| Thursday May 2, 2002 |
| Awareness week to culminate in First School Drag Show By Jessica Alway News Staff Writer The Bronco will host its first drag show this Friday night. The show serves as the culminating event of the third annual Gender Awareness Week, a five day celebration of sexuality, and is co-sponsored by the Gay, Bisexual and Lesbian Alliance (GALA) and Gays and Straights Promoting Educational Diversity (GASPED). Awareness Week began Monday as students sported the color blue to show support for sexual diversity. An "Ally Workshop" was held in Benson at 9pm where students participated in various activities to promote acceptance of all forms of sexuality. On Tuesday, Sobrato hosted a student sexuality panel featuring gay, lesbian, bisexual and straight students. Wednesday was a day of silence to symbolize the forced silence of others in society, past and present. Today students are invited to an open mic at Mission Bakery at 7pm to discuss all they have learned this week. Finally, the drag show will begin at 10pm tomorrow night. Studetns can still sign up to perform to win prizes or they can simply come to watch. "Our basic goal was just to raise dialogue," Pablo Torres, an active member of GALA and a major contributor to the planning of the week, said. "Santa Clara is about 20 years behind other universitites when i comes to homosexual issues. At Stanford or Berkeley almost every student will graduate with at least one or two gay or lesbian friends within their extended circle of friends. That just isn't the case here." It was for this reason students formed GALA in the late 1980s and GASPED in 1993. According to Torres, GALA serves as a social support group, while GASPED is an undergraduate student organization which provides information to the entire community regarding gay, lesbian, bixesual and transgender issues. Both groups have had representatives sitting at a booth in Benson throughout the week ready and willing to answer questions. GASPED handed out buttons with the letter "S," signifying support and acceptance. They also provided "Safe Space" buttons, a continuation of the program created in January 2001 to promote the right of all students to live and learn in a safe and respectful environment Initially, stickers on doors were the sole promoters of Safe Space, but the buttons make it more accessible to students on the go. The purpose of the program is very similar to that of Awareness week, to create consciousness of all the issues surrounding sexuality, make students feel more comfortable, breakdown stereotypes, and teach everyone how to be effective allies. |
| Thursday, May, 2002 |
| Campus drag show a success By Michael Moeschler News Editor Looks were definitely deceiving at The Bronco Friday night. Host to the first annual Santa Clara drag show, the on-campus bar was packed with curious students hoping to glimpse the courageous cross dressers. The drag show was the finale to a week of events that highlighted sexual diversity around the University. "The goal of the drag show was to raise awareness of gay and lesbian issues on campus," said show coordinator Claire Riecke, a sophmore. Dressed in tight brown leather pants and a midriff shirt, with plantinum blonde locks bouncing below the shoulders, the Shakira impersonator shimmied and shook his way into the hearts of the full campacity crowd. Senior Pablo Torres made a diva-like entrance as he took to the stage from the back of The Bronco. Motionless, with his back to the audience, Torres burst into a spactic interpretive dance to the music of India Arie. Sporting a bright purple wig, long black stockings and mini-skirt, senior Joe O'Malley commanded the audience's attention as they chanted the chorus to "I Touch Myself." "The audience was wonderful," said O'Malley. "there are a lot of people here, and they might not know why they came, but they'll leave knowing why they were here." said O'Malley. Of all the performance, the crowd favorite was N'TYSE, with frong man Claire Riecke leading the boy band through the choreographed dance sequence of N'SYNC's "POP." "This was the most fun, maybe in my entire Santa Clara experience so far," Riecke said. Despite some students beliefs that the administration would not allow a drag show at a Jesuit institution, Riecke said she received full support from the university. "Everyone was totally behind me," Riecke said. "I did not get, on any leve, anyone administratively trying to stop this from happening." Although it wasn't needed, the events planning staff at The Bronco was prepared to deal with students who were disrespectful to the performers. "The energy of the audiecne was so positive that anyone that had been negative would have been completely outnumbered," Riecke said. Riecke admitted that finding performers was challenging because of fears that the crowd might respond in a negative manner. Because of the assumptions people make about a man dressed as a woman, Riecke said it was more difficult recruiting male performers. "You have to be secure with yourself to get up there," she said. "To get up on stage, any performer has to be secure with themselves. But to get up on stage in drag, that takes guts." The Bronco was at full capacity for most of the performance. Several times, late arrivers had to wait at the door before The Bronco staff would let them enter. Students stood on chairs and packed tightly together on the floor for optimal viewing pleasure. Support from the audience was overwhelmingly positive. Junior Jamie Evans called the evening "The greatest night for all humanity." After the event had ended and teh DJ began spinning his records, talk about the second annual Santa Clara drag show had already begun. Several students commented that the show was teh best events they had attended all year and with the inauguralevent garnering such succes, the future of drag shows looks bright at Santa Clara. "I do not doubt that it's going to be twice as big next year," said Riecke. "I don't know how we're going to fit more people in that room, but we're going to try. I'm excited about this tradition." |