Onto a stage she slides, graceful and elegant, sequin-clad from head to toe. She sparkles in the spotlight, and she glows as the applause thunders. And then she crosses her eyes and makes a joke about pills and vertigo. She is Bianca.
In the Edmonton drag scene these past few years, there are some queens who truly stand out, whether for their looks, their talent, their humour, or their sheer pushiness. In Miss Bianca, Edmonton is blessed with a combination of all them. Known to most as simply Binki, Bianca has been doing drag since 1990, when her drag mother Molly Skidmark guided her onto stage at the Roost for a rendition of A Chorus Line’s “Dance 10, Looks 3”. Looking back, Binki says “it was a trainwreck. More like dance 3 looks 3”. She has come a long way since.
In her twenty-two years so far (and before that, even a five year old James was no stranger to his mom’s high heels), Binki has seen and accomplished much. From those first days at the Roost, through days at Fly Bar, 109 Discotheque, Buddys, Boots, Play, Flash, and Junction, this girl has made the rounds and paid her dues. For Binki, that drag career culminated with the Pride Celebration on the Square, the chance to not only give something back to the community as a whole, but also a sign that she had “made it”. Binki hosted Pride on the Square for six years, from 2005 with her Stardust-Lounge cohort Vanity Fair, and then the last few by herself.
Drag means a lot of things to a lot of people, freedom of expression, performance, a way to get people involved. To Binki, it’s magical at times. Drag has taught her what she can put up with, drag has taught her how to make people laugh. It has shaped who she is and what she stands for. “You are instantly known,” she says, “and people love you for something you created”.
Named after the Eva Gabor character from 1977’s “The Rescuers”, Bianca was nicknamed Binki by the infamous Kristy Krunt, who probably was too drunk to pronounce Bianca, Binki says. No one that has seen a Binki show would be surprised to learn that one of her role models is Diana Ross…the Boss. Ever since reading “All that Glitters” at twenty-three, Binki has seen Diana Ross as the ultimate in glamour, charisma, and versatility. With all the wigs, sequin gowns, false lashes and false tits that Diana Ross has worn since her days with the Supremes, she basically is a drag queen, Binki quips, and “one of the people that I try to be like.”
It hasn’t always been rosy though. It can also be very lonely. People that loved your last show don’t always want to give you a chance as boyfriend. There is a stigma surrounding drag queens, Binki notes, a stigma that they’re all drug addicts and crazy. “Sure I’m crazy,” she admits, “but in a fun way.” At times, James’ chance at love had to come before Binki’s chance at fame; at other times, the two were reversed. That lonely road that ended happily though; Binki and James have merged into someone who is now happily married, even if she did have to “mail order Terry from the mountains,” a place she hopes retire to in the next 10 years, just knitting on a houseboat in the Kootenays.
There have been other heartaches along the way, and hard lessons that had to be learned. Lessons about listening to other peoples’ opinions and simply “going with the flow” rather than speaking out and standing your ground. Lessons about the strength you need to survive all the shit that can go on in our community. Darker lessons, about losing friends along the way never having told them how much they matter to you. Frustrating lessons, about gay bars and their relationship with the queens who fill them.
This has frequently been a sore spot for Binki, who has hosted and starred in shows in so many past and current Edmonton clubs. She can get very frustrated with bars looking at queens in general as a dime a dozen, never seeming to acknowledge and accept the amount of work and money that goes into being a good queen, never seeming to appreciate fully that a packed club on a show night is due to the queens. Over the years, that attitude has persisted, but Binki and many of her generation of queens have outgrown it. They know their worth, and refuse to be degraded by bar owners that don’t have time for veteran, professional queens who have done so much in putting the Edmonton drag scene where it is today.
“I’d like to open up my own hole in the wall club,” Binki dreams, “a place where there is a little stage, some red velvet curtains and some candlelit tables where people, not just gay people, can come and enjoy a great little show!” Sadly, she goes on to admit that no one seems keen on doing anything about it, too content to complain, and to dream about a place, like the Roost, where we all really belong, queens and their audience.
The audience is one of the reasons Binki keeps coming back though, an audience that followed her from club to club these past years, as the Stardust Lounge created by her and Vanity relocated from Buddys to the Roost to Boots. Following a stint at Play with the Playgirls, the Stardust Lounge had a brief resurgence at Junction before the stars finally faded. Queens grow apart, and ego plays a part, Binki says, but the thing to remember is that we’re boys in dresses.
Have fun with drag, and the audience will have fun with you. They will let you know when something works, and when something does not work. “They are the greatest learning resource,” she says, “without them, I wouldn’t know what I know today.”
If Binki today could pass back some of that wisdom to the Binki from years ago, she would tell her that “fame is fickle.. it’s very fleeting. You’re only as good as your last number. Sadly, that’s the way it is for a queen. It seems like yesterday that I first did “Baby Love”… I just don’t know when it all happened. I don’t know when I got older. Suddenly, it’s all new again, and I seem to have misplaced my tambourine.”
Her most significant piece of advice to her younger self is something she would also pass on to Edmonton’s gay community in general. “You will meet some pretty incredible people along the way,” she says. “Remember to keep those people in your life. Cherish them, because you never know how long they will be there for”.
Originally published on QMagazine