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UnXpected is an original series by AsiaOne in which we speak with people with unconventional interests to find out what keeps them going despite sometimes negative perceptions from others.
For hours she sits in front of the mirror, drawing the planes of her face with different colored foundation sticks, hiding her natural eyebrows in favor of thick drawn ones, and pasting short strands of hair along the jawline.
He then takes a roll of sports tape and attaches pieces of it to his chest, pulling his flesh back and flat. Her look is completed with a large coat and an updo.
This is not your average makeup routine. It is part of the process that Stephanie Chan goes through to transform into a man, or rather, a drag king.
When she transforms, Stephanie turns into Aloysious D, a “pompous Chinese” who is “some kind of idiot”, are his words, not ours.
Drag kings can be loosely defined as performance artists who portray an exaggerated version of masculinity and personify male stereotypes. Although anyone can be a drag king, regardless of their gender assigned at birth, drag kings are usually female performers.
The 33-year-old’s first foray into the drag scene was when she took part in a poetry show during her college days, posing as a “pretentious hipster” male poet.
And I was hooked on the experience of embodying another person, finding it absolutely liberating. This later led to her joining a burlesque troop as a drag king.
For Stephanie, who grew up learning that men and women had to look and behave in a certain way, drag is a way of showing others how there is more than one way to see the world. It also made her a much more confident person, knowing she doesn’t have to conform to a certain standard.
But while drag culture, drag queens in particular, might have gone mainstream in recent years thanks to popular shows like Ru Paul’s Drag Race, drag kings have remained off the radar.
Aloysius is currently one of the few drag kings in Singapore.
Stephanie dreams that one day she could create a bigger drag king scene in Singapore and in doing so, open a space for more people to explore this alternative art.
As for those who would protest against what she is doing, Stephanie says that “they just need to open their minds a little more, accept different points of view and accept that a large number of people enjoy this art very much.” to form.”
Watch the video to learn more about what Stephanie has to share about drag culture as she shows us how she transforms into Aloysius.
