Adam Prudhomme
Editor
Queens and a king donned their gay apparel for Greater Napanee Pride’s Drag the Halls event on Saturday, performing to a sold out crowd at the SPC Banquet Hall.
There were plenty of laughs when host JD Merciii took the stage, kicking off a night of festive themed dancing, acrobatics and lip-syncing.
Saturday’s event was the second drag show hosted by Greater Napanee Pride, a follow up to last spring’s Drag Us Out Back, which itself was a precursor to the town’s first ever Pride march in June.
“It’s wild,” said Nina Irvine, communications director and vice chair of Greater Napanee Pride, when asked about the group’s progress made in 2022. “When you see the baby steps every day, you don’t always notice the big change. At a time like this it’s the end of the year and you start reflecting and then you think ‘wait a second, a year ago now I didn’t even know these people yet.’ Just how far we’ve come in a year, it feels so good…we’ve gone from (painting rainbows on) picnic tables to the crosswalk to a full festival, multiple drag shows in one year.”
Irvine, who grew up in the area, is once again living in Greater Napanee after a few years in Toronto. She knows firsthand the challenges youth can face growing up feeing like they don’t fit in or aren’t welcome.
“I feel so fortunate to be a part of it, I think all of us do, because we’re all here because we have the same kind of passion for creating a space that people have a passion for sharing in,” said Irvine. “It’s great being a part of this.”
JD Merciii served as the evening’s host. Photo by Adam Prudhomme.
A sold out show is the perfect example of how big the LGBTQ+ community really is in Greater Napanee.
“So many people think it’s not necessary, I don’t know anybody here,” Irvine said of the attitudes they sometimes encounter. “You don’t because you just haven’t found out, everybody’s here, they’re just going elsewhere to congregate because they don’t have that space. That’s what we’re hoping, to just provide that space. We’re not adding anything, we’re just providing a space for the community to represent itself.”
While most have been accepting, there have been those who have voiced opposition through social media. When Drag The Halls was first announced there were a handful of hate-filled comments mixed with threats from people promising to protest the event and cause a disruption.
Napanee’s Oktavia. Photo by Adam Prudhomme.
“We’ve just been hoping for the best, not dismissing it, taking it seriously because the potential for people to come and disrupt, that’s something we’re going to take seriously,” said Irvine as the final preparations were being made ahead of Saturday’s event. “I think maybe the good thing is that they kind of got it out of their system early on and then the event was so far away then their excitement and eagerness just kind of dwindled down.”
Fortunately there were no signs of any protestors and the all ages event went off without interruption. Special mention was made to the kids who did attend the event, as well as thanks offered to their parents for bringing them to an event that celebrates inclusivity.
“If you walk into this room, people are smiling, they’re having a good time,” said Irvine. “(People opposed to the event are) not going to walk in and say ‘see this is what I’m talking about!’ What in this room is not okay for children? Because what I see is just a bunch of people enjoying themselves.”
Lucky Charmz of Napanee was the youngest performer of the night. Photo by Adam Prudhomme.
Napanee’s own queen, Oktavia, also shared a message after her routine.
“Recently we’ve been having around Canada, a little wave of things that I don’t want to mention because it is so negative, but just things that are not accepted in the days that we are in today,” said Oktavia. “It happened here, people spread not to come, whatever. I just want to let you all to know, be who you want to be.”
The speech was met with a vigorous round of applause from all those in attendance.
Aimee Yonce. Photo by Wihse Green.
Also taking the stage on Saturday was Aimee Yonce, Dare De LaFemme and Napanee’s Lucky Charmz.
As the calendar gets set to flip to 2023, Greater Napanee Pride has plans to build on the success of the previous 12 months.
“We’re in a position right now that we weren’t in a year ago. So many seeds were still being planted,” said Irvine. “Now we have so many more opportunities that we can do nights like this where it’s an event to have fun but we can also look at doing things like youth nights and just kind of community events that are just about being together. We really hope to get a drop in centre going where people can come together in the community to create a safe space, because that’s really what we want to do. But also we just want to just keep doing events like this. Every time we do something like this, we’re represented.”