Culture

Stunning drag queens perform Lady Gaga’s Chromatica from start to finish – and it’s a masterpiece

Local drag queens in Perth, Australia, performed a number inspired by Lady Gaga's Chromatica and it deserves to win every single Tony award. (Screen capture via TikTok)

Local drag queens in Perth, Australia, performed a number inspired by Lady Gaga’s Chromatica and it deserves to win every single Tony award. (Screen capture via TikTok)

Over in Australia, where the coronavirus has been almost stamped out, a scene which is all but a dream to most of the world – a crowded drag performance to Lady Gaga at an LGBT+ bar.

Earlier this month, the Proud Awards 2020, which celebrates the local LGBT+ community, took over Connections Nightclub in the Northbridge neighbourhood and saw drag queens transport us, lowly citizens of Earth, to the planet Chromatica.

The group performed an entire production based on Lady Gaga’s album – seriously, where is Chromatica: The Musical already? – and footage of the night has gone viral on Twitter.

As the queens and leather pups swivel their hips and sashay, the video has come to be seen by viewers as a dreamy getaway to a not-so-distant past of ordering shots at a nightclub and watching drag queens do their thing.

Australian drag queens shimmy and sway to Lady Gaga as rest of the world refuses to even wear a mask.

Filmed by Anabelle Burton and uploaded to their TikTok account, the clip prompted a grab bag of emotions online. Especially from people and queer businesses based in countries suffering severe second or even third waves of the virus, yawning the gap even further between people and normality.

Even professional twunk and YouTube star Tyler Oakley echoed the sense of growing frustration and fatigue towards the ongoing pandemic ignited, in part, by what they see as fumbled leaderships that did not respond to the coronavirus with the starkness or alacrity that Australia did.

https://twitter.com/AarSim/status/1320561109896728577

https://twitter.com/clairecheramie/status/1320585144521162752

https://twitter.com/ThreeMoreDots/status/1320591966388637696

Flynn Vincent, one of the performers, took to Twitter to thank users for sharing the video.

“This show was so much fun to be a part of,” he said. “We performed the ENTIRE album for an annual awards night that celebrates our community and its queer performers/venues.

“This is what happens when you take covid seriously from day one.”

One of the performers, Perri Oxide, confirmed on Twitter Tuesday morning (October 27) that the group are working on a “full live HD version” of the number.

With its almost throwback democracy approach and fortified borders, Australian lawmakers and public health officials have managed to dramatically shave off the digits of the country’s coronavirus caseloads.

The model of recovery peddled by Australia – consistent information, strict and stretched-out state lockdowns and stonewalling its borders – helped soothe what could have been a swelling level of infections for 25 million-strong nation.

Australia was on track for 153,000 cases by April after doubling every three days, according to state health departments – at the time of writing, it sports around 27,000 total cases.

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