As “First Friday Street MRKT” roared to life in the SoFA District, which is located on First Street in Downtown San Jose, the Institute of Contemporary Art San Jose, in collaboration with the LGBTQ Youth Space, hosted a drag show outside the gallery. 

First Friday Street MRKT is a hyper-local nighttime urban fare that features artists, performers and indie creative businesses held on the first Friday of every month. 

Drag queens were introduced from a stage in front of the Institute of Contemporary Art San Jose, where they performed both on the stage and on the street in front of a crowd of about 30 attendees.

That was the first time that First Street had been closed all the way down to the Institute of Contemporary Art building.  

James Leventhal, Institute of Contemporary Art executive director and MC for the night, was there early and was excited to share the performance art of drag with more people.

“This is more about sort of mixing it in with other things that are going on on First Friday and trying to engage perhaps a slightly different, maybe more sort of happened chance kind of clientele,” Leventhal said.

Monarca Elezia, long-time drag performer and undocumented person, was the last to perform and took the opportunity to don a piñata-themed costume. 

“I think that for people who are unaccepting, or unwilling to learn and see that we are all diverse, especially the United States, that we all come from different backgrounds of cultures and religions, ” Elezia said. “I mean look at me, I’m a piñata today.”

Later on during the performance, drag queen Sis Phyllis came out during Elezia’s performance to knock off parts of the costume, which revealed candy hidden inside like any good piñata.

More recently, the art of drag has been a growing norm in popular culture in performance art as a form of expression and a way to explore identity. 

“I think that drag has always had that political edge to it and it’s always kind of had that and it’s gonna continue to have that because we are changing the way people perceive us in order to create art,” said Bella Dona La Botanica, the fifth performer of the night.