- Drag Ball
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Drag Ball St. Louis was created by Khrystal Leight, a zaftig Bette Midler impersonator from St. Louis, to entertain and raise awareness of the art form of female impersonation in local and regional college campuses throughout the Midwest. Drag Ball was first held in the fall of 1992 at Washington University in St. Louis in cooperation with the gay student organization, Spectrum. Drag Ball has been an annual tradition at Washington University and has been held at Webster University in St. Louis, the University of Missouri, Southern Illinois University, Carbondale and Southeast Missouri State University in Cape Girardeau, MO. Drag Ball includes drag queensdrag kings, and male impersonators who perform in the theatre of the university or college for the students.
Drag Ball is also an annual event at Oberlin College.
Khrystal Leight continues to host Drag Balls throughout southern Missouri and has celebrated the 3rd Anniversary of the Southeast Missouri University (Cape Girardeau, MO) Drag Ball on April 27, 2006.
Khrystal Leight has moved to Southeast Missouri in July 2007 and is currently planning Drag Ball Competitions between colleges and universities as a fundraiser for AIDS Awareness. Teams of professional or unprofessional impersonators will battle it out to be the Queens of Fundraising.
Drag Ball is also an annual event in Burlington, VT.
Drag Ball is also an annual event (Drag Ball Toronto) in Toronto, Ontario, Canada that take place just before Toronto's Pride Week, organized by promoter Larry Cannon stage name as Stephanie Stephens. While the events were greatly viewed as an important function for the drag queen / impersonation community as its feature not only just a drag ball party but also a talent competition, however the events are viewed as bias as it favours and only hiring and promoting non-Canadian performers thus ignoring local Canadian talents and markets. As a result of poor quality, continuous decline on in attendance on an annual basis marked with cost issue, Drag Ball 2008 was not well attended nor receive favorable supported by the community.
The promoter of DragBall, Larry Cannon, has publicly defended accusation made against him regarding bias promotions of his events by stating local talents are simply not in par with talents he hires from the USA.
Furthermore, speculations on how the promoter finances his event raised attention or the receive of lack of attentions or support within the gay community in Toronto. There is no indication on whether Drag Ball Toronto will return in 2009 as their website is non-reachable (www.dragballtoronto.com [1]) as it is suspended by the provider due to either a policy violation of the website or unpaid bills.
An event was held in June 2009, however, according to local blogger and media personality and other judges, it was a disaster.[1]
Reference
Categories:- Transgender
- LGBT stubs
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