Seattle Virtual Pride 2021 - Making a Manila: Seattle's Next Drag Diva (Part 1)

Making a Manila: Seattle's Next Drag Diva Part 1: Shop Like a Manila

Seattle's favorite drag queen socialite, Aleksa Manila, transforms local hairstylist Since De Vera, in Seattle's next drag diva: Ayala Manila; finding her style, persona, and place in the history of drag performers.

The human connection is a fundamental aspect of our existence. No matter what we look like, who we want to become, and how we choose to portray ourselves - it all comes back to our connectivity to other people in our lives, be it family, chosen family, our peers, friends, society and community at large. Although there's the traditional mentor-mentee aspect of helping someone get into drag, there's a powerful connection that the art of drag tends to reveal... it's like the more you put layers upon layers of makeup, wig, and costume; the deeper and vulnerable layers are exposed. There's an intimacy and trust that must exist between the drag parent and the drag child... REVELATION is what we're most excited about. Who is AYALA MANILA?

Making a Manila leans on the history of drag activism in popular media from Paris Is Burning to POSE; it honors the lived legacies of our Trans* POC leaders like Marsha P. Johnson and Sylvia Rivera who championed the Stonewall Riots of 1969. From then and now, this is the power of sharing the stories of LGBTQ+ people that are often suppressed and oppressed time and again. This is our time, here and now, to shine among the brilliant gems just like YOU.