put on by Bethel Actors Guild with support from Teens Acting Against Violence and the Tundra Women’s Coalition.
“When I got asked, I was like, ‘Yes, please. I want to go. I don't care how we'll make it work. I'll camp outside. I don't care. We got to go,’” Watah said. “This is so important to me.”
For Watah, bringing drag rural is about queer representation in the Native community. They identify as two-spirit — an Indigenous concept of embodying both masculine and feminine genders.
“I want to be there for those Native kids who are queer, that are two spirited, that they can look up to,” Watah said. “Because I didn't have that. So I want to be that for them.”
Watah said that they wear regalia on stage made by their grandmother, sister, and aunt. And they’ve taken inspiration from pop Native culture.
Watah said that they got an idea for a performance from a doll maker in Anchorage who created her own Alaska-fied “Fish Camp Barbie.”
“And I was like, ‘Oh my God. What if there was, like, a commercial for that? Oh my god. What if I made that a performance?’” Watah said.
In the Fish Camp Barbie number, Watah stepped onto the stage wearing a hot pink qaspeq. A salmon plushie peeked its nose out of the pocket while a commercial-style audio blared from the speaker: "Unbox the magic of Alaska as Fish Camp Barbie is decked out in authentic attire. Comes complete with her own ulu knife, and watch her carefully navigate the preparation of a king salmon."
Watah said that they debuted the performance at an event in Anchorage, raising money to help communities weather the salmon crisis on the Yukon, where they grew up fishing.
“I don't perform it that often because I want to keep it for my Native people in these rural villages. It's very important to them,” Watah explained. “And when I've done it for a non-Native crowd, they didn't really quite understand it. So I was like, ‘Okay, well, this is not for you.’”
Watah said that the Bethel audience, however, took to the number.
“At first they were like, ‘What's going on?’ And they were like, ‘Oh, my God, wait, this is everything!’” Watah said.
The event was emceed by organizer and Bethel Actors Guild board member Taylor Finley. Finley said that events like these, ones that represent all aspects of a community, are important for violence prevention.
The drag show has been in the works for nearly a year. It was an idea that came from drag queen Osha Violation, one the evening's performers.
“What really inspired me was hearing the story of how Pride started in Bethel, how it was organized by the youth in Bethel,” Violation said “[...] I know how hard it is to be young in general, let alone someone who's queer and young, also in a rural area. That has unique obstacles.”
The show was part of Bethel’s Pride festivities, following a queer community mixer and march, one the queens participated in alongside Bethel community members.
The event was held in Bethel’s cultural center, which is affiliated with the University of Alaska Fairbanks (UAF). After initially leasing the space to Bethel Actors Guild, the university stepped in as a sponsor, donating the space for the evening. But in the days leading up to the event, organizers said that UAF pulled back its financial support.
When reached for comment, a spokesperson from UAF said that the initial rental support was an administrative error because the space wasn’t being used for a university-affiliated event.
But the queens, including performer Lamia Monroe, who’ve collaborated with the university for drag events in the past, said that it felt like a move against Pride, especially in the wake of opposition the event received when promoted online from the community and statewide outlets.
“Institutions of many different types are reacting defensively with what's going on politically and nationally, and so unfortunately we see them withdrawing support from things that in the past they've pledged to support,” Monroe said. “So it's an unfortunate circumstance, but I think that all kind of informs why the community aspect of this is so important.”
Monroe is an Unga tribal member who grew up in a cabin outside of Fairbanks to dog musher parents. They said that the community's enthusiasm made the event shine.
“I'm so excited to go back to Anchorage and tell them that Bethel was the most lit show that I've done in my career,” Monroe said. “I can honestly say this was one of my highlights of performing, and I've been doing this for almost 10 years. So it was just really special.”
It’s a sentiment organizer and performer Osha Violation echoed.
“It was my favorite show this year,” Violation said. “Bethel was the best.”
After an evening of numbers featuring Arethra Franklin, opera, and an Inuktitut version of Dua Lipa’s “Levitating,” the queens were met with a standing ovation. A line of community members soon stretched across the room, waiting to take pictures with the three visiting queens.
