Anastasia Krystals on Flexibility, Drag, and Community

I had the pleasure of speaking with local drag queen Reace, AKA Anastasia Krystals (he/him outside of drag, she/her in drag), our cover model, both to learn more about her personally and to get to know her message and mission regarding drag, yoga, and how it can help the queer community. 

Though he was born and raised in Clearwater, Florida, Anastasia performs all over Denver. He moved here in 2007 to perform in a musical theater show in Fort Collins, and from there, he started performing in the Denver area. One of the performances that got him into drag and gave birth to Anastasia was playing the role Angel Schunard in Rent. Their group won a Henry Award, a Denver local theater award, for best ensemble. It shaped him both in the musical theater community and the queer community of Denver, 

“Obviously, Angel is a standout role, and it showed the town who I am,” he explains. 

Anastasia played many drag roles after that, including a “random role” in the ensemble Sister Act The Musical at the Arvada Center. 

“It’s always been a part of my style as an entertainer, I could play the effeminate in the show; I could play the drag queen and the femme characters. Really it wasn’t until I originated a role in 2017 at the Denver Center in a show called Drag On; I was Wonder Woman and Storm … I was these fun little excited pop-up drag characters,” she says of the beginning of her life as a drag queen, and the start of her career. It was also where she met her drag mentor, Shirley Delta Blow. What truly got her connected to Denver’s drag community was entering into Drag Olympics at Tracks Denver, which also hosted the likes of Yvie Oddly and Willow Pill. Drag Olympics launched her career, and she has been able to do it full time ever since. 

Musical theater was not only the inspiration of her drag career, but of her involvement with yoga as well. Before she was Anastasia full time, the cast for The Wedding Singer, which he was in, would go to yoga. It made him more flexible and a better dancer, with the added benefit of fulfilling something he didn’t know was missing. 

“It was pretty early on that I realized it was something I was not only good at, but something I realized I was lacking for many years of my life in the sense of spirituality … an understanding of that part of life. Having grown up very gay, very queer, very outside of the church, this was a nice way—and it was almost immediate—how happy it made me.” Reace has now been a yoga instructor for 15 years and teaches at several studios across Denver, including CorePower Yoga and Samadhi Yoga. 

Something he was keen on expressing was the power of yoga to help mental health and how the queer community can use that, especially during this election cycle and the approaching holidays. “As a queer person, I’ve always had an opportunity to essentially be available for how yoga can support people that are newly diagnosed with HIV, people that are going through mental health issues, people that are handling their body issues, people going through transition. Yoga can be so helpful for your mental health and mind and clarity.” 

Meditation and moving one’s body help relieve stress greatly, and while folks in the queer community are being stressed by life’s daily events, it is massively important to keep up with one’s mental health. Every week, he weaves in a theme during the classes. He gives the example of one of his lessons: “A yogic word, Ahimsa, which means nonviolence to yourself, which helps you practice nonviolence to others.” Ahimsa is meant to both help oneself calm down, and to stop oneself from radiating negative energy into the world. 

Yoga in the United States has been largely taken over by upper-class white people, but Reace and his fellow instructors and studios are working to break that barrier down here in Denver. He advocates for the safe-space yoga studios, saying, “A lot of queer people feel not as welcomed in many yogic spaces, but then I’m able to communicate immediately, ‘Oh, hey, go try out Courageous Yoga, which is run by a leader in the queer community; go check out Black Swan, which is a donation-based studio … being an advocate for the logical side of ‘it costs money, and I don’t feel comfortable with my body’… it is a very heteronormative affluent space, yoga has become, but at its core, yoga is for everybody, and yoga is free.” Courageous Yoga, which she mentions, has a sliding scale, donations-based payment plan. Whatever you decide to pay, from $18 up to $48, goes directly to your teacher. 

One studio he wanted to highlight was Ohana Yoga, run by Alyssa Manny, a friend she met as they became yoga teachers together. He also teaches at the studio once a week. Ohana is a female-centered studio that welcomes BIPOC and queer folks especially, looking to create a safe space for them to practice the craft. Of friend, owner, and founder Manny, she says, “She really is taking time to understand the appropriation of yoga and kind of backtrack and listen and hear from people in the BIPOC community and in the queer community, and how she can be an advocate for them in her studio.” 

One way that yoga helps him personally, and has for many years, is helping him stay grounded in his sobriety. Operating, and working largely in a nightlife environment is especially hard for sober people, and so much of queer life is at bars and clubs.  Not only is Anastasia advocating for queer folks to use it to help their mental health, but yoga studios that act as safe spaces can also help replace some of the pressure to drink. 

“I really appreciate that Denver, and the world at large, are having more mocktails and having more non-alcoholic options … I think it’s important that we see more visibility of sober queens.” She has been sober for five years, and as exciting as the nightlife can be, she’s also seen how it can negatively affect the queer community. “Throughout all of the drama of the drag world, yoga is what keeps me grounded.”

Anastasia Krystals performs weekly at the Champagne Tiger for pasta and piano nights on Wednesday, where you can hear her sing live, and for brunch on Sundays. In terms of yoga, Reace is launching NamaSLAY Nomads with fellow yoga instructor and bestie Jake Buchhiet, a queer focused online series and event platform coming later this year. Events and information will be announced on their instagram @namaslaynomads. 

At the time of this article, Anastasia recently opened for Alyssa Edwards at the Gothic Theater. Before that, she opened for Sapphira Cristal, runner up and Miss Congeniality on Season 16 of RuPaul’s Drag Race, and Todrick Hall. Aside from her amazing gigs as both yoga instructor and drag queen, she helped raise funds for Breast Cancer Awareness and domestic violence survivors recently. 

I thanked her for her time and am so grateful to have the opportunity to share her message, “Happiness is an Up Dog away!”

Photos courtesy of Ivy Owens