6 LIFESTYLE
LIFESTYLE 7
SANTA ANA COLLEGE el Don/eldonnews.org • MONDAY, APRIL 30, 2018
LEFT
Communication Studies
Department chair Lance
Lockwood organized
the event as part of his
gender communication
course.
LEFT
Drag Queen
Wilhelmina Caviar lip
synced and danced
to three songs at the
event. She changed her
outfi t three times.
YAS QUEEN
Drag-U-Cation marked the
third time Nomi B. came to
campus to promote education
on her performance art.
P
GENDER
BENDERS
At Drag-U-Cation, four professional drag queens
sashayed, lip synced and answered questions about
what it's like to be men performing as women.
STORY
JOSIE MORALES
PHOTOS
NIKKI NELSEN
AND JESSMARIE FLORES
rofessor and Communications Studies chair Lance Lockwood made
his grand entrance onto the Phillips Hall Theatre stage in a solid black
suit and a pair of ruby, sequined, platform high heels. Backstage,
four men were putting the finishing touches on their makeup, outfits and
routines.
Lockwood — along with drag queens Wilhelmina Caviar, Twiggy D. War-
hol, Nomi B. and Mahaliah Nakita — educated a sold-out crowd April 12,
exposing them to the song, dance, glitter and glam of their particular brand
of gender performance.
Drag-U-Cation began as a guest speaker day three years ago in Lock-
wood’s gender communications class to help students learn about drag
culture, which is usually confined to nightclubs and bars. The show grew
each semester, morphing into this year’s ticketed event for 400 people.
All four queens lip synced and danced to selected songs and engaged in
a Q&A with the audience. Afterwards, internet radio personality and host
Alexander Rodriguez hosted a “Lip Sync for Your Life” battle featuring
students.
“It’s cool to see from an artist view that you can go from man to wom-
an, or woman to man,” said Santa Ana College student Gabriel Andrade.
“That’s what matters, and the illusion was created, so it was awesome.”
ABOVE
Lance Lockwood
wore these glitter red
sequined heels for
his grand entrance
onto the Phillips Hall
Theatre stage.
During a Q & A session led by iHeart Radio DJ Alexander Rodriguez, performers discussed everything from hair and
makeup to how each got their unique drag names.