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Athens Gets All Dressed Up For A Cause: Boybutante Is Here Again

by Audrey Califf
04/22/2007

Bell bottoms? Check. Platform shoes? Check. Time machine? Well, sort of.

Athens is buzzing with disco fever as locals prepare for the Eighteenth Annual Boybutante Ball this Saturday. This year's event is themed "Saturday Night Divas" and should lend itself to plenty of costume creativity.

According to their website, Boybutante was started in 1989 by a group of friends who wanted to bring entertainment to the Athens area. The organization has grown in each of its 18 years of history, becoming incorporated in 1996 as the "Boybutante AIDS Foundation, Inc."

This year's week-long extravaganza began with an amateur drag competition at Detour on Monday night. Last year's winner, Preston Meche, was among the small but enthusiastic crowd that gathered to see local performers lip sync to the song of their choosing.

"The fact that a town like Athens can have an annual event like this, it's remarkable for northeast Georgia," Meche said. "It makes me proud to be a part of a community like that."

Meche, who entered under the alias "Miss Magnolia Steel," performed "Out Tonight," from the musical "Rent" at last year's competition.

"I had just seen 'Steel Magnolias' for the hundredth time that day and thought it would be cute," Meche said. "You have to do something the crowd can jump on their feet to and enjoy."

His costume and blond wig were bought at Goodwill and other local thrift stores.

"Just because I don't have much money doesn't mean I'm going cheap," he said. "And I'd always pictured myself as a blond."

The hardest part of the experience?

"The shoes," Meche said. "I broke a toe in one of the shows last year."

This year's competition featured performances from Boybutante Divas Lacie and Sasha, the self-proclaimed "red-headed bitch of Athens."

"This hair makes me feel like Liza Minelli," Sasha proclaimed to a group of fans that hovered around the stage. "I kind of look like her too, if she was bloated."

Several sequin-filled performances later, the female duo Heat Wave was awarded first place honors for their spoofed routine of "Afternoon Delight." The winners, who were judged on their lip syncing skill, overall appearance and ability to incorporate the year's theme, will perform their act Saturday night at the ball.

Wednesday night, Ciné showed the Academy Award-winning film "The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert." The Australian movie, which stars Guy Pierce ("Memento") and Hugo Weaving ("The Matrix" trilogy), follows two drag queens and a transsexual as they make their way from Sydney to Alice Springs for a four-week show set at a local casino. The only catch is that the resort is owned by Weaving's wife.

The movie was a perfect choice to get party-goers prepared for the big night. The costumes were stunning, and the over-the-top antics of characters no doubt inspired the inner diva in all the participants.

Saturday evening's ball will feature performances from local drag queens, as well as a costume contest.

Yara Figueroa, a junior at The University of Georgia, is one of four dancers lending her talents to the show. In addition to serving as back-up dancers in the opening number, the group will perform a self-choreographed dance to a remix of Madonna's "Music" and, appropriately, 50 Cent's "Disco Inferno."

"For the first part of our rehearsal, we watched music videos, the disco routines of 'So You Think You Can Dance' and Madonna's actual performance to 'Music,'" Figueroa said. "But we also watched some of 'Saturday Night Fever.' We wanted to make sure we weren't just making fun of it. It's cheesy, but it's accurate."

When asked if the group was nervous about Saturday, Figueroa was emphatic.

"No, I'm just excited," she said. "But I can't tell if drinking beforehand is a good idea or not."

Tickets for the ball are available for $20 in advance at School Kids Records, Urban Sanctuary Day Spa and Junkman's Daughter's Brother in Athens and at Brushstrokes in Atlanta.