I did an interview with Ashley
Haag about her preforming art which is doing drag shows. A drag show is where
men and women dress as the opposite gender and preform different acts like
sing, dancing and so on. I have known Ashley for a while but only recently
found out that she did drag. When Halloween came she dress in her drag clothes and
she made a pretty convincing man. I was curious about what drag is, so I asked
if I could interview her to help me understand it a little bit better. This
interview happened November 12 of 2013.
Q: What type of preforming acts do you do?
A: I do drag show in which I sing in them.
Q: When did you start doing drag shows?
A: I started doing drag shows around September in 2012.
Q: what part of your act is special to you?
A: when I make someone in the audience feel special when I
give them a rose during one of my acts
.
Q: Does your character that you perform in have a name?
A: when I perform I become Ashton Tastethe Raynbon-starrz
which is my character’s name.
Q: Does this name have any special meaning?
A: the name doesn’t really have any special meaning to
it. I just wanted it to be fun.
Q: what types of genres do you sing?
A: I sing all different types of genres; the ones type of
genre I sing the most is jazz music. The artist that I like to sing from the
most is Frank Sinatra.
Q: do you have any influences that help you make this
decision of preforming?
A: the biggest influence is my future wife. She helped me
get over my stage fright and help me feel comfortable on stage. Another influence
is my life is my drag dad, Rico Sauvé, which gave me the great advice. His advice
is “if you don’t feel nervous anymore, you have lost the passion in performing”
and it stayed with me all this time.
Q: is there any special way that you prepare for your
performances?
A: My future wife and I always smoke cigarettes to calm ourselves
down before performing.
Q: Where and when do you perform?
A: I perform at skives, a bar in Topeka, Kansas, where I perform
every Sunday. The shows usually start around 10 to 10:30.
Q: When performing, is your act part of a duet or are
they done solo?
A: I do most of my acts solo but sometime I do duet with
my girlfriend. The duets are usually when I am doing a love song and I need
another person to help me sing.
Q: Is there anything that you would tell a person who
wants start doing this?
A: I would tell that be yourself and having your own
style is very important. I would also tell them that being nervous about
performing is always going to happen.
Q: What are the steps that you take in getting ready?
A: I make sure I have enough hair to make my beard for my
character. Then the transformation starts, first I tape down my chest with duct
tape, and yes it does hurt. Once I when removing duct tape from my girlfriend I
accidently ripped a huge chunk of skin off but that story is for another time. After
I tape down my chest then I get dressed and listen to my music that I am going
to sing while doing it. Then after all that is done I chill and smoke some cigarettes.
Then it is time to perform.
Q: Is there anything special about the drag community?
A: They accept you no matter what, it like my own little
family. The one thing I like the best is that for people who have no families
that agree with what they are doing the drag community becomes their family and
is with them no matter what happens.
Q: What does performing do for you?
A: Performing is an emotional release for me. When I get
sad I sing sad songs and hope that the audience feels the emotion that I am
trying to bring out.
Q: For those who don’t know that the drag community is
about is there any key terms that they would needed to know?
A: There aren’t really any key term for anyone who is
advance or who is an amateur like me. But to help people who are confused out
the males that turn into women are called Queens and the women who turn into
men are called kings.
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