February 14, 2020

White River Junction, Vermont – CCS alumni Sasha Velour ′13, a gender-fluid drag queen and international icon, will deliver the commencement address to The Center for Cartoon Studies’ class of 2020. The Commencement Ceremony will take place on Saturday, May 2, 2020 at 11am, at The Barrette Center for The Arts in White River Junction, Vermont. Velour first began performing in drag in White River Junction.

Velour was the winner of season 9 of the Emmy Award-winning RuPaul’s Drag Race. Since winning, she has had top billing in drag shows around the world, including sold out solo appearances in New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, London, Toronto, Vancouver, and Auckland.  Her performances have been hailed as “expressionist performance-art illustration” by The New York Times and a “spellbinding tour de force” by Forbes.

Through her namesake production company, House of Velour, she has executive produced a TV show, a New York Fashion Week Show, a NYC World Pride float, a 300-page art book about drag, an off-broadway show, and an international stage tour, creating new business models for drag as art, which Fast Company says is “disrupting the business of drag.” Variety featured Velour in the “Power of New York 2019” list for her groundbreaking achievements in entertainment, and she has landed Out Magazine’s Out100 list twice. She has spoken at the Smithsonian and the Teen Vogue Summit, was commissioned by Google to draw the Google Doodle in honor of Marlene Deitrich and reached 1.6 Million followers on Instagram in 2019. She is currently in the middle of a 62-city world tour of her sensational solo theatrical work, Smoke & Mirrors, and is the Executive Producer of Night Gowns, a TV adaptation of her critically-acclaimed drag revue which will debut April 2020 on new streaming platform Quibi.

The Thesis Exhibition Opening is immediately following the ceremony and features original work by the graduating class. On display at The Center for Cartoon Studies Gallery at 94 South Main Street in White River Junction.

The Center for Cartoon Studies (CCS) is America’s premiere cartooning school and studio, located in the historic village of White River Junction, Vermont. Offering the Master of Fine Arts degree, One- and Two-Year Certificates, and summer workshops. Faculty and visiting artists include many of today’s most celebrated cartoonists. CCS has been featured in The New York Times, The Boston Globe, LA Times, and The Washington Post. For more information, visit: cartoonstudies.org