Two Halifax drag queens who have steadily turned their home into a production studio were recently rewarded for their efforts to keep the LGBTQ2+ community connected during the pandemic.
“We’re just basically putting Station Central out to the world and everybody who’s in it, all connects together and they all have a story,” Steve MacLeod, a.k.a. Deva Station, said.
Station Central is essentially an all-in-one theatre space, green room and home production studio.
Deva Station, along with her partner, Jake Rafuse, a.k.a. Dyna Might, has spent the last decade piecing together their in-home drag studio.
Their doors have always been open to the community and the space serves as an avenue for younger drag performers to learn the ropes.
Long before the pandemic hit, Deva Station regularly posted videos online ranging from wig tutorials to home cooking classes.
When COVID-19 locked down traditional drag performance venues, Deva Station and Dyna Might didn’t miss a beat reaching out to the community online.
“There are so many kids in this community that drag is their whole existence, drag is their everything and all of a sudden they had nowhere to perform,” MacLeod said.
They soon realized that their online audience was growing to include an international audience because people around the globe were thrilled to be able to watch drag performances during the pandemic.
“It’s not just whoever’s in the local bar with you that night — we were getting people watching the shows from around the world,” Rafuse said.
The queens were recently rewarded for their outreach during the pandemic by TD Bank’s #TDThanksYou campaign.
They received thousands of dollars worth of video production equipment to continue engaging with the LGBTQ2+ community and their allies through their online platform.
For these queens, it’s all part of their ongoing efforts to keep growing the community — from the stage to the world wide web.
“It’s giving the kids, we call them kids, and our extended family — a platform for them to be able to showcase themselves,” Rafuse said.