Life is a Drag!
Shanaya Bright (Nakia Moreno) laughs as the M.C. makes jokes while introducing her.
Text and photos by Ney Enrique Alvarez
Blush, eye lashes, lipstick and wigs. These are the tools of the trade for Nakia Eduardo Moreno and other drag queens who perform at Palace Bar in South Beach.
Each week they create lavish fantasies to entertain patrons at the restaurant while they eat and drink.
For Moreno, a 30-year-old ballet dancer who is known professionally today as Shanaya Bright, drag came as a necessity.
When he moved to Miami 13 years ago, he could not make a living as a dancer, he says. Later, at age 18, the opportunity showed up to perform at the Palace Bar. Since then, he has been part of the restaurant’s permanent crew of performers.
Nakia gets ready to put on the face of Shanaya
The process of "baking" the makeup takes around 40 min. Nakia starts this at home and does the final touches at the bar.
Nakia long time partner, Felix, is his main assistant backstage.
Shanaya is ready to take stage and feed the eyes of LGBT community members and curious that walk around Ocean Drive in Miami Beach.
Today, he is known as “The Queen of Costumes.” He designs and builds costumes for other performers, but during the week he works at Rosie Herrera Dance Theater in Miami, where his creativity is put to work as a set builder, a costume designer, a makeup artist, a wig creator and a performer.
Not all performers are like Moreno.
Some, make a living dressing as women in drag. Others, have full time jobs during the day. But, Moreno says, all of them work at coming up with ideas for costumes designs, songs and dance routines for performances, which take place from Thursday through Sunday, including during Palace Bar’s Brunchic at Ocean Drive.
Drag performers spend a lot of money on costumes, makeup and wigs, Moreno says. Each artist earns a different amount of money in tips. In the past, they made more and on a good day they could go home with $500 cash. Today it varies, Moreno says, and the money goes to pay rent and bills, but also to buy new fabrics for costumes, new wigs, makeup and accessories.
Performing at the Palace Bar is different then at other venues, he said. There, the artists are exposed to an international audience with different points of view and levels of acceptance. But most of those in the audience seem to be surprised by the experience of watching a man in a dress with big hair stopping traffic on Ocean Drive at lunchtime.
A friend shows Shanaya a video of her performance while she rests backstage.
In between shows, Shanaya mingle with the other perfomers and make sure everything is in place.
Shanaya Bright takes over Ocean Drive often. She likes to fly in between cars.
A tourist family looks at Shanaya Bright while she walks down Ocean Drive in one of her performance at Palace Bar
"Shanaya is more than just Nakia Moreno. She is also Felix, and other friends that make my team and help me to build costumes and get ready every time," says Moreno in this picture with Felix Miranda, a dancer he has been partnered to for 13 years. The two are planning to get married soon.
Shanaya Bright captures the attention of a little girl during one of her performance at Palace Bar for Halloween.
A good performance can generate good tips. Shanaya always tries to wow her audience.
Moreno rehears with Rosie Herrera Dance Theater at the Adrienne Arsht Center in Miami for an upcoming show.
As a dancer back in Colombia, Moreno, started his contact with performing arts. Here, he lifts one of the dancers during rehearsals.
Nakia Moreno, 30, takes a look of his big storage where he keeps all the fantasies he had created for Shanaya Bright.
