Issue date: 9/15/09 Section: A&E

Media Credit: Derrick Hawkins Drag queen Madison Elise performs at Delta Lambda Phi 3rd annual Drag show "Now that's what I call Drag" on Friday.

Media Credit: Derrick Hawkins Drag queen Jaida Kiss performs at Delta Lambda Phi 3rd annual Drag show "Now that's what I call Drag" Friday. The Queens performed many different songs and dressed in elaborate costumes.

To see an Alestlelive.com exclusive slideshow of the DLP drag show,
click here.


Madison Elise is her name. She owns an evening gown worth $1,200 and can land a cartwheel in spike heels that make your feet hurt just by looking at them. But Madison Elise has a beauty secret that not many women have. She is a drag queen.

Madison Elise has been doing drag for the past seven years, since she was a freshman in high school. She has performed in all three shows, including the recent Sept. 11 performance, put on by the Delta Lambda Phi fraternity. Delta Lambda Phi is a fraternity for gay, progressive and bisexual males.

The drag show first began with performances in the Dunham Hall Theater, but has since moved to the Meridian Ballroom in the Morris University Center. Madison Elise said this has really helped attendance.

"Attendance has gotten better," Madison Elise said. "This setting is more personal."

She especially likes to get close and personal on college campuses and hopes to continue until someone fires her.

"I try to do a lot of college shows," Madison Elise said. "I really like the crowd. It's fun to mingle and talk."

Some people wonder why Madison Elise likes to dress up as a woman and perform. She says drag is really crazy, but she has fun with it.

"(Drag is) an extension of performances I started very young," Madison Elise said. "I have been singing and dancing for 20, 21 years."

She chose her name from two different places. She has always loved the name Madison, and she got the name Elise from a friend she had in high school. Madison Elise said she has worked at every major area in Missouri and has stayed in the Midwest for many of her performances.

"They say if you can work in St. Louis, you can work anywhere in the country," Madison Elise said. "And it's true."

Madison Elise was not the sole performer that night. One of her fellow drag queens, Jaida Kisss, has been performing for five years. Jaida Kisss loves being a drag queen. She even had a breast implant procedure.

"I love boobs so much I got a set of my own. Something that people don't realize though, women are beautiful, every color, every shape," Jaida Kisss said. "It's a different expression. It's almost like you get to step outside of your body and be someone else."

She travels all over the United States. Jaida Kisss has been in states from Hawaii to Illinois and has performed at four college campuses: SIUE, Southern Illinois University Carbondale, University of Missouri and the University of Missouri - St. Louis.

Another one of the performers is the drag king of the group, Rydyr. Rydyr is a woman who dresses like a man for performances.

"I'm the random boy in a crowd of girls. There are not as many drag kings," Rydyr said. "It's hard to look like a dude and be really flashy."

Rydyr has a two-bedroom apartment, with one room just for his wardrobe, and is a fashionable guy. He makes his own clothes and is glad for the invention of duct tape.

"It's not as uncomfortable as you think, and it really doesn't hurt. Thank god for duct tape," Rydyr said. "I put on a lot of make-up, but I can't look like I wear a lot of make-up."

Rydyr has worked from Michigan to North Carolina and all the places in between, generally for a bar audience, but enjoys the college life. Rydyr has performed in all three shows hosted by Delta Lambda Phi.

"College students don't see a lot of drag. It has more of a shock value," Rydyr said. "They are always refreshing because they are always happy to see us."

Thanks to the performances from the drag queens and king, Delta Lambda Phi made a little more than $2,000, according to Chapter President Tomas Maberry. The fraternity also got a couple hundred cans to give to the Glen Ed food pantry.

"That performance was freaking amazing. It was good lord amazing," Maberry said. "We made $500 more than we did last year."

Senior special education major Samantha Nelson, of Danville, came to the first drag show in 2007.

"It was awesome," Nelson said. "We came out to support DLP, and we had a blast."

Jaiymz Hawkins lives in Sullivan, Mo., and traveled an hour and a half to see the show.

"I came because I love my drag queens and king," Hawkins said.

Hawkins' friend Jordan Gelencir is a student at Webster University. She has watched their shows at many venues.

"I've seen them all before, except for Jaida Kisss," Gelencir said. "It's always a different kind of show every time we see them, but we love it."

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