Rumble presents The Pageant: Choose your champion and release your inner woo girl
It is exactly 100 years since the first Miss America Beauty Pageant was held and, since then, women, men, teens, and toddlers have been competing for the elusive sash and crown that would herald them the most conventionally attractive of all the land. Meanjin based photographer, producer, and creator of Rumble, Joel Devereux, seeks to take this traditional format and turn it on its rhinestoned tiara-laden head. Transforming The Triffid stage for one-night-only (Friday the 19th of November 2021), The Pageant sees eight contenders compete in a phantasmagoria of drag, cabaret, sideshow and more!
Kian Dillon spoke to Joel and some of the contestants - Charlie Love, Rebel Lyons, Henny Spaghetti and Fortuna Maxima - to find out why the Rumble team decided to don their finest evening gowns, and to hear more about what we can expect from Friday night.
Joel and I began by discussing Joel’s first engagement with drag as being during his clubbing experiences as a late teen where, despite intoxication, he still remembers the first drag queen he saw.
Joel: Vollie LaVont at The Wickham many years ago, and now we work together every week at Fluffy. Many of the girls working when I first started going out are still performing today and I’ve booked for my own shows including Rumble!
Founded by Joel in 2018, Rumble has now become a staple of the Meanjin performance sector, finding its monthly home at The Outpost Bar in Fortitude Valley. Joel has been quoted in saying that one of his original intentions for the event was to see more risk and competition in drag. I was curious to know more about Rumble’s evolution.
Image: Joel Devereux
Joel: My original goal with Rumble was to unite the burlesque and drag communities in Brisbane. I was operating in both scenes and I was seeing a disparity in approaches to each art form and thought they could learn a few tricks from each other, both as dark art forms born out of prohibition. I have noticed a lot more cross over between the drag and burlesque scenes in Brisbane, which has delighted me. My goal with every Rumble is to remind the contenders they are unique and creative individuals who love what they do, that’s why they got into it, and encourage them to channel that into every performance.
The only place for Rumble to go now is up, which is why Joel and the team have begun working closely with The Outpost’s sister venue, The Triffid, to plan various events which elevate and expand on the success of this format.
Joel: The first in this series was CLUB SEAL hosted by Reuben Kaye, and The Pageant is the second. Essentially it’s a supersized Rumble with 8 contenders instead of two, and there are actual prizes to win. Whilst regular Rumbles are a ‘competition’ in the sense, the only prize is a tiny plastic trophy, whereas here the winner will receive $1000. It’s nice to play with some stakes sometime, for one night only, for a laugh right?
Inspired by a desire to parody traditional American Beauty Pageants, Joel describes how he’s given this performance style a “Rumble twist”.
Joel: There’s always a competition element of Rumble and with our larger New Years eve ALL STARS and THUNDERDOME events helped us understand how the format can work with more than two contenders in different spaces. We have all four typical pageant categories, Talent, Evening Wear runway, a short Q&A interview, and Physical Fitness, which we have twisted to be a little more entertaining and a lot less serious.
Image: Joel Devereux
Fortuna Maxima, a seasoned Rumble audience member and performer, shares what drew her to the intersection of two very different performing styles.
Fortuna: I was really excited when they announced a pageant and I was curious to see what the Rumble! take on that would be given it's a very irreverent and frequently wild show. What I love is that this show fully leans into the chaos and encourages the contenders to fly by the seat of their pants, which is very entertaining for the audience because you never know what you're going to see! As a contender, it's equally exciting because you can only prepare so much going into it before the carry-on takes over. It feels like catching a wave and quickly realising you're surfing in a tsunami!
One of the categories Joel is most excited for is Physical Fitness, which will see all eight contestants simultaneously complete a Rumble-eque “bizarre challenge” live on stage. The second is that of the pageant standard Q&A and runway.
Joel: There is no improvised performance round in The Pageant, instead replaced with a runway and question that will be selected from the audience. I’m excited to see the format play out and what people have in store for the unplanned elements of the show.
This quality of spontaneity is only heightened by the encouragement of applicants from any and all disciplines.
Image: Joel Devereux
Joel: I was seeking variety. Not one of our selected performers pitched anything like another, and this formed the basis for my curation. I love curating performers on a mixed bill, it’s my favourite part of producing events, and thankfully we have an abundance of unique acts here in Brisbane. Many other competitions that run here are specific to solely drag or burlesque, and no shade to them, but it’s nice to have a big mix of skills as part of the same competition. We have drag, burlesque, physical theatre, singing, pole dance, performance art, and sideshow, and I couldn’t be happier.
Charlie Love, one of the contestants for the evening, has been pole dancing professionally for over 6 years and shares with us a little teaser for his performance.
Charlie: Having been influenced by burlesque in my recent years of performing, I'm trying something a little riskier for The Pageant, hoping to impress with some more elaborate costume pieces. I like to maintain cheekiness on and off stage and ideally leave the audience questioning their sexuality one way or the other.
Making her Rumble stage debut, Rebel Lyons will be offering something a little different.
Rebel: They call me the Duchess of Chermside, and as a 27 year old Divorcee I’ve done everything, twice. I’ll be using my years of vocal training (I went to Harvest Rain – who didn’t?) to belt out a number, and a bit of crossdressing, which I’ve always been fond of. I’m currently balls deep in stress about which of my many thrifted show-stopping outfits to wear down the runway!
Image: Joel Devereux
Drag performer and hostess, Henny Spaghetti, shares what her love for the tacky pageant style and four years of drag experience will be bringing to the table.
Henny: I'm usually a big mess of painfully tacky patterns, big hair and pure camp so absolutely that! But for the evening wear portion I'm aiming to channel pure GLAMOUR!
Instead of bringing on a judging panel, which Joel felt would “take it to a new place that’s not very ‘Rumble’”, The Pageant will simply further enrol audiences as competition judges.
Joel: All of the questions posed to contestants will come from the audience so it will be fun to get them involved in a new capacity for this special one off event. Who knows it might become an annual thing if it’s a hit!
In this way, The Pageant is opening its doors for anyone to come along and become audience adjudicators for the evening yet there is consensus that the louder, the better.
Joel: My perfect audience member is someone who isn’t afraid to make a lot of noise and cheer on their favourites. Our audience is predominantly Queer, but we are very welcoming of everyone who wants to see a wild night of cabaret! We love a woo girl at Rumble!
Charlie: I love an open minded and supportive audience member, paired with a sceptical friend who may not have seen a lot of live performance. A vocal audience gives a lot of energy to performers and I always hope to give satisfaction, or a sense of awe in return. My goals are to entertain, leave the audience feeling something, even if it's comically grossed out, and a sense of wanting more live performance in their lives.
Image: Joel Devereux
Rebel: Obviously, fans of the movie Drop Dead Gorgeous or any other high camp media, and fellow performers – these are my favourite audience members because they know what it’s like to be up on that stage and they appreciate the time and effort taken behind the scenes. Also, my 86 year old grandma, who always wanted to perform but unfortunately had a turd of a husband who wouldn’t let her. Unfortunately 8pm is a bit too late for her to be out, but I know she’ll be rooting for me.
If you are a self-described “woo girl” or if you just are just in for a night of non-toxic pageantry, Joel and the contestants remind us that The Pageant is here for one night only.
Henny: It's just going to be excellent, its such a talented group of incredible artists that we are lucky enough to have in Brisbane.
Joel: The Triffid is an amazing venue and have been very supportive throughout the whole process so I’m excited to bring them another camp show in an otherwise predominantly live music space. So come takeover with us!
The Pageant hits The Triffid in Newstead for one night only on Friday 19 November 2021.
