Last Thursday, the Eurovision Lipsync Contest (ELC) came to Maastricht. Drag queens from all over the world gathered at international student organisation Kaleido to decide who will represent the Netherlands at the finals of the European competition in late September this year. The first-ever winner? German-based Dahlia Danger.
Global Studies student Fotis Barlakas (21), producer and host of the ELC Maastricht and a drag queen himself, was contacted by the Norwegian founder of the ELC. Would he like to set up a Dutch version of the competition? Barlakas said yes and contacted international student association Kaleido Maastricht to help him organise the event.
“We find it important to contribute to the cultural scene of Maastricht” says Sterre van de Ven, UCM student and Kaleido board member. “We found the idea of representing the queer identity through this contest exciting. We like to give people a creative platform aligned with inclusivity and diversity.”
A professional jury – consisting of a professional make-up artist, a drag queen from Limburg and a queer athlete of martial arts – and the audience together decided who was the winner. “To keep it fair”, says Barlakas.
Despite the winner representing the Netherlands at the finals in September, the show had quite a few international participants. There were also some UM students present, both in the crowd and as participants. The winner, Dahlia Danger (20), comes from Germany. “My favourite part of this contest was definitely the reaction of the crowd to my outfit reveal during my first performance”, he says. He was wearing a custom-made velvet poncho that he took off to reveal a velvet dress underneath. The positive feedback, also from the judges, gave him the confidence to perform his best for the second and third rounds of the competition.
Coming from Frankfurt, Dahlia decided to compete, because he was “super excited to meet new people and check out Dutch drag. It is very diverse. The community in the Netherlands is very supportive of each other.” Although there was healthy competition between the participants of the contest, there was no tension. The sense of community and the general public’s acceptance of drag in the Netherlands is something that Dahlia is envious of. In Germany Dahlia has heard many horror stories of drag queens being beaten up when in costume. “We can learn a lot from people in the Netherlands.”