Kenan-Flagler serves executive realness at Pride Club's second annual drag ball

Tonight at The Strowd, UNC students and members of the surrounding community will have the chance to experience and participate in drag culture at the Kenan-Flagler Business School’s Pride Club’s second annual drag ball. 

The drag ball will feature local performers and students, including Miss Carter, a drag queen and Beyoncé impersonator from Hendersonville.

Vice president of communications for the club and MBA student Mitchell Dudas coordinated the show in 2016 and is doing it again this year, drawing inspiration from a similar event that has been run at Duke University in the past.

“Last year it was brought up in one of the meetings with the Pride Club that Duke had a drag show as part of their business school. Their business program put on a drag show and the pride organization felt that it was something we wanted to do,” Dudas said.

“We knew it would be a great time, and so when I was given the task of organizing that, I decided to try to take it a little further, so rather than doing a simple drag show, we have a drag ball.”

Support of the LGBTQ community is a crucial aspect of the ball. Proceeds from the $10 for under 21 and $5 for over 21 cover fees will go toward supporting LGBTQ rights in North Carolina.

LGBTQ advocate Candis Cox will be making an appearance at the ball. The use of the ball as a tool for educating the community was important for the Pride Club when planning the event said Kathleen Zakhar, incoming Kenan-Flagler Pride Club vice president of communications.

“We think it’s a really important and fun way to learn about a community that, maybe people don’t really understand or see that often in North Carolina,” she said.

Kenan-Flagler Pride Club President Timothy Smith said there is a difference between drag shows and drag balls.

“There’s a line-up of queens performing, queens and kings, and half of them will go, so probably like three to four acts, and there will be a split in the action where they’ll run all of the competitions,” Smith said.

“And so the competitions are open to anyone, like you don’t have to be a performer but probably have to dress up, and it’s basically like a catwalk.”

Last year’s ball drew a large crowd which necessitated an upsizing of the venue from The Library to The Strowd. Attendees of last year’s ball gave rave reviews, saying they would return for this year’s performances.

“It was so much fun, it was probably my favorite night of the year. They had a mix of our classmates — boys and girls — doing different numbers, and then Mitchell also got a lot of professional drag queens from around Chapel Hill and Raleigh to participate as well,” MBA student Katherine Riedel said.

“And it was really cool to see everyone being so supportive of them.”

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