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Piranha bites into tough Mondays with streaming drag shows

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Photo: SCOTTY KIRBY / COURTESY

Mondays are tough but the queens of Piranha just made your least favorite day a whole lot better.

For the past three weeks, the girls of Piranha have brought the magic of drag into peoples’ homes with a livestream show every Monday at 7 p.m. on the club’s Instagram and Facebook accounts.

“We did the first one just to see if people would be into it and we got a lot of good feedback,” says entertainment manager Collin Haire. “Our goal is to be able to continue this until we can reopen again, and maybe there’s a possibility to continue it even when we are open.”

The stream includes resident queens London Adour, Anetra, Asia King Adour, LaCherry Wild, Salem Night, Dahlia Deveraux, Yara Sofia, LaWhatever, Nicki Vanity Adour and Hot Chocolate, while DJ Chris Tavi handles the graphic design and production of the show.

One advantage to doing the live streams, Haire says, is that multiple girls are being showcased at once, as opposed to seeing only three performers when the club is up and running.

“We’re at 10 girls now, and that’s more girls in one show at Piranha than we’ve ever had,” Haire says.

Piranha airs its fourth episode Monday, May 4, and full episodes are uploaded on Vimeo to watch later.

“It’s interesting to think about how much content we’re putting out there and how much you can do in this situation,” Haire says. “We’re finding ways to engage in the community and show people that drag is still there to entertain you and cheer you up. A lot of people love to come to drag shows as a form of therapy, so if we can do that and entertain people on a Monday night, that’s our only goal. We’re trying to give the audience a virtual experience of Piranha they would normally get inside the club.”

Originally from Houston, Texas, Piranha queen London Adour has been at the Vegas club for four years. Not being able to perform was taking a toll on her physically and mentally, she says.

“Drag is what I do. It is my craft and my inspiration to be positive and happy in life.” Adour says. “About five days after quarantine was announced, I was just sitting there in my house and I was so depressed and sad. I’m a people person. I like to see people. Not being able to go out and do that was really putting me down.”

On the sixth day of quarantine, Adour decided to put on a show from her living room, she says. She grabbed some fluffy ruffled coats from her closet and used them as a backdrop, grabbed her ring light and duck-taped her phone to the wall.

“At that moment is when I realized this is a way I can express myself and get out of this depression hole,” Adour says. “I am a lot farther up above water than I was before.”

Another resident queen, Asia King Adour, says that doing the live stream has also helped her stay connected to the rest of the world.

“As a performer, it has helped a lot during the quarantine,” King Adour says. “I’m so bored, and actually getting ready and performing again really helped me to feel normal.”

For both queens, drag has reinforced the sense of community that was lacking when the shutdown began.

“The comments are so fun,” Adour says. “People will comment things like, “Oh my god, thank you so much for doing this show, I was literally just sitting here watching Tiger King for the third time,” or “My daughter is four and I could never take her to drag show, so this is such a great experience for her.”

Adour says the live streams are also reaching people who are sober and don’t go to clubs, or people in the straight community who might not usually go to Piranha.

“If someone comes across our video and shares it, it then gets shared to their friends and all of a sudden we’ve got heterosexual viewers, which is great, because, for the most part, it’s very positive,” Adour says. “We rarely have negative comments.”

Most people who watch the live stream, King Adour says, are regulars from the bar.

“A lot of the people who watch it are people we notice come to the club a lot,” King Adour says. “They’re very happy we’re putting this together, because it’s like a piece of the club they can watch through their phones.”

And while all of the queens are currently performing for free, it’s still encouraged to tip each girl, just as you would in the club.

“No one’s getting paid for this,” Haire says. “We’re all doing this out of pocket. We’re just a big group of people who, for the love of the entertainment industry, felt that this is something we should be doing.”

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