I've been so busy processing and uploading photographs of Saturday night's Gay Beauty Pageant at East London's Arts Theatre, that I almost forgot I should write about it all before the memories fade from your minds and mine. The event sold out fast and the crowd, it has to be said, was fantastic. The evening was relaxed, vibey and fun - the audience was also really mixed, reflecting the fact that East London's one and only gay club, Club Eden, is really mixed too. As backwards as this Eastern Cape backwater of a city can feel at times, in some respects, it has an astonishing amount to teach the rest of South Africa about queer integration.
There were three categories; Miss Butch (ahem guys, any chance of making that Ms Butch next year?) for butch lesbians, Mr Eden for the gay guys and Miss Eden for the drag artists. Perhaps one idea would be a King and Queen Eden, for drag kings and queens - and maybe a femme category for lipstick lesbians? It's actually unfair of me to suggest all that though, there's a small pool to draw from down here. It would have been great to have more contestants, but when you consider how tiny the community is here, it's hardly surprising that there were so few. It didn't feel empty though; the contestants worked it beautifully and made their presence felt and Club Eden put on cabaret acts between every event and so the whole evening was wonderfully lively.
Hats right off to Sally Prins, owner of Club Eden, for not only being the driving force behind the whole thing, but performing tirelessly too. She was in more than one cabaret act and later in the evening, the lovely butch even dragged as a woman. East London is incredibly lucky to number Sally amongst its out and proud queers. She and her staff (who, might I add, are not even a 100% queer team) saw that the whole thing ran smoothly and they joined in with gusto - apart from the cabaret stuff, the crew escorted contestants on to the stage, womanned the bar and the door and local legend and Eden bartender Anna played piano and sang a few numbers too. Judges Henri, Henry, Jackie and Zama and auditor Wimpie handled that side of things admirably too. Apologies if I've left out any names, my favourite straight woman nicked my programme so she could get the winners autographs later. So it's also her fault I don't know many of the contestants' names either.
Durng the judge/contestant Q&A session, one of the Miss Butch contestants impressed the hell out of me. A good looking Xhosa woman in a really smart suit, she was asked what entering the competition meant to her. She said, "That I can stand up here as a proud lesbian." I don't mind admitting that it made me want to cry. Who says South Africa hasn't progressed?
Owen McGillivray's acts outclassed a lot of stuff I have seen in bigger cities - pure elegant and gracious style and then raucously flirty fun, with a whole lot of audience interaction. He wasn't the only cool act by far, he's just the one I found myself photographing fanatically on the night.
By the time the titles were awarded, I was a bit too glued to my camera to really follow proceedings properly - all I remember was that everyone kept making these amazing shapes and that smiles were enormous and numerous. The audience yelled for its (our!) favourites and there was no doubt that the night was a total jol. Afterwards, I think most people headed to Club Eden to drink and dance and ride that buzz that you get from a truly euphoric night out.
Gorgeous people playing with gender - what more could anyone want on a Saturday night?
(I still have hundreds more photos to go through and names to find out).
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