Oh, the glamour!

MOVE spends a night with SoCo's Miranda L'Amour, and learns all about the art of the drag show.

By Kiran Kaur

Published Sept. 17, 2008

During the weekdays, Miranda L'Amour is known by her given name: Dustin Thomas Hampton. He's a MU graduate student studying psychology and working as the Education and Testing Coordinator for Rain of Central Missouri, an organization devoted to STD prevention and education.

Come the weekend though, it's time to ditch that stiff suit in favor of a more exuberant number. On Saturday night, L'Amour's bathroom/closet is transformed into a backstage dressing room. Theater makeup and brushes litter the area around the sink, and there's enough M.A.C. product to please even Fergie. "There's a saying in the drag world," L'Amour says. "Covergirl doesn't cover boy."

Most of the closet is dedicated to sequined and sparkled garb. Upper shelves house all different kinds of wigs on mannequin heads. L'Amour professes to have 15 or 20.

At the SoCo Club, the venue for tonight's drag performance, the atmosphere has changed in recent years. However, regular clubgoers sense something newly different about SoCo, and it's a change for the good.

"The whole dynamic of CoMO has changed," says Josh Schulte, 26, a club regular for the past eight years. "The music has changed. Kids come in, stay four years, and go out."

Schulte says that in past years the music was more techno, house and Madonna. Now, there's more hip-hop and more Top 40 music. And, just like most other bars and clubs in Columbia, Thursday night is the night to be at SoCo.

Although this particular night happens to be a Saturday night, L'Amour and the other queens still meticulously apply their makeup and fret over their song and dance moves. While L'Amour is getting ready, she is listening to her performance songs for the night, over and over. "So What!" by Pink comes on and she dances around the room.

Columbia seems like a good place for L'Amour. Growing up in southeast Missouri, L'Amour came out during her senior year of high school. After that, the General Baptist Church told her she couldn't sing anymore and she was not allowed to have any leadership positions there.

She began drag during her freshman year of college in 2003. It was a choice that contradicted a previous decision.

"I had originally never planned to do drag," she says. "Drag scared me."

The drag she experienced at home in southeast Missouri was unlike the drag here, which was the reason for her hesitance. At home, it involved taking hormones and getting implants. Here, however, it's just something fun for her to do on the side. "I live 99 percent of my life as Dustin," she says.

Drag changes the face, the body and the mindset. The queens generally like to emerge fully into the female character. Only then is the full-on drag ensemble truly believable.

L'Amour says she feels very ladylike and pretty, and moves a little more fluidly. Her extra-long eyelashes bat naturally as she blinks.

"Some people call me more bitchy," she admits. "I have a cutting sense of wit. People get upset if I'm giving them advice. It comes out like, 'You're really wearing that?'"

L'Amour's housemates agree with her on the bitchy part, but claim to be bitchier. They are also drag queens and are also getting ready for the big night out. Jason, who is Ginger Nicole for tonight, is L'Amour's partner of five and a half years.

L'Amour describes her start in drag as having "Mimi eyes," referring to the character of Mimi on "The Drew Carey Show." Humor aside, L'Amour struggled with trying to create an alternate personality and become comfortable with it.

"There were days I hated myself," she says. "I would see Dustin through my makeup and get flustered, angry, upset, throw things around and cry."

But things got better with time. Mentors assisted L'Amour in creating the persona, and they helped things along by congratulating her on the things she got right.

The whole experience clearly picked up for her when she became Miss City of Columbia last year. After enjoying nearly a year of the title and helping beginning queens starting out in drag, she will give it up in October.

She's not only helpful to aspiring queens. L'Amour creates the illusion of cleavage on her chest, drawing with panstick, which looks like foundation on a stick, and blending it in with a translucent powder to achieve the ultimate cleavage shadow. She says it's a technique available to girls as well.

"A lot of people ask me if I have real boobs," she says. "This demonstrates what drag is: putting on a layer and then covering it with something else."

She then begins to collect her things to take to the show. Her suitcase is packed with the usual - combs, safety pins and hairpins - and the not-so-usual - foam hips and overstuffed bras. She describes herself as more of a classic drag performer. She tries to put forth that old jazzy, classic Hollywood kind of character.

Then, ladies and gentlemen are introduced to the classy L'Amour.

At the SoCo Club, the atmosphere is relaxed and casual. Some of the queens say a lot of girls come here because they don't want to be hit on by guys. When the drag show starts, Atheena Voce, the night's emcee, calls out to the diverse crowd by saying, "If you're a straight lady, make some noise! If you're a heterosexual lady, make some noise!"

Finally, the show starts. Queens come out to song after song after song, performing to popular hits such as "Touch My Body," "When I Grow Up" and "Before He Cheats." The audience shows appreciation to each performer by stuffing money down her cleavage, singing and dancing along. While most of the performers lip sync, L'Amour comes onto stage for one of her songs, "The Rose," and sings it live. She is the only drag queen in Columbia who does so.

Like any other performer, she's got to please her fans. Her graduate school friends Gina Bickel and Jane Mittler have come out to see L'Amour and her housemates perform.

"We pretty much know half the show, so it's fun to come watch," Bickel says. Though they originally came out to see L'Amour and her housemates, they're getting more than they bargained for. Columbia is a small town, but this nightlife entertainment is wildly successful, especially because of the college students.

"SoCo drag is an incredible thing," Schulte says. "It's a college town. Anything can happen."