STASHA SANCHEZ
Our Star Beyond the Stage
by Xem VanAdams
Contributing Editor: Icon Mother Ayana Christian
Hailed in the ballroom community as an icon, godmother Garcon and celebrated internationally as a pageant queen, Stasha Sanchez has made an indubitable, beauty mark in the world. I had a chance to sit down with Stasha virtually from her Atlanta home one September evening. Coming off another long weekend of starring in a series of drag performances Stasha was still recovering.
In minimal to no makeup, face framed by long wavy tresses and adorned in a spaghetti strapped dress, Stasha appeared from beyond the autumn colored backdrop in her living room. A LED circle light illuminates her smooth, glowing skin.
Stasha flashes her signature, wide smile. The coffee-brown beauty was now ready.
When Stasha was asked to act as the matriarch for team Garcon on the second season of HBO Max’s Legendary Ballroom competition, she accepted with great pride. The House of Garcon board members handpicked Stasha to represent their team as the lead. Her experience with being on stage and performing in front of professional cameras made her a quintessential star for Garcon’s team. Not only did her time on Legendary help to amplify her professional resume, but this opportunity also created special moments of endearment and bonding with the younger stars and members of her House. As team Mother, she knew that it was important for her to elevate her Garcon kids to greatness, but also to listen to their thoughts and ideas each week of competition.
What she recalls being most proud of was the fact that the House of Garcon team embraced their challenges by using the production stage to tell stories that were creatively restless, stylistically adventurous, and uniquely Ballroom.
There were moments during the four months of filming where Stasha found herself nurturing her kids off set, whilst some of them endured the hardships of being away from family and friends for an extended period. Unbeknownst to the cast and crew members, Stasha herself would be back in her room checking in with her own ailing biological mother.
Having to balance her roles as a devoted daughter, the godmother of a Ballroom House, a businesswoman and the pursuit to be the Miss Continental pageant winner, may have possibly cost Stasha one of the lead roles on FX’s seminal series, POSE. Stasha had an opportunity to audition virtually for one of the main characters who fans grew to love throughout POSE’s three season run. However, it would be the inability to successfully navigate technology in the recording and submission of her audition reel while also on the road that would pose the greater obstacle.
Stasha takes it all in stride.
I asked her about her thoughts on the ways in which Ballroom’s mother figures and other transgender women were depicted on POSE, namely around the idea that writers sometimes took screenplay liberties that romanticized their real lived experiences. She commented about the intricate and sometimes fanciful stories that POSE shared about transgender women; “the show gives hope to the community, if you keep pushing.” In seasons one and two of POSE, Stasha states unarguably that the plots really uncovered the stories of things that happened inside real Ballroom life. Despite the universe pushing Stasha to win Miss Continental as opposed to possibly winning an Emmy for her portrayal as a character on POSE, she appears to be quite pleased with the ways in which the transgender Ballroom community was portrayed.
Though Stasha’s career in entertainment has afforded her the opportunity to travel across the globe, she was born into a rather traditional family unit in Florida. Raised under the guardianship of both her mother and father, Stasha knew from pubescence that she was different from many of the children in Jacksonville. As a member of her church choir, The Gospel Crusaders, Stasha quickly began developing her knack for performing in front of large audiences.
At home, she maintained a close relationship with both of her parents. It was her mom however who she truly idolized.
Stasha describes her mother as, “a very glamorous lady.”
She watched her mother put on makeup each day before she left the house. She would be adorned in heels and flowing dresses, with her loose coiled hair blowing behind her. Her mother was a beautician. Stasha knew from seeing her mother’s overall beauty and witnessing firsthand the poise and decorum her mother exuded, that she too would blossom into a living doll herself.
In order to feel fully comfortable, Stasha soon abandoned her hometown. She sought refuge among her growing, extended family in Orlando, Florida.
It was here Stasha would begin living in her truth and identifying full-time as the woman who has captivated spectators of Ballroom, drag show lovers and fans of Legendary.
Walking Balls for the past two decades, Stasha says she hopes to see Legendary geared in a broader direction. While some television viewers think that they are truly watching Ballroom in full production, Stasha recognizes Legendary as, “a competition about Ballroom.” As Stasha sees the series focus heavily on duck walks, dipping and spinning, she’d appreciate if the producers also incorporated focus on the glamour of the face category, as well as the other primary categories that comprise the essence of Ballroom.
Stasha reflects on her early days as a Mugler, and says for her, walking a Ball and being a part of Ballroom was like, “a livelihood of what we wanted in life.” In her experiences, Ballroom isn’t simply about the voguing. She’d like to see the various Houses tasked with creating a cohesive, fashion look that would act as visual narration of the given show themes. Stasha mentioned fashion and bazaar as being two categories that could possibly evoke the traditional, Ballroom more if included in future seasons of Legendary.
Stasha has earned the right to hold tight to pieces of the glass ceilings that she has helped shatter. For the girls coming behind her, Stasha’s contributions to Ballroom and pageantry has made it possible for future generations to see that they can survive the perils of the world by believing in themselves, their dreams and honing what is their own talents.
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IG: @STAHAANCHEZ
