10 drag queen personalities to know the transformist art

Surely you know celebrities like Pabllo Vittar and Gloria Groove. Do you know what they have in common? Both are drag queens, as is Lua Lamberti, a researcher who participated in this article telling more about the drag universe. To get to know him better, keep reading!

What is drag queen?

Lua explores the definition of transformism suggested by Miss Draga, a transvestite and drag artist, as an artistic language that challenges, unravels and parodies the field of gender. For Paul Preciado, transformism is “a laboratory for experimentation with gender technologies”. Furthermore, Lua presents the perspective of the Boulet Brothers, drag queens, that “doing drag is a radical form of self-expression”, and still claims to like these definitions because they are broad and plural.

Lua states that “overall, we know Drag Queens and, at best, Drag Kings. But transformism as an artistic field is much broader”. According to her, Personas Drag do not necessarily need to emulate or reproduce the socially established gender norms, between the male x female binary.

“There are bearded Drags, busty Kings, androgynous, anthropomorphized, fantastic and fanciful, abstract, cartoonish figures, in short… as plural and infinite as human subjectivity. Even the term itself, transformismo, I like it better than “Drag”. Because there are other manifestations of this language that are not within the imagination we usually have, Drags that look like supermodels, fashionistas, glamorous. Thinking through transformism tends to contemplate artists who dialogue with other fields, other aesthetics”, adds Lua.

the drag art

“Overall, it’s a performance art of personification,” says Lua. This means putting together a persona (different from a character, because it dialogues much more with your personality and without many commitments to pre-established rules, like a character in the theatrical sense).

Many believe that Drag is part of theater or performance, and to a certain extent it is included, but Lua explains that “transformism is in itself an autonomous language. There are Drags that don’t present shows and don’t do numbers and there are also projects of transformist artists telling stories in libraries, visiting hospitals, soirees, cabarets, clips, series, movies and in the theater, in the beauty industry as makeup artists. , designers, seamstresses, and more”.

Moon points out that everyone can do drag art! According to her, “the idea of ​​associating Drag with gay men is wrong, as it has always been produced by trans people and non-conforming gender people. Even because, in addition to the cliché man dressed as a woman for Queen and woman dressed as a man for King (which already excludes trans people, for example Miss Draga, or myself, who are transvestites, not gay men, and we do Drag), there are drag personas or transformists who blur these binary divisions, who flirt with the absurd, with terror, with science fiction, with mythologies, with medieval fantasies, in short, it goes far beyond just ‘looking like a woman’ or ‘looking like a man. ‘.”

drag art history

There are many controversies about the origin of transformismo. According to Lua “there are those who say that it started with Shakespeare, who indicated which characters were Drag (dressed as a girl, the anagram, which meant that he would be characterized as a woman); Some lines say that Drag comes from the verb ‘to drag’, to drag, because of the long trains of the dresses that the transformists wore. Still others say that the term came from dragon because of the loaded makeup”.

“The fact is that what we understand as transformism in this more open field has always existed in many cultures and in many different ways”, says Lua. Furthermore, Drag finds it difficult to credit Shakespeare with this without taking into account, for example, that this was a misogynistic device to prevent cisgender women from being on stage.

Lua also says that “Drags, transformist artists in general, have always been there. We always were. In political militancy, in entertainment, in conceptual art, in galleries, on stages, in bars, in gutters. And, because of the subversive nature of this art, remembering that even today we find countries that criminalize and violate everything that disobeys the binary rules of gender and sexuality, much of our history is mutilated. We are not narrated.” She also draws attention to the lack of a specific discipline of transformism in the performing arts graduations.

“Many Drag figures are important in history, I think it’s dangerous to think of heroic names, kind of personifying this artistic language in a few subjects, even because each artist seeks their references”, points out Drag queen Lua Lamberti. She also remembers that Drags, in general, are striking symbols in the LGBTQIA+ pride parades, change paradigms with their activities and influence the whole world, whether in fashion, aesthetics, musical styles, cosmetics, media productions, etc.

Drag in Brazil

Lua highlights, here in Brazil, the Dzi Croquettes group. She says that “what they do is not Drag, in the hegemonic way of understanding it, but it is essentially transformist and has a very Latin American aesthetic”. Drag finds it difficult to trace a historiography at a world level because the artistic relationship is in constant negotiation with the medium, period, culture and economy.

Lua also adds that “much of transformist history flirts with the history of theatre, circus, visual arts, even worldwide. The Club Kid scene, the Ballroom scene in the United States, mostly composed of trans Afro Latinas, the camp aesthetic, pantomime, and burlesque. There’s a lot in this story that we can’t forget to remember!”

Drag and the question of gender

Lua says that transformism is made from the coupling of gender prostheses (such as makeup, wigs, fillers, costumes, etc.), but it is not limited to what the gender designates. “In the case of transformism, I think it invents new ways of being and being, without many commitments to real life, being able to expand this field far beyond the static binary of man x woman”, says Lua Lamberti. If your question is related to nomenclatures, check out the following definitions suggested by Lua:

• Drag queen: Drag is an artistic language, which has nothing to do with the gender or sexuality of the performer;
• Transgender: trans concerns modes of existence outside the schism, that is, the coherence between genital and gender;
• Transvestite: this is a very specific identity of Latin America, of the feminine order, but not used to the man x woman binaries.

In summary, drag, or transformism, feeds on gender norms to produce other forms, so it is a feedback relationship in which it produces, reproduces and is produced.

10 drags around the world to meet

Now that you’ve learned more about the art of drag, it’s time to meet some of the transforming personalities and support their work. Let’s go?

moon lamberti

Nothing fairer than starting with the interviewee in the article, right? Lua Lamberti is a transvestite, teacher, artist and researcher. Graduated in Performing Arts, Master and Doctoral Student in Education (UEM), matriarch of the transformist collective Haus of X (2016), member of the Meu Clown Group (2013), affiliated to the research groups NUDISEX (2015) and DOBRA (2019) in the areas of gender, sexualities, transfeminisms, performativities, ludicity, autofictions and comedy.

Gloria Groove

Gloria Groove is Daniel Garcia’s drag queen. Today, she is one of the biggest Brazilian drags! In addition to being a singer, she is a songwriter and voice actress and has been in the music business for a long time.

Dalvinha Brandão

Activist, researcher, comedian, speaker, singer and songwriter Dalvinha Brandão is a Brazilian drag queen, representing, today, one of the great names in encouraging transformism in Brazil.

Vander Von Odd

Mexican drag queen, performer, visual artist and filmmaker Vander Von Odd won the first season of The Boulet Brothers’ DRAGULA.

Juno Birch

The British Juno Birch is, in addition to drag queen, sculptor and youtuber. She is known for her vintage-inspired glasses and colorful skin.

Hugo Grrrl

How about meeting a drag king now? Hugo Grrrl was the season 1 winner of House of Drag, being the first drag king and first trans man to participate in a drag reality show. In addition to being a transformist, Hugo Grrrl is also a comedian.

Bianca Dellafancy

Returning to Brazilian drags, meet Bianca Dellafancy. She is a DJ, podcaster, model, columnist and is successful on her YouTube channel.

The Vixen

The American performer became well known for her participation in the reality show RuPaul’s Drag Race in 2018. The Vixen is a name for activism against racism and homophobia, and is the co-founder of Black Girl Magic, an African-American drag show.

Shea Coulé

The drag queen participated in season 9 of RuPaul’s Drag Race and won the fifth season of RuPaul’s Drag Race All Stars. She started her drag career in 2012 and has since gained more and more notoriety.

Haus Of X

Haus of X is a drag family and collective of transforming artists composed of Drag Queens, Drag Kings, Drag Queers and Tranimals of which Lua Lamberti, interviewed in the article, is part. The collective has existed since 2016 and is worth visiting!

The art of drag is very important to countless people, so it deserves knowledge and notoriety. After all, it can be a means of finding empowerment and self-esteem.