PRESQUE ISLE, Maine — The cheers of people dressed in Halloween costumes reverberated in the Campus Center’s second floor at the University of Maine at Presque Isle on Saturday night.
The drag show and costume party was hosted by Delicious Drag Divas, a Bangor-based group of performers, with audience members showing up in various creative outfits for the 18-and-older event.
It was the first large-scale drag performance held at the University of Maine at Presque Isle and drew a crowd of around 150 people.
“We definitely have people that are going full tilt where they are wearing a kind of zombie prom, or we have one individual wearing a full predator outfit that has “slay queen” going across their mask,” said Shawna Traugh, a steering committee member of Pride Aroostook, which helped organize the event. “It’s definitely a good variety of people out and about just having fun.”
Pride Aroostook, a community group of LGBTQ+ people and their allies, reached out to the Rainbow Society, a student organization at the University of Maine at Presque Isle, to coordinate the drag show and costume party to be held in the large second floor multi-purpose room at the Campus Center.
“It’s about going out and having fun,” said Lady D, Delicious Divas drag performer and hostess. “They find a song they like, they dance to it, and they go out and have fun.”
The drag performers are from the Bangor and Augusta areas and have a busy schedule, doing around 15 to 20 shows a year in Maine. The performance at UMPI featured two acts featuring up to 9 performers, including guest performer Nadia Fusion from New York.
“It’s kind of the theme of drag anyway, [it] is creative in costumes and makeup,” said Ryan Sonderman, Rainbow Society president. “It’s nice to see the audience participate in that and show their own creativity.”
Pride Aroostook has hosted Delicious Drag Divas three times before in Aroostook County. The Rainbow Society is looking forward to collaborating with Pride Aroostook on a yearly basis to hold a drag show at the Presque Isle college campus.
“We strongly encourage the drag community to be open and proud in “The County” that’s important to us and we definitely embrace the Delicious Divas every time that they come up,” Traugh said.
The next Delicious Divas performance for Aroostook County is planned at the Veterans of Foreign Wars hall in Fort Kent on April 20, 2024 with the theme still in the works, according to Lady D.
“It takes a lot of planning and months of organizing because we had to organize it with everyone’s work schedule too,” Lady D said.
Pride Aroostook will be doing a potluck called Friendsgiving at the Presque Isle Congregational Church on 27 Church St. at 1 p.m. on Nov. 26 for their next event, while the Rainbow Society will be handing out ribbons in the color scheme of the Pride Flag for Transgender Day of Remembrance on Nov. 20.
