After making a name for herself across the country thanks to Canada’s Drag Race, Rita Baga is now making the entire planet her playground. In addition to hosting Drag Race Belgium, the Quebecer will host the biggest names in the industry on the Montreal Pride stage.
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• To read also: “The drag in me” lands at Crave by the end of the week
• Read also: Montreal Pride: Rita Baga to host “Drag Superstars”
“Things are going well, I’m really happy,” breathes Jean-François Guevremont, Rita Baga’s male alter ego.
In effect. Because his star now shines brightly, and not just in the skies of the metropolis. It was also when he got off the plane bringing him back from Belgium that he spoke with Le Journal on Monday evening.
Obviously kept secret by the production, Jean-François Guevremont can still confirm that he has just completed filming the first season of Drag Race Belgium – the new European version of RuPaul’s Drag Race – which he will now pilot. The release is scheduled for next year.
“Every day, I was like, ‘Well let’s see I’m going through this!’ I had a lot of fun working on it and I can’t wait for people to experience this season.”
Stage and TV
But until then, we will be able to find her Rita Baga from Sunday on the airwaves of Crave for the new series La drag en moi, a Quebec adaptation of the American format Dragnificient! Supported by two accomplices, she will offer each episode a metamorphosis to people wishing to mark an important turning point in their lives.
Would you rather see Rita Baga in her natural element, on stage? That’s good because tomorrow night she will be piloting the Drag Superstars show, a traditional Montreal Pride evening which is back in service after having seen its last two editions canceled by the pandemic.
This tradition, it is Jean-François Guevremont himself who implanted it in the heart of the metropolis. Then director of programming at Pride Montreal (he left his post to devote himself fully to the growing career of Rita Baga), he had the idea of bringing together the biggest stars of the world of drag on the same stage for the time of an evening set with rhinestones and sequins, stuffed with music and perilous choreography.
The project quickly exceeded the ambitions of its instigator, welcoming up to 23,000 spectators to the Parc des Faubourgs every summer. And Jean-François Guevremont even expects to break this attendance record on the new site, that of the Esplanade of the Olympic Stadium.
Effervescence
And why ? Because the 2022 edition now casts a wider net, welcoming on its stage drag stars who are just as worthy of this title, but who have not been propelled by the Drag Race locomotive.
“Drag Race definitely opened a lot of doors for drag artists. But today, there are more and more platforms and shows that put these artists forward and we had to reflect all the excitement and diversity of our community with this event,” explains Jean-François Guevremont. .
Thus, HercuSleaze (Call Me Mother), Sasha Baga and Pétula Claque (La drag en moi), Ada Vox (Queen of the Universe) and local legend Manny will tread the same boards as Kylie Sonique Love, Lawrence Chaney, Pythia, Tayce and other Ra’Jah O’Haras of this world.
►The Drag Superstars show will take place tomorrow evening, starting at 8 p.m., on the TD stage of the Esplanade at Place des arts.
