Drag performers showcased their talents to collect donations for a local shelter at the Queens for a Cause event on Tuesday, Feb. 13, in the Marco’s room of the Memorial Student Center.
Attendees of the event, hosted by MU Got That Beat, donated one non-perishable food item for entry to the event; the donations will go to Huntington’s Branches Domestic Violence Center.
“We needed to have a reason for people to come out,” said Paige Noss, vice president of Got That Beat, “because, yeah, people do come out to drag shows, but I wanted it to be something that could be good for the community.”
This Tuesday marked the club’s second Queens for a Cause event, with the first taking place in Oct. 2023. While the club has donated to Branches for both shows so far, Noss said they plan to rotate non-profits.
“Next time, I have on my list a no-kill animal shelter,” Noss said. “We were going to donate to the Trevor Project, which – don’t get me wrong – is a great project, but that’s like a global thing, and we wanted to see change here.”
Inspired by the LGBTQ+ Office’s Queens Against Cancer event, Noss said the club now plans to host a show every semester.
With the performances being non-profit, Noss also said, “We did it because it would give LGBT students on campus a resource to practice their performances, get their names out there and do what they love.”
The event has already grown from what it was in October, said Paige Rinschler, drag artist and president of Got That Beat.
“There’s so many people on campus that are interested in this,” Rinschler said. “Actually, we got three new performers that got to see our performance in October, so it kind of gets a lot of people inspired to do it.”
While the performers, like Rinschler, were mainly members of Got That Beat, the club recruited special guest performer Trixxx Taylor from Stonewall Nightclub as well.
Also a Stonewall Nightclub performer herself, Rinschler encouraged fellow students to interact with and support local performers.
“It’s entertainment, like everything else,” Rinschler said. “Basically, it’s another stage, another theater production.”
“How they get to interact with the audience and things like that – there’s a whole different variety,” she added. “It’s not stagnant, and that way people can decide they also want to do something similar to this or even perform.”
Each performer prepared two songs to lip-sync, sing or dance, and several of the artists’ performances involved audience participation.
Audience members also had the opportunity to win raffle prizes provided by Got That Beat. The club raffled a pride flag, a date night basket and a LEGO rose bouquet in honor of Valentine’s Day.
