Ballroom Scene: From Underground Vogue to Mainstream 1920-2020

From

Groovy disco ball retro saturday night bee. Unknown author From the book “Legendary: Inside the House Ballroom Scene”. Gerard H. Gaskin

the book “Legendary: Inside the House Ballroom Scene”. Gerard H. Gaskin

Vanessa Mizhari serving face. From the book “Legendary: Inside the House Ballroom Scene”. Gerard H. Gaskin

Baby at the Tony Andrea and Eric Ball, Brooklyn, New York City, 2000. Gerard H. Gaskin

Prejudice, discrimination, and racism are, unfor tunately, very common and still current subjects nowadays, as well as topics related to gender identity and fight for equal rights. Vogue, a dance originated in the Harlem neighborhood of New York City, was created in the 1960s by Afro and Latin American members of the LGBTQIA+ community, with the purpose of deconstructing cer tain preconceived ideas and opening some minds about issues that are still so contemporary, such as racism, homophobia, or transphobia.

The present book aims to explore the sub ject of vogue and ballroom scene, the underground subculture to which it belongs. An anthology or edited volume that seeks to bring together not only a collection of texts considered essential to the understanding of ballroom culture, but also a selection of images that resume and illustrate the movement from the time of its conception to its rise to mainstream culture.

Developed as a research project in the con text of the Master's Degree in Graphic Design and Editorial Projects, of the Faculty of Fine Arts of the University of Porto and having as advisor Professor Rui Paulo Vitorino dos Santos, the purpose of this project is to be a compilation of material from different sources which best summarize and explain the ballroom movement. For that we have chosen a bunch of authors who, in our opinion, best describe vogue and its subculture. Since the goal was to faithfully represent this subculture, it was important that this selection included authors who belong to the ballroom, LGBTQIA+ and/or Afro-Latin American community.

Authors such as Thad Morgan, an African-American writer and digital producer; Tim Lawrence, a writer and DJ who used to frequent New York's nightlife in the 1990s; Joey Levenson, a non-binary and queer writer; Lola Ogunnaike, an African-American journalist; Sandra Guzman a pioneering Indigenous Caribbean born storytel ler, culture writer, and documentary filmmaker; Julianne Escobedo Sheperd, a Xicana writer, reporter and editor; Sophie-Yukiko Hasters, a

writer and dancer from the House of St. Laurent; Kenya Hunt, an African-American writer, editor, author and creative consultant; Benji Hart, an edu cator, artist, and abolitionist; Michael Roberson, a member of the Haus of Maison-Margiela; and Stephaun Elite Wallace, a Ballroom Icon of The Legendary House of Blahnik, to name a few.

In addition to this variety of authors, this book has an introduction written by me, the edi tor. Besides the introduction, which in a few words aims to explain what this dance and respective subculture are, this anthology also includes a brief history and genealogy of vogue, as well as chapters where its different styles, associated problems, personalities, and places where it was (and continues to be) practiced are presented. At the end, it also features a list of terminologies, categories, as well as places, houses and perso nalities related to this culture.

Through a point of view of a graphic desig ner, that is at the same time author and editor, the main purpose of this artifact is to affirm the role of graphic design as a tool that enhances different views on what may be considered marginal, sub culture, or counterculture, through a publication that gives it visibility and values the plurality of its manifestations and its members, from a collection of texts and images that we consider fundamental to understand the history and the importance of the movement in the present.

Deep in Vogue

Elements of Vogue

References

Mariana Braga

Thad Morgan

Tim Lawrence

Philippe from Barcelona Dance

Joey Levenson

Andy Thomas

Tim Lawrence

Lola Ogunnaike

Terry Monaghan / Sandra Guzman

Julianne Escobedo Shepherd

Gran Varones

Miss Rosen / Brittany Natale

Allyn Gaestel / Sophie-Yukiko Hasters / Juule Kay

Kenya Hunt / Daphne Milner / Rachel Hahn

Jocelyn Silver / Michelle Lhooq / Benji Hart and Michael Roberson

Mariana Braga

Stephaun Elite Wallace Mariana Braga

Introduction

× History

× Genealogy

Vogue and Waacking NYC and the Ballroom Scene

On the Dancefloor Vogue Tracks

Willi Ninja, the Godfather of Vogue Into the Mainstream Vogue Styles

The AIDS Crisis The Club Kids Vogue Around the World Vogue Into Fashion American Vogue Today

Terminology

Categories

Listing

× Ballrooms

× Clubs

× Houses

× Personalities – DJ’s Photographers – Main Personalities

Bibliography

30 36 44 52 66 92 102 108 122 130 136 160 184 210 244 248 256 256 256 256 257 257 257 258 268

Love is the

Introduction

Vogue, which is also referred to as voguing, is a dance style created by young Afro and Latin American, members of the Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender Queer 1 Intersex Asexual Plus (LGBTQIA+) community, mainly transgender women and gay men, in Harlem, New York City. This style became popular in the nineties of the twentieth century, mainly due to Madonna's single Vogue (1990) and Jennie Livingston's documen tary Paris Is Burning (1991).

Its origin is still considered slightly unclear, with opinions that differ regarding the place and year of its appearance. Tim Lawrence (2018), in the introduction of the book Voguing and the House of Ballroom Scene of New York City 198992, mentions that vogue started from the drag queens2 ritual of throwing "shade" (p.5) in other words, from their habit of subtly insulting each other. According to David DePino, the alternate DJ at Paradise Garage3 and the DJ of the House of Xtravaganza4:

'It all started at an after-hours club called Footsteps on 2nd Avenue and 14th Street, [...] Paris Dupree was there and a bunch of these black queens were throwing shade at each other. Paris had a Vogue magazine in her bag, and while she was dancing, she took it out, opened it up to a page where a model was posing and then stopped in that pose on the beat. Then she turned to the next page and stopped in the new pose, again on the beat.' The provocation was returned in kind. 'Another queen came up and did another pose in front of Paris, and then Paris went in front of her and did another pose,' adds DePino. 'This was all shade-they were trying to make a prettier pose than each other-and it soon caught on at the balls. At first, they called it posing and then, because it started from Vogue magazine, they called it voguing' (as cited in Lawrence, 2018, p. 5).

Another possible explanation for its origin is that it was created by the homosexual inmates of Rickers Island prison in New York, 'who exchan ged shade and poses as a way of whiling away the hours' (Lawrence, 2018, p. 5). According to Kevin Ultra Omni, a veteran of the ballroom scene, "Maybe they didn't have a name for it, but that's what they were doing, or so it's said " (as cited in Lawrence, 2018, p. 5). As described in this same text, Omni acknowledges Paris as the pioneer of the style, but he believes that it existed in some other form through other people, as he also argues that many of the poses have their origins in African art and Egyptian hieroglyphics (idem).

An alternative genealogy of vogue, des cribed by Thad Morgan (2021), refers to the end of the 19th century, when in Harlem, at Hamilton Lodge No. 710 drag balls were held. These drag balls were events where drag queens, usually men dressed as women, but also the opposite, would compete to achieve miss titles. These events were more than mere competitions, a spectator of the Hamilton Lodge Ball described them as spaces "for a grand jamboree of dancing, love making, display, rivalry, drinking, and advertisement"(as cited in Contributors, 2012).

Their contestants were quite eclectic in eth nicity, gender and sexual orientation, however men who dressed as women were the main attraction (Morgan, 2021). Although these pageants were interracial, white contestants were generally favo red (idem). For this same reason, in the early 1970s, Crystal LaBeija, a black transgender woman, who used to participate in these drag balls, influenced by her friend Lottie LaBeija, decided to create her own ball. With her first ball also came the first house, the House of LaBeija, with Crystal as mother5 (ibidem), despite Tim Lawrence descri bing Marcel Christian as the possible creator of the first black ball in 1962 (Lawrence, 2018, p. 5). There are also those who argue ano ther version regarding the creation of the first house, Kevin Ultra Omni believes that it was called Brooklyn Ladies, was created in 1970 by Miss

Paris, Pepper and Lottie and that House of LaBeija was only founded in 1977 by Pepper and Lottie, with Crystal assuming the mother role and Pepper assuming the same role in 1982 (Omni, as cited in Regnault, 2018, p. 61).

In the article Queens and queers: The rise of drag ball culture in the 1920s (2016), Oliver Stabbe states that in the beginning, despite their popularity, drag balls were considered illegal and immoral by most of society. However, since the 1920s they have gained visibility and started to attract heterosexual audiences as well, although strai ght artists, writers and ball appreciators outside the lgbt community frequented these spectacles due to their renowned reputation.

From the beginning, the ballroom scene, an expression com monly used to refer to the subculture to which vogue belongs, has emerged as an inclusive space, not only for people belonging to queer, black and Latino communities, but also for those who respect it and who recognize it as a space for family and self-expression. Chantal Regnault is a Parisian photographer who documented through photography ballroom culture from the late 1980s to the early 1990s. According to Joey Levenson (2021), despite being a straight cisgender woman, Chantal was welcomed, encouraged, and admired by vogue dancers and by the ballroom family.

Vogue is a very eclectic style, as it is formed by a fusion of the most diverse influences, from urban dances to classical and contemporary ballet or even African art. "Hieroglyphics, Olympic gymnastics, and Asian culture, mixed with the greats, like Fred Astaire", are described by Messy Nessy in the article Meet the Godfather of Voguing (2018) as the influences of Willi Ninja, a young dancer of Afro-Latin descent, proclaimed the godfather of vogue. For this very reason, and since it is a style that was born in an urban and underground context, it is understandable that there is no clear definition when it comes to the exact moment of its creation. It's possible that all the stories that try to date the appearance of the style are real and that the creation of this dance didn't have an exact moment, but a bunch of contemporary events that justify it.

1. Gender identity or sexual orientation that is not considered traditional, normative or majority (Priberam Dictionary, n.d.).

2. A person who ostentatiously dresses in feminine clothes, uses make-up in an extravagant way, is very expressive in his or her gestures and normally presents himself or herself as an artist in shows, parties, concerts, etc. (Dicio, n.d.).

3. The Paradise Garage, also known as "the Garage" or "Gay-rage", was a New York City nightclub notable in the history of dance and pop music, as well as to LGBT and nightclub culture. Founded in 1977 by its sole proprietor Michael Brody it was initially located in a building at 84 King Street in the SoHo neighborhood. It operated until 1987 and featured notable resident DJ Larry Levan ("Paradise Garage", n.d.).

4. Founded in 1982 by Hector Valle, a homosexual of Puerto Rican descent, House of Xtravaganza is one of the best known and oldest houses of the New York underground ballroom scene, still active to this day. Its members, of predominantly Latino origin, are renowned for their cultural influence in the domains of dance, music, visual arts, nightlife, fashion, and community activism. Today they continue to be represented by the media and travel the world as ambassadors of the vogue and ballroom scene ("House of Xtravaganza", n.d.).

5. The role of mother is the role played by the member of the house who has the function of managing the family and responsibility for its descendants, also referred to as children.

Ballroom legends of Atlanta’s underground voguing scene, 2018. Christian Cody

Mariana Braga

Ballroom legend of Atlanta’s underground voguing scene, 2018. Christian Cody

Willi Ninja. By: Andrew Eccles

Barbara Tucker. By: Andrew Eccles

By: Andrew Eccles

Bravo Lafortune and Barbara Tucker.

Bravo Lafortune. By: Andrew Eccles

Archie Burnett. By: Andrew Eccles

Archie Burnett, Bravo Lafortune, Barbara Tucker and Willi Ninja. By: Andrew Eccles

Drag performers competing on stage during a beauty contest. Miss Manhattan, Miss New York, Miss Delaware County, Miss Brooklyn, and Miss Fire Island. New York, February 20, 1967. Fred W. McDarrah

In the early 1970s, Black and Latinx gay, trans and queer people developed a thriving subculture in house balls, where they could express themselves freely and find acceptance within a margina lized community. It was here where the world of drag pageantry, which often favored white contestants, evolved into competitions that spanned a variety of categories, including “vogue” battles. All these events can trace their origins as far back as the late 1800s.

Harlem’s Hamilton Lodge No. 710 hosted regular drag balls during the post-Civil War era. Attendees varied in race, gender, and sex — with some women taking part by wearing men’s clothes — but the main attractions were female impersonators who showed off their gowns and bodies to a panel of judges as if they were in typical fashion pageants.

As these balls continued for decades, they grew in popu larity — and notoriety. By the early 20th century, drag balls were considered illegal and taboo to the outside world. That drove the competitions underground (and undoubtedly added to their appeal). Spectators for drag balls expanded from “a few courageous spec tators” in the 1800s, to thousands by the 1930s, according to a collection of essays about the balls at the New York Public Library.

The growing freedom and expression of Black culture during the Harlem Renaissance also fueled the burgeoning drag ball scene into the 1920s. The era not only allowed African American artists — from painters and authors to dancers and musicians — to expe riment with and reinvent their crafts, it also saw popular Black artists experience and explore gender, sex and sexuality like never before. “Langston Hughes has gone on the record, talking about his expe riences attending events where men were dressed as women, and all of that,” says Julian Kevon Glover, assistant professor of Gender, Sexuality and Women’s Studies and Dance and Choreography at Virginia Commonwealth University.

Although drag balls were interracial at the Hamilton Lodge, prejudices were still at play. Judges generally favored white, Eurocentric features. It wasn’t until 1936 — 69 years after their first ball, with an attendance of 8,000 spectators — that a Black contestant took home the top prize for the first time. As the balls expanded to other major cities in the early to mid-20th century, racial bias in judging continued.

When a white contestant, Miss Philadelphia Rachel Harlow, took the crown in the 1967 Miss All-America Camp Beauty Pageant, Black contestant Crystal LaBeija, representing Manhattan, claimed the judges had discriminated against Black and Latinx contestants and that the pageant was rigged. “She can’t help it. Because you’re beautiful and young, you deserve to have the best in life, but you

Crystal LaBeija (left) in a still from The Queen (1968), directed by Frank Simon. Grove Press/Photofest

Thad Morgan

didn’t deserve… I didn’t say she’s not beautiful, but she wasn’t looking beautiful tonight,” LaBeija said about Harlow’s crowning.

LaBeija refused to participate in other drag pageants, but she didn’t exit the ballroom scene altogether. In the early 1970s, Harlem drag queen Lottie LaBeija convinced Crystal to promote her own ball. Crystal agreed, and the House of LaBeija — the first ever ballroom “house” — was born, with Crystal at the helm as the “mother.”

From its inception, ballroom houses offe red security for Black and Latinx queer, gay and trans people. These houses became more like families than teams, led by house “mothers” or house “fathers” to guide and groom their house “children” for the world.

“In ballroom, houses offer the primary infrastructure upon which the scene is built,” explains Glover. “It provides the basic kind of kinship struc ture, and demonstrates alternative possibilities for what kinship can look like. Moving away from this reliance on one's biological family, and complica ting ideas of a family of choice.”

Crystal and Lottie went on to host the first house ball in Harlem in the early 1970s, entitling it “Crystal & Lottie LaBeija presents the first annual House of LaBeija Ball.” The ball, designed exclu sively for Black and Latinx trans, gay and queer people, was a success. The house ball and the House of Labeija inspired many other prominent figures in the ballroom world to create houses of their own throughout the 1970s and beyond.

“Other trans women — some of them would never call themselves trans — the Pepper LaBeija, the Dorian Corey… Houses begin to be named after these women,” says Michael Roberson, resident of the Center for Race, Religion and Economic Democracy (CRRED) and founder of the House of Marison-Margiela.

House ballroom further differentiated from drag balls in 1973, when Erskine Christian became the first gay man to compete, according to Roberson. This signified a shift from trans women and female-presenting people in house ballroom

to the inclusion of gay men and male-presenting people in houses and house ballroom. “And you begin to see the shift again from mother-children to mother-father-children, so men begin to parti cipate. And so, ballroom morphs from drag ball to a house ball,” Roberson says.

Instead of the pageant-style of competition in drag balls, house balls held competitions between houses by categories. Categories range from face (the judging of a house mem bers’ beauty) to body (the appreciation of a house members’ curves), to runway, to performances including vogue.

Vogue is a type of improvisational dance inspired by the poses of models in fashion maga zines. The dance style originated within the world of gay and trans Black people, but its exact origins remain unclear. According to Roberson, some believe that Paris Dupree — a pioneer in the house ballroom scene — created vogue, while others believe that it was created by a Black gay or trans person in the New York City jail complex at Rikers Island. Willi Ninja, another legendary member of the house ball community, has also been referred to as the “Godfather of Voguing.” Regardless of its creator, the art form had another name before it was called vogue.

“Really, vogue was called pop, dip and spin,” explains Roberson. “And it's in relationship to break dancing. But when people who were double jointed, who were acrobatic, started putting that in their vogues, then they wanted to call it a new way of voguing, and call pop, dip and spin, old way.”

This “old way” of pop, dip and spin vogue dates back to the 1970s and 1980s. Then other elements of the dance were ushered in during the early 1990s, to form two new types of vogue dan cing, called “new way” and “vogue fem.”

While new way is characterized by precise movement of the arms, wrists and hands, vogue fem is broken down into either fast, angular move ments or much slower, sensual and deliberate movements. The five fundamental elements of vogue fem include hands, catwalk, duckwalk,

spins and dips (which are often erroneously refer red to as “shablams” or “death drops”) and floor performance, according to Glover.

Willi Ninja described voguing as a way of throwing shade, or criticizing, opponents on the dance floor, in the 1990 documentary “Paris is Burning.” But, beyond a dance style and competition, voguing came to represent much more. “Voguing is very much about telling one's story through movement... And that for me, because of who is doing it, is very much an act of resistance to an entire world that not only tells us that our lives are devoid of meaning, but also tells us that we have nothing to contribute,” says Glover. “It's a kind of resistance, an embodied kind of resistance, to these cultural messages. To say, ‘No, I have a story to tell, and my story is going to be so convincing, that in this particular atmosphere you're going to be able to clearly understand what it is that I'm saying.”

Voguing as a form of expression became more mainstream with the release of media like Madonna’s song, “Vogue” and the documen tary, “Paris is Burning,” released in 1990 and 1991, respectively. Madonna’s “Vogue” paid tribute to ballroom and featured voguers such as José Gutierez Xtravaganza and Luis Camacho Xtravaganza in the video. However, Madonna was accused of culturally appropriating a culture that she had no claim to and turning a rich history of vogue into a fad.

“Paris is Burning” took viewers directly inside the ballroom scene. Filmmaker Jennie Livingston began filming the events after seeing people voguing in New York City’s West Village. The film is often referenced within the LGBTQ+ community and beyond. The ballroom term “throwing shade” was even added to MerriamWebster’s dictionary in 2017. But Livingston, as a queer white woman, has been accused of enabling cultural appropriation through her documentation of house balls. Several participants in the docu mentary also threatened to sue after not receiving compensation following the success of the film.

Glimpses of ballroom culture continued to permeate mainstream spaces more prominently since the early 1990s, through television series such as RuPaul’s Drag Race, which premiered in 2009; the MTV series America’s Best Dance Crew, featuring trans Black voguer Leiomy Maldonado in 2009; and Ryan Murphy’s Pose in 2019, which featured a scripted take on the house ballroom scene and included the most trans actors in tele vision history.

Glover says they expect ballroom culture to continue to evolve as a vital element of the Black queer community — and periodically influence broader audiences. “I think about ballroom as being a whale,” Glover says. “It primarily dwells deep, deep, deep in the ocean. But there are moments when the scene comes up for air and emerges through the water, making a splash within the popular culture scene before returning to the oceans depths while those on the surface feel its ripples for quite some time.”

Magazine photos of drag queens preparing for a performance in the “Female Mimics,” volume 5, issue 3, from 1974. This magazine covered drag culture, detailed new hotspots for performances, and gave amateur performers tips on makeup, clothes, and more. Photos from the museum’s LGBTQ collection

Harlem nightclub dancers, 1937. Aaron Siskind

× Genealogy

Paris Dupree, the drag who created the ball “Paris Is Burning”, from which the iconic documentary drew its name, poses during a phoshoot for the 1995 COLOURS Organization calendar. Dupree grew up in Philadelphia and later moved to New York. The COLOURS Organization

Tim Lawrence

Growing out of the drag queen ritual of throwing “shade”, or subtly insulting another queen, voguing can be traced back to the early 1970s. “It all started at an after-hours club called Footsteps on 2nd Avenue and 14th Street,” says David DePino, the alternate DJ at the Paradise Garage, and a DJ for the House of Xtravaganza, the first all-Latin drag house. “Paris Dupree was there, and a bunch of these black queens were throwing shade at each other. Paris had a Vogue magazine in her bag, and while she was dancing, she took it out, opened it up to a page where a model was posing and then stopped in that pose on the beat. Then she turned to the next page and stopped in the new pose, again on the beat.” The provocation was returned in kind. “Another queen came up and did another pose in front of Paris, and then Paris went in front of her and did another pose,” adds DePino. “This was all shade—they were trying to make a prettier pose than each other—and it soon caught on at the balls. At first, they called it posing and then, because it started from Vogue magazine, they called it voguing.”

An alternative genealogy has it that the dance style was forged by the black gay inmates of Rickers Island, a New York City jail, who exchanged shade and poses as a way of whiling away the hours. “Maybe they didn’t have a name for it, but that’s what they were doing, or so it’s said,” comments Kevin Ultra Omni, head of the House of Omni and a veteran of the scene. “I know Paris was an early pioneer of voguing. But I believe that vogue existed in some other form through other people as well. I also think that a lot of voguing poses come from African art and Egyptian hieroglyphics.”

Taking their moves into New York’s disco theques and bars, voguers steered clear of the centre of the floor, where the concentration of dancing bodies would be at its most concentrated and the intensity of the party felt at its strongest. Instead, they headed to the periphery of the floor, or even a back-room area, where they would find more space to execute their moves and, perhaps more importantly, enjoy the kind of space that

would enable them to see and be seen. The honing of skills continued on the West Side Piers, where drag queens hung out in houses, or extended non -nuclear families that were organized by mothers and fathers who would take care of their children and help them prepare for drag balls. Held once a month, the balls were extravagant affairs that enabled houses to compete with one another across a range of categories. The emphasis placed on dressing, walking, and posing also meant they doubled as a place where drag queens further honed their voguing skills.

One of the earliest discotheques to attract a black gay crowd, Better Days contained a main dance floor where the legendary Tee Scott played a mix of hardened funk and disco, and a back room, where dancers would head if they fancied a break or a spot of cruising or a chance to dance the hustle. It was there that Omni noticed voguers modelling in front of what might have been an ima ginary mirror, styling and posing in time with the music, turning a hat sideways before bringing it back, and pivoting with grace, “all to the beat”. “I met Paris in 1975,” says Omni, “and I remember her in Better Days, posing on the back dance floor and throwing shade.”

Having focused on striking poses as if they were fashion models, voguers began to introduce contorted, jerky, slicing moves into their repertoire after they became familiar with the swift, angular movements of Bruce Lee and his co-stars while working trade inside Times Square’s porn cine mas, or heading there after a night’s work to get some rest. “Hand movements, posture, attitude and presence were most important,” Willi Ninja, the founding mother of the House of Ninja, com mented in 1994. “Then people started doing splits, and Hector [Xtravaganza] and I started disloca ting our arms and doing what they now call ‘arm clicking’, where you’re dislocating the arms and doing cartwheels and aerials. And then I began combining martial arts movies.”

Ninja, who also took inspiration from the Asian neighborhood where he grew up, adds: “The

Vogue Cover, July 1, 1967. From the Vogue Magazine Archive

dance takes on many forms. It combines a little technical dance, from, say, jazz and ballet, with acrobatics. As for my own form, it has as much to do with watching Indian and martial arts movies and fashion shows and putting bits and pieces together. There’s Latin base, which is the flowing movements, and then there’s the African base, which is the hard, strong, blocking and clicking.”

The outlook of voguers was improbably close to those of the breakers who started to hone their style in the Bronx in the second half of the 1970s. Both sets of dancers developed their skills through a mix of competition, athleticism, and an impulse to be noticed rather than to blend into the crowd (the aim of most partygoers of the era). In addition, the voguing technique of throwing shade was matched by the breaker turn to burning, or the miming of miming attacks and insults. But while both sets of dancers were committed to “keeping it real”, their understanding of what that involved contrasted radi cally, for while hip hop realness was grounded in the idea of urban authenticity, voguers viewed it as an ability to pass as someone they weren’t, or to perform drag effectively. Moreover, the societal status of the sexual preferences that underscored these differences led breakers to dance in public settings, often in broad daylight, while voguers headed to the abandoned piers or the clandestine spaces of gay-driven dance venues and drag balls.

The article “Fashion to Enjoy - the Price Is Right - the Girls Is Cher”. November 1, 1969. From the Vogue Magazine Archive

The article “Looks We Love Right Now in U.S. Fabrics”. January 15, 1969. From the Vogue Magazine Archive

Tim Lawrence

Deep in

Vogue

Vogue and Waacking

Tyrone 'The Bone' Proctor belong to the first generation of Waackers that came out in L.A. in the early 70's. He was a member of the 'Outrageous Waack Dancers' with Jeffrey Daniel, Jody Watley, Sharon Hill, Cleveland Moses Jr and Kirt Washington. Tyrone is one of the last of the pioneers who named this dance style. This is a great honor an opportunity to spend some time with him to clarify some points about waacking while answering a few questions.

'How, when and where did the 'Waacking' style was born?'

'Waacking came from the gay community in the early 70's on the West Coast and it evolved from what the gay community was doing all along. At this time no one could imagine that this dance would be so popular as it is today. The dance was mainly danced by The Black and Spanish Community. It evolved from two things, Drag Queens performing, and Still Pictures and Musicals of old Females Stars from the 1920's to the 60's icons like: Greta Garbo's, Rita Haywards, and Marilyn Monroe to name a few.

The word from what I remember, came from me when I was describing the movement, I always told the people that when you wanted to move, you had to 'Waack' your arm, Jeffrey Daniels then told me that we had to put 2 a 's instead of one because we didn’t want to get it confused with the word 'wack' in English, means some thing that is not good. This way with 2 a 's we gave this word could have an all-other meaning.

Tyrone Proctor and dance partner Sharon Hill. By: Jeffrey Daniel

Early 70s in the gay clubs were: The Paradise Ballroom, Gino's 1, Gino's 2, The Other Side, The Gas Station to name a few, where lots of dancers could be seen doing the style that will be called later Waacking or Punking. Some of these dancers would appear on Soul Train's. The dance moves you would see in the clubs would always end up on 'Soul Train'.

To name some of the first generation: Lamont Peterson, Blinky, Micky, Andrew Frank, David Vincent, Arthur, Tinker, John Pickett, Gary Keys, Dewayne Hargrave, Billy Goodson, Billy Starr, Lonnie (gymnastics), Abe Clark, Michael Angelo, and many, many more...'.

'What is 'Punking'?'

'To make a long story short, punking is a straight person's version of Waacking. Outside of the locker Tony Basil, there were a few straight people going to gay clubs and literally sit and watch them do the dance and while they were doing that it ena bled them to perfectionate the dance themselves.

There was a difference in the way the dan cers would dress: About the dress, Andrew would wear big, oversized Jackets to add more movement to Waacking. Arthur would like to wear high boots with his pants inside the boots. Tinker would like to wear tight shirts with short sleeves roll up or just cut off. The Women of Soul train would wear high heels and full skirts so when they turn the skirt would fly up to the beat.

Punking, the dancers would dress up like in the 40’s with high wasted baggy pants, tight shirt with big hats. Also, the Waacking style was a lot more emotional. Punking is more smooth and precision orientated.

'Is there a link between 'Locking' & 'Waacking'?'

'Many people think that Waacking started with Locking, and this is not true. You have to unders tand the climate back then, Waacking was danced by people who were not socially tolerated, it came with a different music style: the Disco. The Waacking scene was underground, and nothing came out mostly because people would be label led as 'gay'.

Tyrone believes That when the Gay Community abandoned Waacking in the late 70's that same time people were being introduce to a dance called Locking and some of the people who had been teaching Locking were also teaching Punking at the same time.

All my respect and love to Don Campbell for creating the 'Locking style' that had such a prolific influence on the dance scene. The Lockers were all straight guys but they had respect for gay peo ple. I admire them all of them. Actually Scooby-Doo taught me how to Lock.

Thanks to Toni Basil, dancer like: Andrew, Lonnie, Billy, and Tinker at Gino's were so good that they ended up dancing with celebrities like Diana Ross. Some of the members of "The Outrageous Waack Dancers" were in the group "Shalamar", Jeffrey Daniel and Jody Watley.

'Tell us about your best experiences?'

'The first one was when I arrived in L.A., it was on Tuesday September the 22 1972 at 10h22pm, it was milestone in my life. As soon as I arrived, I was immediately become friends with the Soul Train gang. I met Little Jo Chism who took me to all the clubs and to the Paradise Ballroom in L.A. where I first saw "Posing" dancing.

Tyrone Proctor and dance partner Sharon Hill on the set of Soul Train. In its early days, most Soul Train dancers were local high

school students who attended Dorsey, Locke, and Crenshaw. They became the nation’s trendsetters but their only

payment was a chicken dinner and Coca Cola. Los Angeles, 1976. Photo by: Bruce W. Talamon

The second high light of my life was to have the chance to enter Soul Train as a dancer the same year and to tour with Don Cornelius and the Soul Train gang with famous groups such as Eddie Kendricks, The 'Whispers and the Monents'.

I would like to say that thanks to Soul Train because many dance styles came out to public such as Locking, Popping and Waacking and all this was made popular from this one show. The dance moves of John Travolta in Saturday Night fever were directly taken from the Soul Train Show (Locking and Waacking).

Another highlight of my life as dancer was to be meet Sharon Hill as my dancing partner, we won a national contest dancing together. Also, another highlight was to be able to travel to Japan with the 'Outrageous Waack Dancers' including

Tammy, Cleveland Moses, Kirtland Washington, Sherry Green and myself. At this time, I think only "The Lockers" and a group called "Something Special" had been there.

My other following great experience was to go to New York and to be part of a group called "Breed of Motion" which was the first "Waacking" singing group including the late great Willie Ninja.

After that, Jodie Watley called me in New York asking me to do the music video in Paris cal led 'Still a Thrill' and that was actually the first music video ever to incorporate "Waacking". Then from there I had the opportunity to choreograph ano ther music video from Taylor Dane 'Tell It to My Heart' which is the first video ever to have Voguing in it (1987).

'How were the castings organized to appear in Soul Train?'

'The were auditions in a recreation center in L.A on a Saturday. The teen coordinator at this time was called Pam Brown, she would come with Don Cornellius (the Creator and Host) a week before the TV show and would pick up some dancers passing through a Soul Train line set up for the audition. The people who were selected would be listed on the TV studio's guest list. If your name was not on the list, you couldn't get into the dance studio. We taped the show one weekend a month they would tape 2 shows on the Saturday and 2 on Sunday.

'Where did you get your name Tyrone 'The Bone' Proctor?'

'This is actually Don Cornelius from Soul Train who called me 'The Bone' because I was very thin at this time.

'What came first Waacking or Voguing?'

'The first was Posing, I still remember them playing the track "Papa Was a Rolling Stone", on each

'boom' of the track the dancers were doing a dif ferent Pose, you could see all these dancers on Posing, this was phenomenal, then Waacking and then Voguing. They all have a common point, they come from the gay community. On the straight commu nity you would have the Funk and Soul which evolving to the Hip Hop meanwhile on the gay community you would have Waacking with Disco that was popularized in the early 70s it also evol ving to Voguing with House Music the early 80s. Both styles had syllables that were seen in the gay community before they were set as dance forms. The big difference between Disco and House is the BPM (Beat Per Minute) is that Disco was a lot faster (approx. 127-145bpm) than House (approx. 112-121bpm) and the content is different, in the Disco you have a lot of horns and violins and other instruments that you interpret with the dance. Voguing is more concentrating, more com petitive, angular and a less emotional. Voguing was popularized through the medium of Super Models such as Iman, Beverly Johnson, Janet Dickinson, Grace Jones, Pat Cleveland, you had all these girls that would be on a runaway walking up and down. The gay community would emulate that on the street, pretending to be these super models. The Egyptian culture had a big influence on vogueing. Also remember of Willie Ninja that was watching a lot of Kung Fu movies and would apply some of the moves in his Vogue style of dancing.

'How did you start teaching Waacking?'

'It's actually Jeffrey Daniels who initially told me that I should start teaching Waacking when he was in Osaka Japan in 1991. Then Brian Green kept asking me to teach Waacking. I was reluctant but he insisted so I started doing it. I am one of the last of the living pioneers and with the Resurgence of Waacking. I am extremely lucky and honored to have met in my lifetime some of the greatest dancers in human history.

'People call you the creator of the Waacking, do you agree with this?'

'I appreciate that, but I can't take credit for it. It's very difficult say who created Waacking because it came from different minds, and it was a variation of different styles. I put a name 'Waack' so people could understand the movement. My part is to secure dancers such as Lamont Peterson, Blinky, Micky, Andrew Frank, David Vincent, Arthur, Tinker, John Pickett, Gary Keys, Dewayne Hargrave, Billy Goodson, Billy Starr, Lonnie (gymnastics), Abe Clark, Michael Angelo, and many, many more, because many are no longer with us.

I want everybody to know who were the real Pioneers in this dance form called "Waacking" I just loved the dance and loved to see young people dancing it. I just can say that I am honored and humble that people would remember me that I was there. But you also have people like Anna Sanchez, Angel Pioneer and Toni Basil who came a little bit after me but still are a valuable source of informa tion on Waacking and Punking.'

'Is there anything you would like to add?'

I always tell people that they need to follow their dream because their dream should set them free. Aus, Shake, Eva, they are like my babies, I love you guys! Just keep growing what you're doing!

Thank you for this interview, Tyrone, it's been a pleasure to meet you!

Leonard Jones, Jeffrey Daniel, Tyrone Procter and Jody Watley. 1975, for Right On! Magazine

Jody Watley with Tyrone Proctor in the official music video of her single "Still A Thrill", 1987.

NYC and the Ballroom Scene

Joey Levenson

Between 1989 and 1992 in New York City, French photographer Chantal Regnault had her entire outlook on life changed. She dis covered, in all its prime glory, Harlem’s house ballroom scene. It was a culture that had evolved from the long-established pageantry of drag queen balls, a parade of gender fluidity and expression by way of competition and aesthetics. Entrenched into the folds of cosmo politan life since the turn of the 20th Century, balls – as they came to be known – were spaces for the non-conforming queer community to flourish as a heterosexual society set out to diminish them. It was Harlem drag queens Crystal LaBeija and Lottie, in 1972, who recognized that the drag queen balls and pageants were no lon ger satisfying nor appreciating them as Black queens, and so they divested from the drag balls to create “houses”: kinship networks founded not on blood but on relational aspects of their identity. Quickly, young Black queer people of New York City flocked to find a community that had been lacking for so long. And with the advent of houses came a more youthful, performance-orientated energy. Classical “cross-dressing” drags with feathers and beads became secondary, and the art of posing and performing now coined as “voguing” came first.

By the late 80s, voguing had taken off, and runway cate gories in the ballroom were everything. At the same time, the spunky and audacious pho tographer Chantal was reading about their advent in The Village Voice, a famous New York based magazine which had a strong advocacy for gay rights. Chantal was relatively new to the country and was looking for inspiration in her larger-than-life appetite for culture, scanning through magazines such as Voice and New York

Luis, Danny, Jose and David Ian Xtravaganza, 1989. Chantal Regnault

Native. When we speak with her, she’s full of joy about her time in the city. “I can understand everything better now,” she tells It’s Nice That. “It was a special point in the culture.” Born in France, there was simply nothing like this in Paris, where Chantal came from. For the young upstart, “it was incredible” to arrive in New York City and find such a glamorous, powerful community that was thriving despite the forces against them. Wide-scale violence and AIDS were the two looming specters, the latter of which had already ravished much of the queer community by 1988. “During the AIDS crisis, all the gay clubs had closed down because people were dying left and right,” she recalls. “And suddenly I was discovering ballroom, which was thriving underground as it always had.” At that time, the balls were almost exclusively attended by Black queer people, but Chantal bore witness to the rise of many Hispanic houses, and even one white house, all of which congregated to create a gender diverse community of its own.

Instinctively taking her camera to the first ball she attended, Chantal found herself with tones of eager ballroom participants wanting their picture taken by her. She was hooked and returned monthly to every ball across the city. Yet still, she points out how she gets questions on her ability to do so even to this day. A heterosexual cisgender woman at these balls was incredibly uncommon, and today, even less so. “It was 30 years ago, and there was not so much questioning about how legitimate you were a part of the community or how legitimate you were to photograph them,” Chantal explains. On this note, her tone never waivers into criticism of politics. Instead, she speaks with a brazen clarity and focus that is much like her photographic prowess. “From the beginning, I was always very con siderate to how they felt and how they wanted to be photographed, that I was not there to bother them.” With such a cool-cat appro ach, Chantal was welcomed, encouraged, and fawned over by the voguers and ballroom family. “I realized not only did I not bother them, but I became part of the scene because I was a photographer, and any glamour girl loves a photographer,” she laughs. “And of course, I was French, and there was this whole mythology of France and glamour, so I was the French photographer.”

Today, Chantal still plays into the chic, Parisian artist arche type. She doesn’t mince words about anything, including the recurrent times when she gives her dues and respect to the peo ple who these photos are all about. “The ballroom was the trans culture at the time,” she says. “The central character was the ‘femme queen’.” In Voguing and the House Ballroom Scene of New York City 1989-92, a book that collects a host of Chantal’s work at the balls and interviews with its legendary figures, the character of the

Dee Legacy at the House of LaBeija Ball, Tracks, 1990. Chantal Regnault

“femme queen” is seen time and time again. In reality, “femme queen” was a category for the balls, not a character. It denoted transgender women of the houses who could seemingly “pass” as cis gender, which at the time Chantal brushes off as “simply the culture.” It wasn’t just the femme queen who Chantal noticed as the key figure of the ball, however. “New house mother Pepper LaBejija opened it to kids who were fresh from breakdan cing in the neighborhood and came on the scene,” she adds. “And Pepper was a real butch queen up in pumps.” Pepper, in fact, went on to become a renowned figure of the ballroom largely in part to her role in the widely successful cult classic film Paris is Burning, a documentary from the 1990s

which took voguing and ballroom to a cinematic level (for better or for worse).

But how did an average night of photogra phing the balls usually shakedown for Chantal? With each house preparing head-to-toe looks for different categories, runway presentations, and voguing battles, Chantal recalls how often there was a lot going on at all times. It was “little by little” that she learned to master her photogra phic domain over the balls. At the start, she would capture the houses as they walked the runway or vogued against one another, trying to be as flattering as possible. “It was not very beautiful to photograph them where it was badly lit,” she says, now well-tuned to the demands of a glamour girl.

Denise Pendavis, House of Omni Ball, Tracks, 1989. Chantal Regnault

Modavia Labeija and Angie Xtravaganza in the background, backstage of A Night of Fabulous Fakes and Voguing Competition, Apollo, Harlem, 1990. Chantal Regnault

Joey Levenson

It's Nice That

Armed with her Nikon S-3, Chantal had to adapt to the low-budget setting of the high-glamour balls. “I wanted to use a flash for the color, because often those warehouses the house mothers (Dorian Corey, Paris Dupree, Pepper LaBeija, and Angie Xtravaganza) rented were not really nice, and they paid for them out of their own pockets.” But still, Chantal underlines just how incredible it was to be immersed in their atmosphere. “It was magic, it was completely magic,” she says with a glint of ecstasy in her voice. It’s an emotive pull to the voguers that reads clearly in her pictures: every image is electric, alive, loving, and tender. They veer away from voyeurism, and function comple tely as an uplifting platform to a community that embraced Chantal with such loving arms. Being a 40-year-old heterosexual foreigner in the midst of the ballroom atmosphere seems as if it would be dauntingly out of place. Yet for Chantal, it was nothing of the sort. “I would often go backstage, and it was like being backstage in a theatre,” she recalls. “All the characters, the models were there and trying to collect the money at the door, and everyone was in the toilets, and the hallways, putting on makeup, wigs, getting ready, being late.” It was a frantic, exciting atmosphere that Chantal often tried to capture, to much avail. She’d show up before the ball began and stay right up until its closing doors – “often at 6, 7, 9 am.” By the 90s, Chantal was no longer a spectator with a camera. She was the ballroom community’s hono rary photographer-in-residence, a friend, and a loyal asset. The photography had become a way to reaffirm an etched-out ballroom fantasy: that each member was a grandiose, modelesque, and wealthy uptown woman. “I believed in their fantasy because it would make you feel really good,” she admits. Here, Chantal errs on the defence, a tone that indicates her fierce loyalty to the community remains the same even decades later. “There was no nightlife, and we were thinking about all the people we were losing from AIDS,” she explains. “So suddenly walking into the ballroom was like another world where everybody laughs again.”

For that time, it was needed. The AIDS pandemic was mocked and belittled by the United States government, despite killing more men than the Vietnam war. Finding strength from their peers was a remedy for queers everywhere. “At the balls, there was always laughing, it was very joyous,”

Joey Levenson

Chantal says in one particularly emotional moment of clarity. “I want to point out, please, that it was extremely joyful.” Recently, the Kunsthal Museum in Rotterdam opened up a brand-new exhibition that surveyed the visual history of ballroom. Naturally, Chantal’s work was featured prominently. She was more than happy to participate in building the exhibition and attending its opening gala – but most

It's Nice That

Whitney Elite Garcon, Ira Ebony Aphrodite, Stewart LaBeija, Chris LaBeija Revlon, Ivan Adonis Chanel, Jamal Adonis Milan, and Ronald LaBeija, Best Face Jourdan Ball NJ, 1989. Chantal Regnault

House of LaBeija, 1989. Chantal Regnault

Willi Ninja, 1989. Chantal Regnault

Joey Levenson

importantly, she was overjoyed that more people around Europe could see the photographs she had lovingly taken of her friends back in New York. But how did Chantal manage to be so prolific? “I decided very early on to photograph them all in the way they wanted to be seen,” Chantal explains. “It was very important, and I never tried to catch them half-done or with their make-up not ready or somewhat tired or with their wig on the side, you know? I wasn’t interested in going to that place at all.” She speaks as if this is a given fact, a decision that was never up for debate. As the ballroom participants picked up on Chantal’s eager cooperative and collaborative spirit, they began to willfully direct her: “can you take this photo like this?” became “shoot me like this!” which became “I want to be in this pose.” It made sense, considering ballroom was all about the Black queer and trans community reclaiming an agency of glamour that had been robbed from them in the outside world. “It was all about looking beautiful and real in there,” Chantal explains. “Outside the balls, a lot of them had no money and were living dangerously.” Rather simply, Chantal facilitated a space for beauty and realness within her lens for them all to flourish in.

Eventually, she settled on using black-and-white as her go-to, something that became her “thing,” as she nonchalantly recalls. Whilst Chantal simply chalks it up to being an “inspiring” medium, one can’t help but notice how the black-and-white of each picture brings the ballroom community into a deeply artistic realm – some thing they readily deserve. Off the back of these photos, Chantal built solid friendships with house mothers, voguers, drag queens, butch and femme queens. Soon, she was being invited back to their houses, tapped for photoshoots, and so on. One particular time, she had the likes of legendary voguer Willie Ninja (of Madonna’s Vogue fame) in a rented studio, giving her direction on how to build his portfolio. “I did the studio shots so I could have more control, but I let them have it all,” Chantal laughs. “I would do very little direction on the shoots. Just free, go with it. They loved it, and it made them feel more like professional performers.” By the end of a day’s worth of studio shooting, both Chantal and her model could walk away with a sizable professional-looking portfolio. The studio shots show another side to the figures of ballroom, as people who were infinitely capable of making art simply by the graphic shapes of their bodies. In their twisted and contorted poses, they are akin to statues of ancient divinity. “I wanted them to be supermodels,” Chantal adds. “They were the first Black models.”

Since so much time has passed, Chantal has grown increa singly astute about her time in New York. Whilst she does reminisce fondly about the balls, nothing is seen through a rose-tinted

spectacle. As we go through each picture, she’s reminded of those who have passed, of which she plainly says, “is a lot.” Yet with every year gone, Chantal still finds joy in what remains. “To my surprise, and my delight in a way, I was not fully aware of how important my pictures would become as an archive,” she explains. “I knew it was something special and beautiful and that's why I wanted to document it. But I was not fully aware of the importance of what I was doing.” She pauses here, as if to be careful with her emotions. “Now, only 30 years later, we can see the implications.”

As mainstream attention to ballroom has come and gone – Malcolm MacLaren, Madonna, Pose, Legendary – time shows that voguing has always been a commodity to some. During the 1990s, it was “an explosion” when “seemingly everyone” discovered ballroom at the same time. Yet, she’s

adamant that the exposure didn’t damage the community. “They persevered with or without the mainstream,” she says. Instead, this particu lar epoch wound up helping them “The world of fashion – which was also decimated by AIDS – had the idea to throw an AIDS benefit ball,” Chantal tells us. “This was the Love Ball, May 1989, with Susanne Bartsch and RuPaul, which I attended and photographed.” From then on, the benefit balls rapidly raised consciousness within the ballroom on how AIDS was affecting them. “The Gay Men’s Health Crisis created the Latex Ball in 1990 with the ballroom scene, because they needed it,” Chantal adds. “Ballroom was mostly Black and Hispanic and working class, and a lot of them were completely unaware of what was happening and treatment and protection.”

With such a wealth of knowledge, intelli gence, and compassion on the LGBTQIA+ community, it’s hard to think Chantal simply star ted all this “because it was fun.” A simple trip to a ballroom she saw advertised in 1988 ended in a complete re-routing of her life, even when she left New York City to settle in Haiti in the mid-90s, just as ballroom was really taking off into mainstream stardom. She left with no idea just how important her role as the photographer had really been. “There was no photographer following it at the time. Now, everybody’s a photographer,” she quips. “Now, there are almost as many photogra phers as participants at the ball.” Even in the midst of providing a canny observation on the evolution of contemporary voguing, Chantal still manages to find time to bring it back to the very people this is all about: the ballroom community. “I know the mainstream looks at something at one point and they don’t look at it at another, but through it all, the culture will never die,” she says.

In many ways, ballroom taught Chantal more than just how to photograph. It taught her how to live. When I ask her what it all means to her, she pauses for a while. “It taught me so much,” she finally replies, quietly. “You have to cross some lines to understand others.” From the beginning,

Joey Levenson

Chantal always knew her photography was a way to understand others. It was a way for her to appreciate difference, not observe it. “I wanted to understand who they were,” she explains. “But in the end, it taught me so much about how dif ficult of a life they all lead outside the ball.” Even though Chantal’s ballroom photographs situate themselves in the realm of happiness, community, and togetherness, she knows beneath all the fro zen scenes of smiles and laughter was an endless pool of strength and courage from all the Black queer and trans members of the ballroom. “Even within the gay world, they were ostracized and demonized,” she says. She speaks passionately, slipping back into the “mother” figure she took on when she was first photographing the ballroom,

when young performers flocked to her as one of the eldest people in the room. Overall, it’s clear a lot has stayed with Chantal through these pictures. Through memories of laughter and fun are memo ries that remind her of the reality of the violence, structural or personal, that the ballroom commu nity encountered. “To me, it was the epitome of injustice. The epitome of humiliation of another human being. And there was so much danger, especially for the femme queens,” Chantal says. “And it's not over.”

“The Revlon Boys” from left to right Jerome, Tony and Stewart, Central Park, 1989. Chantal Regnault

Legendary Modavia LaBeija back from the Ball at “A” train early morning, 1991. By: Chantal Regnault

It's Nice That

From the book “Voguing and the House Ballroom Scene of New York City 1989–1992”. Chantal Regnault

On the Dancefloor

Andy Thomas

One of the few DJs to sit in for Larry Levan at Paradise Garage, David DePino began his Tuesday night sessions at the Chelsea club Tracks in 1986. It was at Tracks that voguers from the ballroom community in Harlem and Brooklyn brought their competitive artistry into down town dance culture. By transporting the battles of the ballrooms into a downtown club, Tracks became a launching pad for many voguers who would later make Sound Factory their home in the early ’90s.

David DePino had been there at the birth of disco, dancing at David Mancuso’s first Loft parties on Broadway and working behind the bar at Francis Grasso’s Sanctuary at the dawn of the ’70s. He met Larry Levan at a Brooklyn club where DePino worked called Broadway, through Levan’s then-boyfriend Mario Deserio. At the time, Levan was cementing his reputation as a DJ at Reade Street. When owner Michael Brody was forced to close the club, it was DePino who found the new space that would become the Paradise Garage.

“I knew Reade Street had closed and one day I was hanging out on Christopher Street with some friends,” DePino says from his home in New York. “We saw a bunch of cop cars going down 8th Avenue, so we followed them, and it was a raid on this gay cruising area. We made a left turn down King Street and I said to my friend, ‘This looks familiar,’ and he said, ‘Didn’t we come here once to a party?’ And I said, ‘Yes, that’s right, it was that club Chameleon. Oh my God – I know Larry’s looking for a club.’ So, I wrote down the name, address, and phone number, then went back to Brooklyn and gave it to Mario to give to Larry.”

A hairdresser by trade, DePino got his first job in New York’s nascent dance culture through Judy Weinstein’s Record Pool. “While I was on vacation from my hair salon, Judy had got rid of her co-worker at the Record Pool. And so, she asked me to help her for a week until she found a replacement,” DePino says. “A week turned into two weeks, which turned into three weeks, and so on, until I stopped hairdressing and started working full-time at the Record Pool.”

With the move from Reade Street to King Street, DePino became part of the inner sanctum at Paradise Garage. “I worked there from the very beginning,” he says. “I was a good friend of Larry’s and used to work at the door by the DJ booth for the VIP section.” By 1985, Levan’s hectic production schedule meant he was often camped out late in the studio and delayed in getting to the club. “Larry started getting really, really busy in the recording studio, and so around midnight he’d call me up and ask me to put a reel-to-reel tape on. That was fine, as the club didn’t really get crowded until around 3 AM. When it became a more regular thing, I would also put

The Paradise Garage dance floor. Bill Bernstein from Disco: The Bill Bernstein Photographs (Reel Art Press)

Walter, Gilbert and Henry on the roof deck. From the closing party of Paradise Garage. New York, September 26, 1987. By: Tina Paul

Michele Saunders dancing, Paradise Garage, 1987. By: Tina Paull

Larry Levan, Liz Torres, and Jessie Lee Jones, Paradise Garage, 1987. By: Tina Paull

a record on, as people started getting bored with the same music.”

Through his job at the Record Pool, DePino had first access to many of the tracks that would become underground classics at the club. “Because I worked at the Record Pool I would bring Larry’s new records for that week,” he says. “So, what I would do early on was play the good records, so the crowd heard them for the first time. Then, if Larry was there early and was walking around, playing with the speakers or lighting, he would say, ‘Play the new records you brought in,’ or ‘Play the dub version,’ so he could hear how it sounded. So that’s how it started for me.”

Opening in 1985 at 531 W. 19th Street in Chelsea, Tracks New York was part of a franchise of clubs across the country owned by Marty Chernoff, linked to Tracks D.C in Washington. Chernoff brou ght in Michael Fesco (from Manhattan’s gay mecca the Flamingo) to run the club, and that’s when Tracks really made its mark on New York nightlife. It was soon open seven nights a week, 24 hours a day on the weekend. DJs who spun there included Terry Sherman and Warren Gluck from the Saint, as well as Steve Fabus from San Francisco’s I-Beam and Trocadero Transfer. Similar to the Saint, one of New York’s other legendary ’80s gay club, Tracks was initially frequented predominately by a crowd far removed from the black and Latino dancefloors of Paradise Garage and Better Days. “Before I started there, Tracks was a very white gay club,” says DePino. “It was mainly a kind of Hi-NRG sound there, and not the heavy black music I was playing or hearing at the Garage.”

DePino got his break at Tracks in 1986 through a friend he knew from the Record Pool. “A girl called Freddie Taylor, head of the one-stop Pearl Music (and Pearl Distributors Inc.), was friendly with someone at Tracks. She told me that the club was looking to bring in another DJ, and would I be interested? At the time, as well as sitting in for Larry at the Garage I was doing some teeny, little guest spots here and there. I said to Freddie that I hadn’t played a whole night before. But she convinced me to give it a try.”

Taylor spoke to Marty Chernoff, who suggested DePino could start on a Tuesday night. “My first night there was a Fat Tuesday Mardi Gras party, and I had about 40 people there. And the club held, like, 2,000,” recalls DePino. “So, I thought to myself, ‘This isn’t really going to go well.’ But they said they would give me a month to see if I could build it up.”

Conscious that few of the people on the scene knew that he was behind the new Tuesday night session at Tracks, DePino asked Marty Chernoff if they could print up some business cards. “I really wanted people to know that it was my party, so I had about 1,000 cards printed up that said this was a complimentary invitation from

Larry Levan during his decade-long residence at the Paradise Garage. Photo by: Bill Bernstein

Andy Thomas

David DePino. And I went all over town handing out these cards to every good-looking person I could find that went to clubs. So the next week I got another 50 people. Out of respect, I never promo ted at the Garage or looked to bring that crowd to Tracks. But it was such a cool, good-looking crowd I attracted that everyone started talking about it. Then, on the third week, there was an extra 100 people, and so on until at the end of the month I had, like, 500 coming. So, they said they were going to continue the Tuesday nights, and that is how my night at Tracks started. After two months I had 1,000 people, then after three months it was mobbed every Tuesday.”

David DePino’s residency at Tracks was one of the first successful midweek club nights in the history of New York club culture. “It changed the course of New York nightlife,” he says. “Clubs of that size only ever worked on a Friday or Saturday

until then. The places that opened in the week typically held about 50 or maybe 100 people, or there were bars with jukeboxes. Better Days was the only place that opened midweek. But if you had 200 people in Better Days you had a good party. Tracks held 2,000, and I had that every Tuesday.” With that capacity and its prime location in the gay hub of Chelsea, it was the perfect space for DePino to build his own night. “It was a great club,” he says. “It had a really big dancefloor and a little stage area. Then it had a second upstairs room where Danny Krivit and George Morel would play on alternate weeks. And it also had a roof deck. The Tracks soundsystem was also really nice, although it wasn’t like the Garage. We would tweak it, though, because the black crowd that I had liked a much more bassier sound than the white crowd who were there the rest of the week. So, we would raise the bass on the amps

for Tuesdays, then they would lower them for the other nights.”

Like the many future DJs who danced at Paradise Garage, DePino had listened and learned from a master. “The way Larry made me feel on the dancefloor and how he made me lose my mind and to feel free to express myself, that is what I wanted to do to people. So, I tried to follow what Larry did in that way, but I knew I had to be myself and find my own voice,” says DePino. “Larry always told me, ‘The crowd are coming to hear what you love, and your job is to make them love it, too.’ He’d tell me, ‘Don’t give in to playing what they think they want to hear. They can go to a regular 9 – 4 club to hear that commercial stuff that they are playing on the radio.’ So, he’d tell me to play what I believed in. But he also taught me that it wasn’t about you as a DJ having a good time – it’s about making the people on the floor enjoy and feel part of the house party that you are throwing. And to always take them on a journey.”

How similar was the soundtrack at Tracks to the Garage? “I would say I played about 80% of the same records,” says DePino. “I would play all the classics I heard at the Garage, of course. But there were another 20% of records with a very particular kind of high-intensity sound, much fas ter than Larry was playing at the Garage. And that was when the whole vogue thing really started in the nightclub.”

While voguing was pioneered at the balls in Harlem, it had started to infiltrate Manhattan’s black and Hispanic gay clubs in the late ’70s. One of the clubs where voguing was first seen was Better Days, although Paradise Garage also had its fair share. In the introduction to the Soul Jazz book Voguing and the House Ballroom Scene of New York City 1989-92, DePino explained how the Garage became a second home to the various Houses in the early ’80s. “Before you knew it, a lot of the ball kids were hanging out at the Garage. In one corner there’d be the LaBeijas, and in another there’d be the Duprees, and so on.”

It was at the Garage that David DePino

was introduced to perhaps the most famous of all the houses. “I became friendly with the House of Xtravaganza at the Garage in about 1983,” he says. “They were a new House [formed in 1982 as the House of Extravaganza by Hector Valle] and they asked me to play for them as their DJ at their first ball at the Elks Lodge in Harlem. That’s when I became an Xtravaganza [member]. At that time, the balls used to start at five in the morning on Sunday. So, I left the Garage, and Larry gave me a little stack of records that only he had that were about to come out. I took them to the ball and mixed-up records that would usually be played for each category with other records you would hear at the Garage. I’d never been to a ball before, so I didn’t know there were certain records for each category; I really didn’t know the procedures. So in-between each category, when normally it would be quiet in the ballroom, I would carry on playing records. And the ball went crazy, with everyone jumping out of the seats dancing. That gave me the idea that you could combine dancing along with the balls, and that is what we did at Tracks.”

Karl Xtravaganza joined the House in 1986 and worked as a bartender at Tracks. “Ballroom and Tracks collided at just the right moment, and David DePino was the catalyst for it,” he says. “In the late ’80s, Elks Lodge in Harlem, the traditio nal ballroom home for many years, was no longer available to host balls. At the same time, Chi Chi Valenti and Donald Suggs were putting a spotlight on the ballrooms in articles for the Village Voice, Details, The Face, and other publications. It was David DePino who got the management of Tracks to agree to host their first ball. That allowed the balls to move downtown just when awareness of the ballroom subculture was starting to spread.”

The first of these balls to be held at Tracks was the House of Xtravaganza’s Black & White Ball in 1988, hosted by DePino and David Ian Xtravaganza. “After the ball was over, I started playing records and we moved all the chairs and tables out of the way. And the voguers all started to dance until six in the morning,” recalls DePino.

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Better Days, 1979. Better Days was a young, gay African-American and Latin crowd, where DJ pioneer Tee Scott played the records.

By: Bill Bernstein 2016

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Studio 54 DJ Booth, 1979. Bill Bernstein from the book "Disco: The Bill Bernstein Photographs" (Reel Art Press)

Studio 54 Moon and Spoon, 1978. Bill Bernstein from the book "Disco: The Bill Bernstein Photographs" (Reel Art Press)

Studio 54 and Cadillac, 1979. Bill Bernstein from the book "Disco: The Bill Bernstein Photographs" (Reel Art Press)

“Then, I guess I became known as the ball DJ. Everyone who was throwing balls at the time wanted to hire me. Soon other houses star ted to also do balls at Tracks, and I was also the DJ for those events.”

After attending an Xtravaganza ball at Tracks in 1989 and witnessing a moment of silence for one of their members, Susanne Bartsch was so moved she created the Love Ball. Held at Roseland Ballroom in Harlem in 1989, the huge event raised over two million dollars to fight AIDS, with DePino spinning next to Johnny Dynell. Other legendary balls to be held at Tracks included the House of Xtravaganza’s Red, White & Blue Ball, the Autumn in New York IV, hosted by Avis Pendavis in 1988, the House of Omni’s Obsession in 1989, the House of Africa United Nations Ball in 1988 and Paris is Burning IX, one of a series of balls hosted by Paris Dupree (from the House of Dupree, one of the original houses). Those balls gave their name to the 1990 film by Jenny Livingston, which featured extensive interviews with House Mother Angie Xtravaganza as well as showing a young Jose Xtravaganza in a vogue battle.

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It was Tuesday nights at Tracks that the houses really brought the full intensity and creati vity of voguing from the ballrooms into the clubs of Manhattan. “The ball kids came to the Garage, but it wasn’t really a place where the voguers compe ted in a major way,” DePino says. “But at Tracks the whole voguing community came down, and that was the first club where you really saw circles and vogue battles.” Karl Xtravaganza was one of those to follow DePino to Tracks from the Garage, and he agrees with the DJ: “There were other clubs where ballroom kids would gather and battle, such as Midtown 43 and Better Days. But Tracks was the first club that put the vogue battles front-an d-center, and really catered to the ballroom kids.” DePino explains how his style of playing changed in response to the voguers: “I started to

play a much harder, gayer sound to match their voguing. They were really into the sounds with a kind of sharp stab to them, so it could be a cymbal crash, a horn or a heavy drum, just something that they could land their vogue poses on. There just happened to be quite a few records like that in the ’80s. And they would have these little 30-second sections with those sounds in. So I would take two copies of the same record and cut them up, and keep playing that part of the record over and over again.”

DePino would watch closely as the different houses competed on the floor and created his own soundtrack to the performance. “You’d get cons tant battles at Tracks with the LaBeijas battling against the Duprees or the Pendavis against the Xtravaganzas,” he recalls. “I would notice when a

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battle was starting, and I would play five or six records in a row that I knew they liked to vogue to. They would create their own runway and at the end of the battle the whole crowd would cheer. It was incredible, 2,000 people cheering, putting their hands up and going crazy. Even the people who weren’t really part of the vogue scene would stop and watch. It was like a mini-show within the night.”

Upstairs, where Danny Krivit split DJing time with George Morel, another type of show would be unfolding. “What also came around during the Tracks period was that they had a runway,” remembers Krivit. “I focused on creating an atmosphere, and one of the things I was focusing on was making montages of movies, and a lot of fashion footage. In doing so, this runway thing went off into a new phase. It wasn’t just voguing. There was this new, younger group of people following this video element and emulating the supermo dels.” Karl Xtravaganza recalls that “Upstairs was more of a lounge area with a pool table, bar and smaller dancefloor and video screens. They would screen runway shows on the video screens – which was just perfect as a backdrop for kids imitating poses from fashion magazines and doing their runway walk across the dancefloor.”

The ultimate anthem of the pre-1990 “Old Way” voguers was MFSB’s “Love Is the Message.” In an interview for Voguing and the House Ballroom Scene of New York City 1989-92, Muhammad Omni of the House of Omni explained how “the jazz breaks fluctuated so much you could find a lot of moves to do off that song.” Other big Old Way tracks DePino remembers spinning included “Ooh, I Love It (Love Break) (Shep Pettibone Mix)” by the Salsoul Orchestra, George Kranz’s “Din Daa Daa,” “Let’s Go (Don’t U Want Some More)” by Fast Eddie, The Todd Terry Project’s “Bango (To The Batmobile),” Royal House’s “Can You Party” and Ralphi Rosario’s “You Used to Hold Me.” “I would say my style was very high-intensity,” says DePino. “We used to open at 8 until 6. I would keep it uptempo all night until around 4, when I would go downtempo for an hour or so, playing classics. Then for the last hour I would pump it up again.”

By the late 1980s, the first tailor-made vogue tracks appeared, including DePino’s own “Elements of Vogue,” co-produced with fellow House of Xtravaganza members David Ian Xtravaganza and Johnny Dynell. “Among the Houses that compete in, or ‘walk’ these balls, the six-year-old Latin House of Xtravaganza is feared and respected for its thousand trophies and fierce family pride,” wrote Chi Chi Valenti in the sleevenotes to the 1989 release. “House MC David Ian Xtravaganza is but one of a galaxy of stars, from house parent Mother Angie and Father David to Jose Xtravaganza.” Later to become House Father of Xtravaganza, Jose would become one of the most famous voguers of all time when he appeared in the video

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Daryl, Richie Mercado, Leslie Macayza, Judi MeMuro, Duglas Coleman and John Howard. Photograph from the closing party of Paradise Garage. New York, September 26, 1987. By: Tina Paul

for Madonna’s 1990 hit single “Vogue” and on her Blond Ambition world tour with Luis Xtravaganza.

After “Elements of Vogue,” DePino pro duced a handful of tracks, including Danny Xtravaganza’s “Love the Life You Live” on Nu Groove. “I was offered a lot but only did a few things, because I knew where my strength was, and that was in playing to the crowd and making people have fun,” he says. “At the time, people were putting DJs into the studio whether they knew what they were doing or not. And I didn’t want to do that. But all those years going into the studio with Larry, I do regret never really paying attention to what he was doing. I do kick myself in the ass for not sitting there and learning, because I had a great teacher there.”

There was a big distinction between vogue on the formal runway of a ball, where prizes were awarded with panels of judges, and the sponta neous battles that would take off at Tracks. “The little five minutes of a battle in a ball would go on for an hour in the club,” says DePino. “In the ballroom you might have ten judges sitting at tables voting for you. In the club you’d have 2,000 people shou ting for or against you. So, the energy levels were intense. But you didn’t get a trophy like at the balls, and it was the one who got the biggest applause that won. That’s why it always ended in a big hug. It was always in fun.”

Karl Xtravaganza remembers one particular battle: “It was the area under the DJ booth, which was the prime battle zone for the Xtrava’s. Danni Xtrava and David Ian Xtrava were voguing toge ther. There was a big battle happening in front of the raised stage, with five or six kids from different houses going at it. Somehow the larger battle migrated across the dancefloor to the Xtrava area, the kids from other houses forming a kind of ‘voguing circle’ around Danni and David Ian. They instinctively turned back-to-back, facing the kids all around coming for them. They seemed to vogue in perfect unison, despite their being back-to-back and not being able to see each other. One by one, they picked off the kids circled around them until

they were done. It was an amazing display of grace and intuitive coordination, the likes of which I’ve never seen again.”

For Karl Xtravaganza, there was one reason DePino created such a great atmosphere at Tracks. “The word that most comes to mind when I think of David spinning is ‘generous.’ He always gives all of himself to the crowd: his humor, his drama and his love for a good party,” he says. “He’s up in the booth dancing, laughing, posing, singing loud. He’s having a blast and there is a contagious factor in that. And he never selects tracks to show off his knowledge of some obscure

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song – it’s always all about moving the crowd and keeping them happy because he, in turn, feeds off that energy.”

After Paradise Garage shut for good in August 1987, DePino started a Friday night at Tracks. “A lot of the Saturday crowd from the Garage came to me on a Friday, and I did that night as well as Tuesdays until 1991,” he says. “Friday was always a lot more Garage than Tuesday was. And for the first year, it was mobbed. Then Sound Factory opened on Saturdays [in March 1989]. That hurt my Friday night, as a lot of the Garage crowd had always wanted a Saturday after it

had closed. With the opening of Sound Factory, they now had that again. Saturday was always a more popular night, especially for the gay Garage crowd, many of whom worked in boutiques so only had Sundays off.”

In 1991, just as Junior Vasquez reached the peak of his powers at Sound Factory, New York’s branch of Tracks closed. “Marty, the owner, weighed 500 pounds and he was having gastric bypass surgery,” says DePino. “So, he was sick, and his family and him thought it would be better to close all the clubs except D.C., because that was where he lived.”

DePino recalls the last night at Tracks: “It closed on Halloween night. On the same night Sound Factory had Grace Jones, and we des troyed them. We had thousands of people in a line wrapped around the corner and Sound Factory was empty.”

In 1989, Junior Vasquez was already creating raw runway tracks tailor-made for the ballroom children, including “X” (a tribute to Mother Angie Xtravaganza), “Work This Pussy” and “Just Like a Queen,” under the alias Ellis D. While these were big records for David DePino at Tracks, it was at Sound Factory where the fierce “New Way” vogue tracks became club anthems. Big New Way tracks included “Feel This” by Robbie Rivera, “Cunty” by Kevin Aviance and “Walk For

Keith

Myra

Me” by Robbie Tronco. But the ultimate anthem, and one that would be as important to New Way vogue as “Love Is the Message” had been to Old Way, was Masters At Work’s “The Ha Dance.” As the music writer Vivian Host explained, “Basically, ‘The Ha Dance’ is to ballroom what ‘Sing Sing’ is to Baltimore club or ‘Pulse X’ is to U.K. grime: a song that’s been hacked to pieces and turned inside-out by thousands of versions and bootleg remixes.”

Through DJs like MikeQ and Vjuan Allure creating their own ballroom tracks and mixes, on to sessions like Vogue Nights by Mike Q’s Qween Beat label and the youthful Kiki scene portrayed in Sara Jordenö’s new film, voguing is once again in the public eye. While Chelsea might have and changed irreversibly from the ’90s, the spirit of

26, 1987. Tina Paul

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Christopher and Michel Viau. Photo from the closing party of Paradise Garage. New York, September

Grace Jones in DJ Booth. Photo from the closing party of Paradise Garage. New York, September 26, 1987. Tina Paul

Haring, La2 and Lysa Cooper. From the closing party of Paradise Garage. New York, September 26, 1987. By: Tina Paul

those legends who battled on Tuesday nights at Tracks can still be felt along Christopher Street Pier, home to today’s Kiki scene. And for those who felt the intensity of David DePino dropping the ballroom bombs, Tuesday nights at Tracks will never be forgotten. “In short, what Fab 5 Freddy was to the hip hop scene, David DePino was to the ballroom scene,” says Karl Xtravaganza. “He brid ged uptown and downtown and helped to create a new synergy in the process. Looking back on it, to this day it amazes me that David would get 2,000 people in Tracks on a Tuesday night. That is a great testament to the loyalty David elicited from the ball kids and others who went to hear him spin.”

Michele Saunders at the Paradise Garage. New York, 1987. Tina Paul

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Willi Ninja (left) and dancer, voguing at the nightclub Mars, New York City. By: Catherine McGann

Sound Factory, New York, 1990. By: Alice Arnold

Giant Step, New York, 1995. Alice Arnold

Vogue Tracks

Record Spinning on Turn Table. Filonmar / Getty

Tim Lawrence

Just as breakers developed their style around a set of recordings that enabled them to express a form of spectacular athleticism, so voguers became inspired by an alternative soundtrack that accentuated their ability to punctuate gra ceful movements with a series of freeze-shot poses. Like the Latin, rock and funk-oriented tracks that drove early breaking culture, recordings that featured staccato stabs on the “one” actively encouraged voguers to go into a assume a static pose and then adjust that pose according to the introduction of each successive stab, while ele gant, swooping strings encouraged them to walk with style. “Lyrics had very little to do with a song being popular with voguers,” says DePino. “It’s all about the beats and the stabs. The stabs are the part of the song that the voguers would land on and pose to.”

Above all other recordings, M.F.S.B.’s “Love Is the Message” captured the sensibility of voguers in the 1970s. Initially played by David Mancuso at the Loft and Nicky Siano at the Gallery, the record became the unofficial anthem of New York’s down town private party scene, where the record’s tight

“Love is the Message”, MFSB, 1973.

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“Ooh I Love it (Love Break)”, The Saulsoul Orchestra, 1983.

rhythm section and sophisticated orchestration elevated it above the more pop-oriented strains of “T.S.O.P. (The Sound of Philadelphia)” (which also appeared on the M.F.S.B.’s debut album and went on to become a major chart success). Combining fanfare drama, jazz sophistication and a silky-s pacey rhythm section, “Love Is the Message” provided the ideal backing track for the grandiose, stylish, celebratory balls, and the song came to be played as the anthem that opened every event in conjunction with a drag parade. “Disco clas sics like ‘Going Up in Smoke’ and ‘Bad Luck’ are funky but the mood they evoke is melancholic,” says DJ Danny Wang, a one-time member of the House of Ultra Omni. “Old school vogue records contain elegant jazz chords that sound grand and airy, which is the case with ‘Love Is the Message’.” Voguers were also drawn to songs such as “Love Hangover” by Diana Ross and “Ooh, I Love It (Love Break)” by the Salsoul Orchestra. The slow, sultry opening of “Love Hangover” summoned drag queens to embrace a highly sexualized femi ninity that built in intensity as the track moved to its freak-out groove, with Ross herself idolized as an

Tim Lawrence

icon of black feminine beauty. Remixed by Shep Pettibone following a tip-off from his DJ friend Leslie Doyle, “Ooh, I Love It” became a voguing classic thanks to its pose-friendly horn stabs and the knowingly naughty rapping lines of the song’s backing singers. “The classic old school voguing tracks have these specific chords and they also have a certain ‘cunty’ femininity,” says Wang. “The girls who rap in ‘Love Break’ are an example of this and so is Diana Ross in ‘Love Hangover’. They sing in this cool, breathy, orgasmic style. It’s the opposite of gospel.”

Other records emerged as recognizable voguing anthems as a result of the inadvertent conversation they initiated up with drag queens. Released by Columbia Records in 1978, Cheryl Lynn’s “Got to Be Real” appealed to the drag queen preoccupation with passing as real, which became the primary criterion according to which judges would award marks at balls. Co-produced by Arthur Russell and Steve D’Acquisto, “Is It All Over My Face?” by Loose Joints appealed thanks to its sleazy sound, its insider reference to ejacula ting over another person’s face, and its use of the

"Got To Be Real", Cheryl Lynn, 1978.

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word “over”, which doubled as black gay slang for being over-the-top. Regularly selected by DJ Larry Levan at the Paradise Garage, where voguers started to hang out from around 1984 onwards, George Kranz’s highly unusual beat-scatt track “Din Daa Daa” lent itself to all manner of thrusts, twists and poses. “But real serious voguers will get down to any kind of good music,” adds Wang. “My instructor Muhammad Ultra Omni often spoke of ‘hitting the beats’ or using his body and gestures to find and define the polyrhythms set forth by the music. So, a good voguer can vogue theoretically over anything with a beat and often does this at the nightclubs.”

Voguers were presented with the first track to be intentionally tailored to their style when Malcolm McLaren released “Deep in Vogue” in 1989. Widely known for his high-profile adoption of punk and hip-hop, McLaren found out about voguing when Johnny Dynell, a Tunnel DJ and member of the House of Xtravaganza, sent him a tape of Paris Is Burning, an unfinished movie by Jennie Livingston, in the hope that it would help

"Elements of Vogue", David Ian Xtravaganza, 1989.

Tim Lawrence

the director raise money to wrap up her project. “I told Malcolm about the ball house scene because I thought it was perfect for him,” recalls Dynell, who encountered voguers and ball kids on the West Side piers before they started to head to the Tunnel. “Of course, he immediately put sound bites from the movie on his record. What the hell was I thinking?” As with hip-hop, McLaren promoted the voguing scene as a subcultural trend that harnes sed working-class energy into music and dance. “It is to do with everyday life,” the impresario told New Musical Express. “It’s amazing, so many of the shows here, you’ve got all these bimbos who walk without passion. The great thing about Voguing is you walk with passion.” Ninja was hired to dance on the video, the first of its kind. Three other vogue-specific tracks were released during 1989 and 1990. Having witnessed his mid-week night at Trax become the most popu lar voguing hangout in the city, DePino teamed up with Dynell to produce “Elements of Vogue”, which featured a commentary on voguing by David Ian Xtravaganza. A year later, Danny Xtravaganza to record his own spoken-word poem-song over

the fat bass and punch beats of “Love the Life You Live”, a Freddy Bastone production for Nu Groove. And during the same year, Madonna tea med up with Shep Pettibone to release “Vogue”, which went on to become the best-selling single of 1990. “Madonna’s friend Debbie M always came to Tracks and was a friend of mine and two other Xtravaganzas, Luis and Michael, who was a hairdresser and did Debbie M’s hair,” says DePino. “They set up a meeting with me and Madonna, who came to Tracks when the club was closed to meet and watch some voguers. I had a group of kids there to vogue for her, including some kids from other houses. She picked out who she liked for the video.”

Madonna also gravitated to the Sound Factory, where Xtravaganzas had started to congregate on a Saturday night thanks in part to DJ Junior Vasquez’s 1989 production “Just Like A Queen” by Ellis D (a play on LSD). “The first time she came to the club she called ahead,” says Vasquez. “She came into the booth and then sat on the speaker in front of me. After that she came periodically for about three months.” Jose and "Love the Life You Live", Danny Xtravaganza, 1990.

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Luis Xtravaganza went on to work as backing dancers for Madonna during the explosive Blond Ambition tour, after which they starred in the behind-the-scenes documentary of the tour, In Bed with Madonna (titled Truth or Dare in the U.S.). “Madonna never came back to the Sound Factory after the tour,” adds Vasquez. “She was over vogue.” For his part, Vasquez went on to release “X”, which featured hard tribal beats, sparse synth lines and a sample of a drag queen saying “extra vaganza” that was lifted from Paris Is Burning. The ensuing release of “Get Your Hands off My Man” confirmed Vasquez’s skill at picking out evocative vocal samples and laying them over a driving tribal house track.

During the late 1980s and early 1990s voguers also made a point of dancing to “The Brutal House” by Nitro Deleuze, “Break 4 Love” by Raze, “What Is Love” by Deee-Lite and, above all, “The Ha Dance” by the Masters at Work duo “Little” Louie Vega and Kenny “Dope” Gonzalez. A staple at the Wednesday night Underground Network party at the Sound Factory Bar, where Vega DJed and Ninja became a regular on the dance floor,

“Break 4 Love”, Raze, 1988.

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“What is Love”, Dee-Lite, 1990.

2014 Tim Lawrence

“The Ha Dance” was built around a sample of Eddie Murphy and Dan Akroyd delivering a non sense chant during the film Trading Places, Vega’s imitative synth effects and Kenny Dope’s slamming beats. “‘The Ha Dance’ was the ultimate anthem for ‘new way’ voguing, which is defined by its tight geometrical and gymnastic forms,” says Wang. “It is extremely demanding on the body because it requires massive stamina and break-dance-like popping and locking. Handstands and double-join ted ‘arm control’ movements are not uncommon.”

“New way” voguing can be traced back to the moment in the early 1980s when ball orga nizers expanded the number of competitive categories, which in turn led to the introduction of specific butch queen and banjee boy categories. The rise of these masculine classifications chimed with a historical juncture that witnessed the intensification of the AIDS crisis coincide with the Reagan administration’s promotion of a series of neoliberal polities that led to a rapid increase in inequality. During the same period, hip hop producers fostered a significantly tougher beat structure and rapping style than had been evident

on earlier releases, and this in turn encouraged voguers to accentuate their own athleticism and aggressiveness. “The ascendance of hip hop, with its cartoony male archetypes, was bound to attract the children's attention, not to mention their critique,” Guy Trebay noted in the Village Voice in 2000. Tracks such as Armand Van Helden’s “Witch Doktor”, which introduced siren effects and screams into the stuttering beat structure of “The Ha Dance” provided dancers with a track to match the mood on the floor. “‘Witch Doctor’ was the huge new-way-voguing anthem,” notes Wang.

Rooted in the milieu of the drag ball, the nightclub, the cabaret circuit, the ghetto, the piers, and the sexually transmitted disease clinic, voguing culture shifted again in the middle of the 1990s, or a couple of years after Clinton sought to draw a line under the militaristic and capitalistic ravages of the Reagan-Bush era, and just when activists and health workers started to bring the AIDS crisis under control. Assuming a new style for the softer times while contributing to the tire less reinvention of their culture, voguers forged a new femme vogue sensibility that featured, in the

“The Ha Dance”, Masters at Work, 1991. “Witch Doktor”, Armand Van Helden, 1996.

Tim Lawrence

words of Aaron Enigma of the House of Enigma, “pronounced hip movement [and] cha-cha-ba sed footwork (often in stocking-feet for maximum slide), peppered with classic striptease gestures.” Enigma adds: “The emphasis is on how flamboyant one can be through movement alone.”

Featuring the the spoken word poetry of butch queen Kevin Aviance, a regular perfor mer on the New York club scene, “Cunty (The Feeling)” embodied the new sensibility. Including the stabs made familiar by “Love Is the Message” “Love Break” and “Vogue”, “Cunty” also reminded voguers of some of the core elements that inspi red their style and dance.

“Vogue”, Madonna, 1990. "Cunty", Kevin Aviance, 1995.

2014 Tim Lawrence

Willi Ninja, the Godfather of Vogue

Willi Ninja, known as the Grandfather of Vogue, a dance form that he helped move from the New York club scene of the 1980’s to the concert stage, died on Saturday in Queens. He was 45. The cause was AIDS-related heart failure, said Archie Burnett, a close friend. Vogueing with its angular body movements, exaggerated model poses and intricate mime-like choreography and the colorful characters who populated Willi Ninja’s world were introduced to the public at large by “Paris Is Burning,” the award-winning 1990 docu mentary about New York’s drag vogue-ball scene. Later in his career, Willi Ninja also performed in works by postmodern choreographers including Doug Elkins, David Neuman and Karole Armitage. Vogueing had been around for years, but Willi Ninja brought it to a level of visibility and perfection in performance that no one had ever reached before, said Sally Sommer, a professor of dance at Florida State University. “He was tall man, about 6-3,” she said, “and God gave him the biggest, broadest dance shoulders in the world, so when he would do those things with his arms it was just so impressive.”

Willi Ninja is featured in Ms. Sommer’s documentary, “Check Your Body at the Door,” now in production. William R. Leake was born in Queens on April 12, 1961 and grew up in Flushing. He began

Willi Ninja, model, choreographer, vogue legend. By: Paul Hawthorn

Voguing legend Willi Ninja, New York. By: John Simone

dancing at 7. By the early 1980’s he was vogueing in Washington Square Park in Greenwich Village and at drag balls throughout Harlem. He prided himself on being a clean, sharp dancer, with swiftly moving arms and hands, and he was inspired by the martial arts hence his adopted name, Ninja.

As the “mother” of the House of Ninja part dance troupe, part surrogate family he became a New York celebrity, known as much for his quick wit and sharp tongue as for his darting limbs. His ensembles a coat made of braided synthetic hair, a suit jacket with a skirt and Doc Marten boots also turned heads wherever he went: “severe” is the word.

An androgynous, self-described “butch queen,” Willi Ninja taught vogueing throughout Europe and Japan, modeled in runway shows for the fashion designers Jean Paul Gaultier and

Thierry Mugler and danced in music videos. He also taught models how to strut, giving stars like Naomi Campbell pointers early in their care ers. Most recently, he worked with the socialite Paris Hilton, whose red-carpet sashay has since become her signature.

In 2004, he opened a modeling agency, EON (Elements of Ninja), but he never gave up dancing, appearing on televisions series like “America’s Next Top Model” and “Jimmy Kimmel Live,” and dropping in at local clubs.

“If he saw someone doing something on the dance floor that he loved, he would walk up to them and say, ‘Oooh, child, you are fierce,’” his friend Mr. Burnett recalled. “That was one of his highest compliments.”

Willi Ninja is survived by his mother, Esther Leake of Queens.

Lola Ogunnaike

Willi Ninja, 1989. Photos: Chantal Regnault

Into the Mainstream

"Deep in Vogue", Malcolm McLaren, 1989.

Terry Monaghan

The dance form "voguing" was born in New York in the 1980s. Its title came from Vogue magazine, and it was based around a mimetic pantomime of a model adjusting her clothes and putting on make-up. It divided into butch-queen and femme-queen versions, and more recently into old and new styles, but Willi Ninja, who has died of heart-related Aids aged 45, was the master of them all. Ninja would emerge with his hips twitching to the basic beat, but in rhythmic counterpoint to his upper body writhing, while his arm contorted in graceful undulations, taking the fluidity of the hand movements of Fayard Nicholas (obituary, January 27) to a new level.

Later in the 80s Malcolm McLaren heard about Ninja and voguing. Astounded by Ninja's "warrior nobility", and unique take on the louche swagger of the fashion runway walk, he took a Ninja-led ensemble of dancers around the European fashion houses, where they made a huge impact. For McLaren. Ninja did not just wear clothes, he acted them - with a passion that was rare in the fashion industry. Designers Chanel, Carl Lagerfeld, Jean Paul Gaultier, Thierry Mugler and others used Ninja as a model and trainer, and he coached runway models like Naomi Campbell and Iman on how to walk the walk.

In 1990 Madonna, astounded by the energy and impact of the vogue dancers at a McLaren event in Los Angeles, co-wrote her song Vogue and recruited Jose and Luis Xtravaganza from the family that was the House of Ninja. They injected the real dancing into Madonna's performances and her record label upgraded the song from a B-side. It became a worldwide hit. The house-rave scene was already underway in Britain and across Europe, but it was enormously boosted by these developments.

Ninja never let his extraordinary talent divert him from playing a positive role, whether dealing with gay scene rivals, homophobic hip-hop dancers, or pop stars who wanted to use him. Modest, riveting when dancing, he displayed a proper concern for young people who joined the House of Ninja.

Born William Leake in Long Island, New York, he had an undistinguished school career in Flushing Queens, but his talent soon led him to Manhattan. Arriving in Greenwich Village in the late 1970s, he joined the young gay scene that met, flaunted themselves and danced early forms of voguing on the Christopher Street pier and Washington Square.

Voguing had echoes of the defiant 19th-century African American Sunday parading and the not-so-pretended putdown glares of female partners passing each other in Afro-Caribbean styles of the quadrille. The evolution of the spectacular faggots' balls - as everyone called them - at the Rockland Palace and Savoy

Frames from the music video “Deep in Vogue” by Malcolm McLaren and The Bootzilla Orchestra, 1989.

Ballroom in Harlem in the 1920s provided a location where those older dance expressions could infuse the glamorous aspirations of the largely cross-dressing participants.

The 1980s voguing scene injected more dance by returning to the fluid styles of lindy hopping from the 1930s era of swing, rather than the alternative "stepping styles" that hip-hop had utilized so extensively. Thus, as the initial hip-hop scene declined in the 1980s, its characteristic "challenge circle" was replaced by the gay scene's runway style of confrontation. Although appreciative of McLaren's "foxy talents", as Ninja once put it to me, it was Jenni Livingstone's award-winning film of New York's drag ball-voguing scene, Paris Is Burning (1990), that put Ninja in a more congenial position in the gay fashion scene. It captu red the 1987-89 voguing scene, expressing its defiant acceptance of everyone rejected by those attempting to morally homogenize the US. The excitement of that drag-voguing scene receded in the 1990s but interest in Ninja and his milieu persisted. Fashion work became a staple, although he was increasingly disenchanted with the exploitation of fashion no-hopers charged extortionate fees to "prepare" for modelling.

It took modern dancers as courageous as Doug Elkin and Karol Armitage to include him in their productions, for Ninja was a hard act to follow. There were television appearances too, and Sally Sommer recorded Ninja and other house dancers for her epic work, Check Your Body at the Door, that should be completed soon. Ninja made one of his last appearances on Barbara Orton's BBC production Bruce Goes Dancing last year, in which he commented on the "cart horse" attempts of pop stars at runway walking on pop videos. He did not always abide by the cautions he gave to his own house family, young gay men and voguers about the dangers of "living for the fast life". But he bravely faced his end with the equani mity that characterized his life.

Dorian Corey, Junior LaBeija, Pepper LaBeija, Freedie Pendavis, Octavia St. Laurent, Anji Xtravaganza and Willi Ninja in “Paris Is Burning” (1990) poster. A film by: Jennie Livingston

Terry Monaghan

Sandra Guzman

Say the word "vogue" and "Madonna" and the ico nic video with the amazing dance moves come to mind. Twenty-five years later, a new documentary, “Strike a Pose,” catches up with six dancers, who unknowingly, would become icons to legions of dancers and gay kids worldwide.

In the early 1990’s, Madonna, then a rising pop star, was so thirsty to know about "voguing" she asked one of her bodyguards to take off his pants so that a young Dominican American dan cer from the Lower East Side of New York City, José Gutiérrez, could borrow them and show her a dance craze that was the rage in the underground black and Latino gay scene of the city.

José, 18, was a classically trained dancer (much to Madonna’s surprise) and part of the underground ballroom dance duo, The House of Xtravaganza, along with his best friend a young Puerto Rican teen, Luis Camacho. José told NBC Latino about his life-changing moment with the pop music superstar:

"I was at the Sound Factory, an after-hours spot where we went to dance all night long. A mutual friend, Debbie Mazar whispered to me that Madonna was in the club and wanted to see me. Madonna went straight to the point, she was very direct and asked, “Can I see you do this vogue thing I keep hearing about.” I loved fashion, because of course, fashion is part of the expression and what you wear to the club is part of the performance and I didn’t want my clothes sweaty or dirty. And she saw me pause and says, “It’s your pants, right?”

"Then she tells her bodyguard to give me his pants. We went to the bathroom and changed. Wearing this stranger’s pants, I did what I usually do, I danced my ass off. Then as more people found out that she was there everyone began to show their moves. It was a wild scene. I sat with Madonna and pointed out the best of what I saw.”

The moment changed the teenager’s life. In a matter of months, José was part of seven male

dancers, all gay except for one, who joined the singer in her most controversial and successful Blond Ambition Tour.

“I am picked out of oblivion to be part of the famous singer’s dance crew,” José said. “We beat out seven thousand other dancers.”

Madonna was amazed to learn José was classically trained. He had his eyes on joining the renowned modern dance company, Alvin Ailey, since receiving a scholarship in the third grade.

“I didn’t know where the arts would take me; I was so young, but I knew I wanted to express myself through dance,” he said. “I just went on a journey with Madonna, it was never about the money, it was about dance and self-expression on the stage,” acknowledging that the opportunity was every young dancer’s dream.

For years it’s been the rumored in Alphabet City - now called the Lower East Side - which was once a predominantly Puerto Rican neighborhood, that that the Michigan born star “borrowed” from the urban black and Puerto Rican culture of the neighborhood. People have pointed to her signa ture red lipstick and the hoop earrings sported by Puerto Rican girls at the time, as well as the fluid dance styles of the young men and women.

The documentary confirms it. It was the Latino and black drag scene of New York City where Madonna went fishing for inspiration.And it’s clear the impact the men made on the world that twenty-five years later, we are still talking and writing about them. "She was smart about tapping into the culture and the gay urban scene. She knew where to go get it," said José.

The film reunites the dancers and recalls the aftereffects of Madonna’s decision to turn her backstage sexually provocative antics with the talented dancers – all young men of colorinto the groundbreaking documentary, “Truth or Dare,” which featured the first “gay kiss” and which outed the teenagers, some ironically, not ready to

(Left to right) Luis, Oliver, Jose (in front), Carlton, Kevin and Salim. By: Robin de Puy

Madonna and her Blond Ambition troupe. Alpha Photo Press Agency

Dorian Corey and Pepper LaBeija in “Paris Is Burning” (1990).

express themselves and tell the world about their sexuality or their HIV status. “We were just being ourselves, young, free, and having a ball,” José says of those glorious days.

With Luis, José choreographed her infamous “Vogue” video and was nominated for an MTV Award. After the legendary tour, which grossed $60 million dollars, José continued to work with Madonna and was featured with Luis in the “Justify My Love” music video. In 1993 Madonna sang background vocals on their smash club hit “Queens English.” They are not in touch anymore, but he is not bitter. "It was a moment in time, a good moment," he said.

One of the most touching moments of the film takes place when the cameras visit José in his humble childhood home in the Lower East Side. He sits in the small apartment living room with his mother, a Dominican immigrant who is feeling a certain kind of way that her famous and extraordinarily talented son did not buy her the house of her dreams. In between sobs, José translates the moment. You can see clearly the demands and strains of fame.

For the most part, the men have led private lives; one is a waiter, two others, Luis and Salim, fell into drug addiction, home lessness and got clean. All continue to dance. José for his part teaches voguing workshops all over the world, from to Mexico to Russia and to LGBT youth in his hometown of New York City. He has recently collaborated with Baz Luhrmann in the Netflix series, “The Get Down.”

But there is one thing that still perplexes the dancer.

“I don’t understand why voguing is not on par with ballet,” he says. “Voguing is part of dance curriculums in dance schools. It’s elegant, sculptural and an outlandish art form. We don’t have names for the moves, but it’s just as beautiful and powerful as any other form of dance.”

José Gutierrez Xtravaganza. Brian Zak, Ronald Grant Archive/Alamy

Madonna and the dancers of the Blond Ambition World Tour. Brian Zak, Ronald Grant Archive/Alamy

Sandra Guzman

Frames from the music video “Vogue” by Madonna, 1990.

Vogue Styles

Susanne Bartsch in Abel Villarreal’s leather horse look, April 1992. Albert Sanchez

Julianne E. Shepherd

Although it’s usually difficult to pinpoint the exact moment a street movement becomes a worldwide phenomenon, voguing’s roots in the mainstream can be traced to a single street address: 72 Thompson, a boutique in Soho where, in 1981, Swiss culture-maven Susanne Bartsch first started importing high-end clothing for night lifers. (She would eventually expand to 465a West Broadway with help from silent partner Peter Gatien, the noto rious proprietor of New York clubs like Limelight and Tunnel). Decorated “like a Dali-esque funeral parlor”, according to fashion iconographer Simon Doonan’s Wacky Chicks, Bartsch’s store was the first place in New York City to sell clothing by then -burgeoning London avant-garde designers like John Galliano and Vivienne Westwood. Whatever was new and fashionable, the voguers coveted. Cutting-edge designs went a long way on the vogue runway, down which those with the most stylish walk, dance and face won trophies and prizes – but most of all bragging rights – at drag balls that took place first in Harlem, then all over the city. Because many of those in the mos tly poor, gay, trans, black and/or Latino ball scene weren’t moneyed enough to pay for a Galliano gown, they would descend on Bartsch’s stores to shoplift the next-level pieces she stocked. They’d drape themselves in designs that sparkled and flowed as they fashion-posed for uptown fame. Bartsch, familiar with “mopping” (stealing in drag parlance), learned to recognize her own grif ted garments on the vogue-ball runways. “I would go to the balls,” she laughs, “and they would be wearing the items they had mopped from me!” Rather than disassociate with ball culture and the disadvantaged fashionistas who appreciated her taste, Bartsch felt her calling was to be in nightlife. Inspired by her “shining star” – the legendary vogue dancer Willi Ninja – she organized the Love Ball, the event that set off the fuse that exploded voguing all over the world. “I was blown away by the way this extremely socially and economically challenged community overcame their obstacles,” says Bartsch. “They transformed potential

roadblocks into brilliant creativity, art, beauty and success.” Staged on May 10, 1989, the Love Ball was a high-end, celebrity-studded charity affair to raise funds for the Design Industry Foundation for AIDS. It was the first large-scale vogue ball that exposed outsiders to the culture en masse. Where balls had been held mostly in Harlem community centers or, on occasion, Midtown clubs, the Love Ball’s competitions were now being judged by the likes of supermodel Iman and Vogue magazine’s editor-at-large Andre Leon Talley. Never before had so many of New York’s wealthy and elite been exposed to ball culture.

Legend has it that the Love Ball was where Madonna saw voguing for the very first time. They raised $400,000 for AIDS research that night. Chi Chi Valenti, a journalist and the “Brooke Astor of New York nightlife” (as Marc Jacobs called her), would write in the program for the Love Ball’s 1991 sequel that the first event was “simultaneously a massive coming-out party for the uptown ball culture, and the end of a certain naiveté that had been inherent in that culture.” A year later, Madonna would release “Vogue”, with a David Fincher-directed video star ring Ninja and voguers Jose and Luis Xtravaganza of the House of Xtravaganza. Another Love Ball judge, Talking Heads’ David Byrne, told The New York Times, “It was kind of confusing. I saw things I never saw before.”

What Byrne saw then, and what he might see at a ball now, are two entirely different ani mals. Ball culture has traced an unexpected path: voguing went from underground balls at local VFWs to dancing with Madonna on the Billboard charts before diving back underground. In 2008, the culture began bubbling up outside itself once more – interest is presently at its height, mostly owing to the increasing popularity of vogue house DJs like MikeQ and Vjuan Allure.

Consequently, voguing has branched out as well, split up into subcategories of style and execution for the purpose of the dance battle. Vogue Femme and Vogue Dramatics are two of the most popular categories among younger

voguers today, while Old Way and New Way are categories that delineate specific eras.

Old Way, the fundamental platform of voguing, developed in the 1970s with poses cri bbed directly from the extreme modeling in Vogue – hands on hips and elbows out in a turkey splay – but always incorporating balletic grace, Fred and Ginger’s creamy swiftness, and the strength and vim of martial arts. An Old Way voguer sliding down the runway might punctuate a catwalk with a pop, dip and spin. New Way began developing in the 1990s and is more gymnastic than Old Way, with emphasis on elasticity and floor moves that incor porate splits and other leg contortions. With Vogue Femme, there are fluid moves like the duckwalk, a plié shuffle accompanied by butterflying hand language – its lucid femininity makes it especially appealing. “When you get into vogue categories,

there are so many guidelines and rules for Old Way and New Way. Voguing Femme has more expres sion and elements to it, and a lot more people can do it because it’s more interpretive,” explains Vjuan Allure, who’s been DJing balls since 1999 and invented the mutation of Masters At Work’s “Ha Dance” (sometimes known as the “Allure Ha”) that most voguers still move to in 2013.

If Femme is the least rigid, Vogue Dramatics is the flashiest style, and the one that most of America would recognize, thanks in part to Leiomy Mizrahi’s acrobatic, star-turn suicide dips in 2009’s America’s Best Dance Crew, which gave voguing its most visible mainstream platform since 1993 or so. Though Madonna had given vogue an unpre cendented level of attention, the shallow exposure ultimately positioned it as a fad. Because most of America thought voguing was simply a dance –and weren’t invested in the culture from whence it came – it fell away from mass consciousness almost as quickly as it came.

For some, this was fine: drag-ball culture had flourished since 1920s Harlem, and a lack of interest in voguing from outsiders didn’t change its path. But it had its own negative effects. As DJ Sprinkles wrote in the liner notes for his 2009 exegesis “Ball’r (Madonna-Free Zone),” “[Madonna] had taken a very specifically queer, transgende red, Latino and African-American phenomenon and totally erased that context with her lyrics, ‘It makes no difference if you’re black or white, if you’re a boy or a girl.’ Madonna was taking in tons of money, while the Queen who actually taught her how to vogue sat before me in the club, strung out, depressed and broke”.

“What do you get out of [doing dips]? Slamming your fucking body on the floor,” laughs Michelle Visage. Where there is history, there will be traditionalists. Visage was first taught to vogue by Willi Ninja in the mid-’80s and, with the House of Ninja, was the first-ever biological woman to walk in a vogue ball. (True to her name, she was a face-and-body queen, and she often won her categories). “Not to take away anything from these

Julianne E. Shepherd

kids, and there is a talent to it, but I think there is not as much thought into it [now]. You gotta evolve, but where it came from is missing in New Way. Voguing has a base – it’s emulating models in a magazine. I think that’s really where my problem is. If somebody can morph the two and keep some of the old aspects with the new dips, that could be really interesting.”

Visage still does Old Way and performed in clubs several times a week through the ’80s, while both attending college and being the bleached-blonde lead in the freestyle trio Seduction. (Madonna once accused Visage of trying to steal her look, though watch the video for 1989’s “It Takes Two” – which is full of voguing – and it seems like it might be the other way around.) Some of the New Way acrobatics – and, to some, the de-purification of the dance – point back to its mainstreaming, as well as more formally schooled dance students joining the culture. Salim “Slam” Gauwloos was one of them, a young professional dancer who joined Madonna’s troupe and became the handsome white face of her “Vogue” video. Jose Xtravaganza taught him the moves, which Slam now incorporates

Top model IMAN wearing Thierry Mugler at the 1st Love Ball Aids Benefit, Roseland, New York, 1989. Chantal Regnault

Leiomy Mizrahi (aka Leiomy Maldonado). Photo: Paola Velasquez

into his contemporary dance classes at Alvin Ailey Extension School. Most recently, a Longchamp ad starring supermodel and dancer Coco Rocha gave a touch of secret Old Way and catwalking to the consumers of high-end handbag. The mainstreaming of vogue was always something Willi Ninja saw from the corner of his eye. After Madonna’s house hit blew up, his dan cing and style a crucial part of it, he became a fixture in music videos and walked the runway for Jean-Paul Gaultier. Most significantly, Ninja was the first voguer to bring the dance to an institutio nal-art level when he collaborated on postmodern works with choreographer Karole Armitage. He would later perform with Doug Elkins at the Joyce Theater and take his work “The House of Ninja” to Summerstage in Central Park and to the prestigious Théâtre de Suresnes Jean Vilar at the Sorbonne in Paris. Ninja, who passed away in 2006 from AIDS-related heart failure, is remem bered not just because he was one of the most beautiful dancers ever, but because he had the foresight and confidence to know that voguing could be preserved as an important American art form. Mainstreaming ball culture didn’t have to be solely about commerce.

In the 21st century, painter and performance artist Rashaad Newsome understands this as Ninja did, and is a descendant of his legacy, pre serving voguing and ball culture in institutions as much as possible. In 2010, Newsome brought voguing to the Whitney Museum via a multime dia performance and through two videos that showcased New York voguers Shayne Oliver and Twiggy Prada exhibiting Vogue Femme and New Way styles. “I think the reason voguing remained underground was because it was tied to the black and Latino gay community,” says Newsome. “The vogue scene came out of a need for a safe space for the black and Latino gay community to express themselves. As an artist, I feel that the practice of vogue is very much a part of performance-art history, and as museums care for, conserve and collect artifacts and objects of artistic, cultural, or

Seduction - "It Takes Two"

historical importance, I can think of no place better for the pieces to live.”

The first time Newsome ever saw anyone voguing, it was 1993. He was 17, at a house party and over the moon. “I was a huge hip hop fan and I had never seen anyone ‘break’ like that,” he says. Though breakdancing and voguing are two entirely different styles set to entirely different music (hip hop and house, respectively), there was a time in the 1980s when the two intersected and infor med each other.

Long before the dances were immorta lized in museums and NYC’s hallowed dance halls, they crisscrossed on the streets and, most significantly, the clubs. The locus points were mul tigenre venues: voguers were at Red Zone, The Underground/The Sound Factory, Latin Quarter and Escuelita; they bumped up with b-boys at The Loft and, later, The Tunnel. “Straight up, it all came up in the clubs and the streets”, says Jonathan Lee, who learned to dance from Robin Dunn, Crazy Legs and Mr. Wiggles, and now tea ches hip hop dance at the Alvin Ailey Extension School. “Especially with voguing culture and the gay community, but people would dance in the club the way they wanted to dance. That’s where

Julianne E. Shepherd

Madonna on her music video “Vogue”, 1990.

Julianne E. Shepherd

everyone could and can meet. People in the club are going to dance regardless of their style. Even now, people who are lockers will lock to the music and voguers will vogue to the music – it just comes down to the DJ. At the club you can find everyone.” The Loft during the 1980s was the most significant intersection of b-boying and voguing, in which breakers and banjee boys – gay men who dress socio-typically “masculine” – would combine elements of Old Way and popping and locking, creating a still-enduring style known as “lofting.” But in the late 1980s, as b-boying’s popu larity waned and voguing’s phased in, the denizens passed each other on the way.

As voguing has been codified in museums and commercials, one important aspect to Newsome is how its past speaks to its future, and vice versa. “My interest in vogue is how it functions as a language that is constantly in a state of flux,” he says. “One cannot really go to a school and learn how to vogue. You go to where it’s happening, learn the language and make it your own. So, in a lot of ways, whenever you encounter vogue, you’re encountering what’s in front of you and everything that came before it. [We should encourage] more experimentation of the language of vogue, so that it can live forever”.

Legendary

Renault Afrika, Bangy Realness category at the Love Ball Aids Benefit, Roseland, 1989. Chantal Regnault

Red Bull Music Academy

The AIDS Crisis

Members of House of Xtravaganza, who put on the the first ball at Tracks in 1988. Timothy Greenfield-Sanders

Portrait of David DePino, 1988. Photo by: Timothy Greenfield-Sanders

Gran Varones

The year was 1982. New York began the year as one of the most dangerous cities in the United States with a record 637,451 reported felonies by the end of 1981. One year into what is now known as the AIDS epidemic but before the urging of activists during a July 27 meeting at New York to adopt the term “AIDS”, much of the media, resear chers and medical providers called it “GRID (gay related immune deficiency syndrome,” “the gay plague” or “gay cancer”. The city’s underground club begins emerge into the pop conscious ness after the release of Madonna’s debut single “Everybody” becomes a club hit. However, New York’s gay clubs are still under siege by the city’s police who still routinely raid clubs. On the night of September 1982, the NYPD violently raided Blues, a Manhattan gay club primarily patronized by black and latino queers and trans folks. Police locked the doors and beat patrons for more than an hour sending 35 club-goers to the hospital. Police were never charged.

This is the New York that Hector Valle, a 22-year-old vibrant Puerto Rican gay man with a flair for style, existed in. Hector was widely known throughout the community and dance clubs for his elegant and athletic style of Vogue. While not formally a part of any ballroom house Hector

was enchanted by New York’s growing ballroom scene and made the bold decision to start his own house – the House of Extravaganza (origi nal spelling until 1989). Hector set out to recruit members from the pre-gentrified Christopher Street Pier from the legendary queer dance uto pia, Paradise Garage which would helped inform the Xtravanganza culture. One of the first official Xtravaganzas included a young Puerto Rican trans woman who later become an icon in her own right – Angie Xtravaganza.

The House of Xtravaganza made their debut in 1983 and under the leadership and guidance of Hector and Angie, who served as house mother and father, the then not-so-experienced house quickly emerged as one of the most exciting new houses on the scene. As their popularity expanded, the Xtravaganzas became a fiercely close family on and off the runway. Hector’s pioneering vision was in full fruition.

In just two years, New York was rapidly becoming a different place. Gentrification was beginning to change the landscape of New York’s nightlife and culture. Madonna had emerged from the underground scene and was reaching pop icon status after the release of her 1984 sophomore album, “Like a Virgin”. And after the protest

of black and Latino LGBTQIA people and allies the NYPD was no longer raiding gay clubs but in the fever hysteria of AIDS panic has begun to close bathhouses. And by the end of 1985, AIDS had claimed over 5,000 people including the pioneering Hector Valle Xtravaganza. Hector was just 25 years old.

The House that Hector built would continue under the leader ship of Angie Xtravaganza until her own death in 1993 at the young of age of 28. By the late 1980’s, the house broke into the mainstream appearing in both Time and American Vogue magazines. The house was also prominently featured in the 1990 groundbreaking docu mentary film “Paris is Burning.” and two of the Xtravaganza children, José and Luis Xtravaganza rocketed to international stardom as dancers for the Madonna, the singer who started her career the same year the Xtravaganza was founded.

Almost 40 years later, Hector’s vision remains stronger than ever. The House of Xtravaganza continues to be one of the most influential and iconic houses in ballroom history. One of the first hou ses to incorporate HIV/AIDS prevention and treatment messaging into their mission and vision, the legacy of founding father Hector Valle Xtravaganza still shines. And for someone known for his flair, this makes perfect sense.

From left to right, David DePino Xtravaganza, Mother Angie Xtravaganza, Danni Xtravaganza and Jose Disla Xtravaganza in 1988.

Photo by: Timothy Greenfield-Sanders

Portrait of Jose Xtravaganza, 1988. Photo by: Timothy Greenfield-Sanders

Gran Varones

The Club Kids

Christopher Buckle and Girlina, 1995. Adolfo Galella

Miss Rosen

“When the Club Kids came along, we brought this idea that our iden tity was enough; we didn’t have to do anything else,” Walt Cassidy tells Another Man. “It’s very much ahead of the time. We were cri ticized at the same time the way people criticize the Kardashians: ‘You’re interesting looking but what do you do?’”

Cassidy puts that question firmly to rest in his magnificent new book, New York: Club Kids (Damiani), which charts the history of the last underground subculture of the analogue age. Cassidy, also known as Waltpaper, was an integral figure in the groundbreaking New York nightlife scene of the 1990s, when a new group of upstarts transgressed boundaries with singular aplomb, deconstructing the realms of fashion, music, drugs, gender, pop culture, and media to recreate themselves anew every week.

Although New York Magazine first coined the term ‘Club Kids’ in 1988, the scene gelled when the people behind The World nigh tclub set up shop at Peter Gatien’s Limelight in 1990. Their vision of the mega-club transformed a former church on the corner of Sixth Avenue and 20th Street into a brave new world.

BOOB live at Westbeth Theater (Automobile Theme) in 1997 with BOB, Sonia Sonic, Loxanna, Desi Monster, Waltpaper. The scenes that came out of the underground clubs were simultaneously admired but derided by an American public fascinated by this 1990s world that they were not a part of. By: Patrick Rochon

“The 80s was quite a brutal decade,” Cassidy says. “There were the conservative politics in the US and UK, and the Aids crisis. By the time we get to the 90s, there was a need for relief.”

Cassidy first arrived in New York in 1991 at the age of 19. “It felt like walking through the gates of heaven,” he says. “My mother and aunt were bartenders at gay bars. We had drag queens cooking Christmas dinner, so this wasn’t anything new. But when you get to New York, the standards were so high. The doors opened and every possibility was open to me.”

He quickly connected with the bubbling Club Kid scene, noting that, “As an identity format, it was very accessible. It didn’t require a huge commitment to participate. There was definitely an elite inner circle, and there were people who were setting the standards, but anyone could put together a look and show up and participate; we were an open group.”

Peter Glennon, Sidney Prawatyotin, Taylor Dupree and Jason Jinx in High Times, 1994. Joseph Cultice

Miss Rosen

Cassidy deftly details the development and evolution of the Club Kid scene throughout its ten-year reign, taking exquisite care to spotlight the 98 per cent of the story that was overlooked by the media focus on Michael Alig. The book beautifully details the multi-faceted culture, its curious contradictions, and remarkably prescient sense of self.

Though it had strong DIY elements, the Club Kid scene bene fited from the nightlife machine at Limelight. “I had come out of the punk scene, which was active on the street level and when I arrived into the Club Kids, we had our own publication [Project X magazine] and offices. There were PR people, an art crew, lighting people –there was so much professionalism around hanging out and I found that really engaging,” Cassidy says.

Extremely media savvy, the Club Kids understood the power of the press to catapult their radical vision into mainstream culture.

High Times, 1994. The fashion that stemmed from this era had a long lasting impression on the subsequent generations. Outfits were often put together and were just worn for a single night - if they lasted that long.

Lil Keni and Astro Erle in

Joseph Cultice

Miss Rosen

“

We were using daytime talk shows the way peo ple are using Instagram now,” Cassidy says. “We were pushing ourselves as identities. We had this understanding that our identities were a brand and that was a new idea.”

The Club Kids embodied the ethos of the 90s, embracing the spirit of deconstruction in their creative process. “It was about ripping things apart and putting them back together and letting all the scars show – that was a metaphor for the 90s: the fashion, the music, the style, even the drug use,” Cassidy says.

“The drugs that people were taking were about pursuing truth, opening up and going to the furthest point inside. The 80s, it was cocaine, which is a superficial social drug. With other drugs [like ketamine] you are exploring your mind and looking for an inner truth.”

Heroin eventually became the death-knell of the scene. “We knew it was dangerous, but we were so adventurous that we were like, ‘Let’s be junkies now.’ We took it on as a style, like anything else we used to build our identities,” Cassidy reveals.

Yet for all the horror that drug caused, Cassidy maintains a balanced perspective, avoiding the reductive sensationalism with which the scene has been portrayed. Both a deeply personal account and a well-researched cultural history, Walt Cassidy’s New York: Club Kids is a book whose time has come — the story that could only be told by an insider.

“I was aware I was in the middle of a his toric moment, and we were playing out all these archetypes, like ‘Wow, we are at the core of the universe’,” Cassidy says. “It felt like Babylon.”

Lil Keni’s platforms, 1994. Misa Martin

Sidney Prawatyotin in High Times, 1994. Joseph Cultice

Sara K in High Times, 1994. Joseph Cultice

Chloe Sevigny in High Times, 1994. Joseph Cultice

Brittany Natale

Before there were Instagram influencers there were the Club Kids, a group of fashion-forward youth who became pop culture icons through their regular appearances not only in New York City nightclubs but also on daytime talk shows, in magazines, and in fashion campaigns. Jewelry designer, artist, and original Club Kid Walt Cassidy AKA Waltpaper looks back on his experience of being an influential part of 90s club culture’s most prominent group in his new book, New York: Club Kids: By Waltpaper.

New York: Club Kids, which is out now, takes a look at the colorful and exciting life of the New York Club Kids, an existence that was punctuated with incredible parties, extravagant outfits, and total self-liberation. Personal stories and anecdotes accompany countless images — photos of Björk in the club, portraits of Chloë Sevigny, Polaroids of Amanda Lepore — many of which have never been seen before and have been taken straight from negatives. However, the book also goes beyond the clubbing and fame and takes a closer look at the important and influential work the Club Kids did: creating inclusive spaces where the idea of gender fluidity and sexuality could be explored, championing self-expression above all else, and fostering a deep sense of community especially for marginalized groups. The Club Kids paved the way by building the foundation decades ago for conversations we are still having today.

i-D recently spoke with Walt Cassidy about clubbing in the 90s, the importance of spaces that encourage self-expression, the ways social media has affected nightlife, and how daytime television may have been the original Instagram:

The nightclub culture of the 90s created such inclusive spaces. Why do you think having spaces, such as these, was so important especially during that time?

These spaces were safe spaces where we could go an express ourselves — we had teams of security guards there to protect us and oversee that we

were not harmed by anyone else and that we didn’t harm ourselves, too. So just that as a skeleton was incredibly liberating. To know that we could go into a space, dressed however we wanted to, and dance however we wanted to, could experiment with whatever drugs we wanted to, and we weren’t going to persecuted. When we were growing up as teenagers, we would get attacked just by walking down the street. We didn’t have a lot of the accep tance and it is still a challenge today, especially for the trans community. But I was attacked from ele mentary school all the way through high school. I was punched in the face; I would have eggs thrown at me — I was tormented. Something inside of me just kept going, I was never one to run and hide.

By the time I got to New York I was able to arrive at these magnificent spaces that were so inspiring, and I was finally safe. It was incredible because it allowed me and everyone else to blos som and it elevated everybody’s perceptions of everything — gender, fashion, creativity. Even if you weren’t a Club Kid, say you were just a patron just going to these spaces, you would see this group of people that were completely liberated. So, we were able to set an example for the everyday kid who was coming from the outer boroughs, and maybe it would give them permission to be a little more liberated within their own lives and within their own context. This was very valuable. The other thing that was valuable about the spa ces was that we were being paid — we were being given employment opportunities because of our creativity. We had money that we could rely on weekly. The real tragedy when they closed all the mega clubs in New York was that a few creative people lost job opportunities. Most of the people that worked in night clubs were actors, musicians, and painters, and they used the income from the nightclubs to support their work. That’s why New York really suffered culturally when the nightclub industry was targeted and wiped out because suddenly people couldn’t pay their rent or sustain their art practices. That was a really sad moment for New York culturally.

How do you think the Club Kids of the 80s and 90s would have existed differently if technology was around during that time?

I think every young generation carries similar energy, you know? I think as a young person you are wired to just use the tools that are available to you — whatever raw material, whatever channels you can sniff out is what you utilize. In the early 90s we didn’t have Instagram or social media, but we had daytime talk shows. And we used daytime talk shows in a way that people use Instagram now. We found a way on them, we found a way to heighten our profiles enough to where we were asked to be on these television shows much in the same way that an influencer would do so today where they cultivate their identity and promote it and create an audience for themselves. We had to do that, too, we just had different tools available to us. We had nightclubs, and we were living in an analog world.

So, the way that we defined ourselves was not through a computer screen, so we had to really wear our identities. The decisions that we made visually of how we did our hair or how we styled our garments, that told the general public what we were all about, whereas now you can go on an Instagram profile and quickly see a person’s age, and their interests, and what they do for work. We had to wear our profile on our bodies and take it into the streets, into the nightclubs, on television and into the magazines. But it is still the same pro cess — young people understand the idea of your identity as a brand, and that was kind of a new concept in the 90s. I think it is something that is fully embraced now which I find very exciting.

Can you tell us a little bit about the importance of fashion and makeup to Club Kids and the importance of creating your own unique identity and persona?

Natale

Walt Cassidy for the cover of his own book “New York Club Kids”. Michael Fazakerley

Waltpaper, 1992. Michael Fazakerley

Waltpaper, 1992. Michael Fazakerley

Waltpaper at Limelight, 1992. SKID Brittany Natale

For any creative person or artist, your networks, supplies, and materials are all very important. What was beautiful about New York City in that time period is that it was so rich with materials, and you had so much to work with. You just had to walk around the streets and scavenge it out. MAC was a new brand at the time, this was before they were purchased by Estee Lauder, and it was a really exciting new makeup brand because prior to MAC if you wanted that level of color intensity in makeup you had to turn to stage makeup which has a very costumey look. When MAC came along, they offe red these brilliant colors in a wearable approach. As far as fashion, what was exciting about the Club Kids was that we brought this notion of disposable fashion. We would make our outfits out of materials that we would get down on Canal Street at the industrial supply stores. We would hot glue them together and they would usually be meant to only last for one night. We weren’t creating looks in fashion that were meant to be collected, it was made as a temporary gesture. It was all made to be worn one night, and to be either disposed of or ripped apart and be made into something else. I think that was a very new and distinct element to the 90s because you get into this idea of deconstruction and how it made its way into fashion. That was a big contrast to how people approached fashion in the 80s where people were collecting Jean Paul Gaultier and Stephen Sprouse pieces — where people were really clinging to objects. In the 90s we were all apart ripping everything apart and putting it back together again and letting all the scars show. So, there was an incredible honesty to the culture of that moment, and I always found that really invigorating and charming.

Were you able to keep anything?

What I was able to keep is all the photographs, documents, and ephemera — and that all served as the foundation of the book. I have been asking around about the garments and if anyone saved anything, they are very hard to find because they

really weren’t made to last. This makes them spe cial though because you have only that moment to experience something.

The influence of the Club Kids has been so widespread — what are some ways you recognize their influences on culture today?

I think the biggest influence is the idea that identity is a brand and that is enough. When we were doing that there was an attitude that people didn’t have to know what you actually did — if you were a creative voice you had to be a performer, an artist, you had to have a tangible manifestation of your creativity or a product to offer. What the Club Kids really pushed was the fact that our persona lities were enough. The reality of it was that many of us were artists, I was painting and illustrating,

Outfit by WALT CASSIDY STUDIO. Alessio Boni

everyone had different talents that informed their persona and their identity. But in terms of what we were delivering to the public on television and in magazines was that we are fabulous enough as we are, that it is enough that we have cultivated this dynamic look and personality and we don’t have to do anything else. That was the really kind of new and shocking idea at the time.

I think people still until this day struggle with what that is and what that means and also giving value to that. I also think that the notion of gender and the way we are discussing and acknowled ging gender as being fluid, it’s this idea of blurry lines and that we don’t have to explain ourselves. We don’t have to define to other people what our gender identities are or what our sexual preferences are. We are allowed to exist in an abstract world that requires you to deal with each one of us as an individual and to not put us all collectively into a box that you can understand. I think that that is a very empowering concept that people now are adding the appropriate language and dialogue to. Back then we didn’t really have those terms or that language, we were just winging it. We were just acting intuitively. It is so exciting to see that the language and conversation has developed around the topics of gender and fluidity.

Can you walk us through a typical Club Kids night out?

I think one of the misconceptions about the Club Kids was that we were reckless hedonists that were just barreling through the night. In reality, those of us who were part of the inner workings of the group we had very structured approaches. We were hired by the nightclubs and there was also a lot of internal machinery to help support our personalities. There were teams of PR peo ple, photographers, lighting people, security, there were all types of management behind the scenes. We had our own offices in the clubs that we would go to during the day where we would plan out different events. We had our own magazine.

Our night was usually pretty full — there was usually multiple venues you would go to in one night. It was not unusual to go to three diffe rent venues in one night, and that would happen every night of the week. The way our events were usually structured was that once we got our look together, I usually took about three hours to get ready, we would pile over to the photographer’s

Brittany Natale

studio where he would photograph each one of us. Those images would then be used for the magazine, for promotional flyers for the clubs, and press photos for television. After that we had to go to the club for a dinner or we would have to go to an outlaw party. Outlaw parties were created to generate energy and hype early in the evening because the club’s goal was to get as many people

the most

all

a

Main dancefloor at Limelight, 1992. The Limelight was a chain of nightclubs that were owned and operated by Peter Gatien with various locations across the United States. It was arguably one of

significant of

the club chains, having first started as a disco and rock club. It was

prominent place to hear techno, goth, and industrial music in the 1990s and later earned media attention in 1996 after Club Kids member, Michael Alig, was arrested and convicted of killing fellow member, Angel Melendez. By: SKID

Waltpaper and DJ Joeski at Limelight, 1992. SKID

Brittany Natale

into the venueas early as possible so they would start drinking so the bars could make money. The underlying strategy was always, “How do we get people into the clubs before 1am?” So often what was used was an outlaw party where we would do these spontaneous — you can almost compare them to flash mobs — where we would show up in a public space all dressed up, set up a fake bar on a cardboard box, someone would bring a boombox with music. We would all party until the cops came, and if the cops didn’t come quickly enough then someone would actually call the cops. The peak of the outlaw party was the cops coming, where we would all drop our cocktails and run to free dom which was the nightclub we were working at. It was all very, “We all have to take shelter at the Limelight!” The club would then be happy because they had a club full of Club Kids at 10:30. From there we usually had a dinner where offbeat celebrities would be asked as a guest to the dinner and all the Club Kids would sit around and have dinner with someone from a 70s televi sion show. After that we were expected to be in a certain area of a club for open bar which was right at the front of the club so patrons would feel like, “Wow, I’m at the right place at the right time”. From there we always had responsibilities throughout the night — some people were go-go dancers, some were hosts, some did the velvet ropes to the different lounges. There were many different parts, so in order to keep the energy active in the club different things would happen at different times throughout the space. For instance, there might be a fashion show in one area earlier in the night, and then there may have been a performance on the main stage in another area, and then some thing else going on in the VIP. Our responsibilities as Club Kids and hosts were to help people navi gate to where all the fun things were happening. Usually, it would end around 4:30am and we would get paid, and then usually go to an afterparty or another outlaw party — sometimes outlaw par ties would be staged after the club closed. Or we would all gather at one of the Club Kids houses

because many of us lived in one of these houses at the time. There were two main Club Kids houses at the time with multiple floors and we all lived toge ther. That is something that I don’t think people realize about the Club Kids — that there was this family unit, we all lived together, worked together, spent the days together scavenging raw materials. It was very much a family, and I was always very charmed by that aspect of the lifestyle, and that is something I try and convey in the book.

How do you think your time being a Club Kid has influenced your artistry now and your approach to

life?

I think it is always there — I never turned off that part of my life. I have always acknowledged it as my foundation. I think that it gave me a code of ethics to operate from and it also gave me the con fidence to be an individual and to pursue my life in an authentic way. It gave me license to do that, and that was a beautiful thing. One of the reasons why I came back and did the book was because I found myself doing a lot of jewelry work and creating a jewelry brand, and in doing that I kept remembering the Club Kid days and kept looking back at the photos and seeing how important jewelry was to me without even knowing it. I was utilizing jewelry as a medium intuitively. I had no intention of being a jewelry designer, I never thought about it. But I was naturally drawn to that expression. That became the impetus for me doing the book because as I started looking back at those old images, I realized I needed to unpack the experience of the 90s and of being a Club Kid because there were so many dynamic moments to it.

The images are so great — I think it really will inspire readers to take more photos of their own.

You know, I always tell young artists to keep their archive together. It is difficult now too because everything now is in a digital format, so it disappears so easily. I have trunks of negatives and

prints, so they are very tangible and easy to hold onto. I think with digital technology I do worry about future archives and how they are preser ved. Seventy percent of the book has never been printed or seen, we took the images straight from the negatives, scanned them, and printed them from their original sources. I fear that a lot of content in the digital age will be lost, so I think it is more important for young people and artists to really stay on top of their archive because your archive becomes your currency as you get older.

Things that you are doing and expressing in your late-teens and twenties, that is the cur rency that you will use for the rest of your life. Your name, your identity, and your archive — any person that is tuned into this will benefit from it as they go through their lives because you always go back to it. What you realize with maturity is that you are already doing what you are supposed to do in life as a child and as a young person. I think young people tend to think, “I have to get to this other place,” but once you mature you start to realize you were always in the place that you needed to be in from the beginning — it has just sort of come full circle with it.

A lot of younger people, myself included, tend to think this way. When it is more important to enjoy the journey and recognize yourself as always being a constantly developing and evolving person. Absolutely, it is sort of like — you know how a stone is polished in a tumbler? You put in a raw stone and it kind of just turns and turns and turns and the stone becomes shinier, more intricate, more developed and more evolved. I think that is how life is, we are all the same stone [from the beginning] and as we go through life, we just get shinier and shinier. It’s great to understand that.

A Disco 2000 party flyer by Gregory Homs from 1995. “This is a piece of art by Gregory Homs, who really created all the branding and visuals for the mega-clubs. He did the advertisements and promotional materials,

and he designed the Club Kid trading cards. Disco 2000 was the quintessential Club Kid party. It was held at Limelight, Peter Gatien’s flagship. Disco 2000 was hugely successful and ran for a long time. This

ad is riffing on the question for concerned parents that was in the culture at the time: ‘Do you know where your children are at night?’ It was a fun play on that idea.”

Club Kids at Limelight, 1992. (clockwise from left) Julie Jewels, Waltpaper, Dj Keoki, Sacred Boy, Björk, Lil Keni, Keda, Reign Voltaire.

Rupaul in Time Square, New York City, November 1992. Catherine McGann

Vogue Around the World

Allyn Gaestel

By:

Nearly 30 years after “Paris Is Burning” put a spotlight on New York’s underground ball culture, Paris itself is alive with the spirit of resis tance, survival and self-expression, in spaces carved out largely by black and Latinx members of the L.G.B.T.Q. community.

“It started there, it is the birthplace. It’s only right that the mecca of ballroom is New York City,” said Mother Steffie Mizrahi (known as “Nikki”), one of the pioneers of Paris’s scene. “But I would say the mecca of ballroom in Europe is Paris.”

Balls encourage bombastic self-love and experimentation, especially with gender. They are also sites of fierce competition. Participants face off in categories like Vogue Femme Dramatic, where dancers sharply frame their faces in hand performance, catwalk, duck walk, spin and dip dramatically to the floor; and Runway, where they dress in ornate costumes and strut down the catwalk.

An M.C. amps the performers up over frenetic house beats, and the crowd chants rhythmic riffs to encourage them. A panel of experts — longtime members of the community — judge the perfor mances and award trophies.

“You definitely need tough skin to enter the world of ballroom, and it’s going to grow your tough skin also,” Ms. Mizrahi said. “The judgment is hard, and the competition is tough.”

Histories of the culture, including one by the night life scho lar Tim Lawrence, cite 19th-century French masquerade balls as an early influence. He connects the dots between then and the 2010s in the introduction to “Voguing,” a seminal photography book by Chantal Regnault, noting the presence of queer balls in Lower Manhattan in the late 1800s and quoting Langston Hughes, who described Harlem’s balls in the 1920s as “spectacles in colour.”

At first these spaces were racially integrated, but by the 1960s they “began to fragment along racial lines,” Mr. Lawrence writes. People of color were sidelined at drag beauty pageants, pressured to lighten their complexion and often shut out of winning.

According to Mr. Lawrence, Crystal LaBeija was one of the few people of color to win a Queen of the Ball title at a ball organized by white people. Fatigued by persistent racial discrimination, she created the first black ball in 1972 and what is believed to be the first ballroom house, the House of Labeija. Soon others followed: Omni, Ebony, Mizrahi, Revlon, Mugler, Ninja.

Thierry

Dustin Thierry

In New York in the 1970s and ’80s, the codes of ballroom were established. The house structure was created to prepare partici pants for the balls and to foster competition. Ballroom houses also served as chosen families for people facing intense discrimination and hostility at home.

Michelle Royalty, Matyouz Royalty and Mariana Royalty at the Birth of Venus Grand Kiki Ball in Paris. Nearly 30 years after “Paris Is Burning” was released, France’s capital has a flourishing underground ball scene.

Dustin

for The New York Times

Each house has a mother and often a father, who become grandparents and godparents as successive generations move up in the house’s hierarchy. People who excel are named “legends” and, eventually, “icons.”

Willi Ninja, the most famous voguer of the ’80s, started the House of Ninja and invited Archie Burnett to become the father to his mother. Now 60 years old and still touring the world as an ins tructor, Mr. Burnett has graduated to grandfather status. “We are family, you don’t have to be blood to be family,” he said. “If you aren’t getting those survival skills at home, you will get them here.”

Vogueing was created as a battle, Willi Ninja explained in “Paris Is Burning,” but instead of figh ting out in the streets you do so on the dance floor, pose by pose. The dance is inspired by a mix of things: gymnastics, hieroglyphics, African art, model shapes and poses.

One commonly shared origin story involves inmates at Rikers Island who were flipping through an issue of Vogue magazine and began copying poses as quickly as they could. Another version says the same practice occurred first in under ground clubs downtown in Manhattan.

Ballroom today offers a space and a language — verbal and physical — for people to explore fluid identities. Many of the former Femme Queens, people who dressed in drag, are now “blossoming into trans women,” Ms. Mizrahi said in a phone interview. She too had this experience in ballroom where she was encouraged by one of her kids to walk in drag and discovered “all this femininity I had trapped in me I tried to suppress all those years.”

She now lives as a woman and credits ballroom with helping her encounter her fullest expression. “When a flower is meant to bloom, she’s meant to bloom,” she said. Lasseindra Ninja, another pioneering Parisian mother, said in a phone interview: “When you vogue it’s also a political act with your body, coming out as a drag or transgen der on the floor, showing yourself, being proud of yourself on the floor.”

The empowerment built up in the ballroom, she said, then translates to the rest of life, to walking down the street with confidence and sel f-love. “Our bodies are very political, being black, being black transgender, being black drag, being black gay, being black big, small, to empower our body. Being good with our bodies, with our selves is major for me.”

Urban dance battles of the 2000s, like Funkin’ Stylez in Düsseldorf, Germany, were an early forum for vogueing in Europe. Ms. Ninja competed across the continent, in Switzerland, Finland and elsewhere. At the time, she was the only transgender competitor who would battle cisgender dancers at hip-hop festivals. “It was a straight event, actually, and very extremely homophobic, extremely transphobic, very judgmental,” she said. At her first festival she was attacked. Still, she made a name for herself and was eventually recruited into the House of Ninja.

She met Ms. Mizrahi, who had lived in the United States since the late 1990s and was active in the ballroom culture there, in a Paris club. When she found out that Ms. Ninja was competing in hip-hop festivals, she told her they needed to start ballroom there. “You don’t go to vogue at hip-hop festivals, because you will suffer prejudice and being misunderstood,” Ms. Mizrahi said. “You vogue at a ball.”

“We literally started from scratch to first bring the culture,” she said. “It was tough at the beginning to make them understand the rules and all the aspects that has to do with it.”

The House of Mizrahi and the House of Ninja were the first chapters to open in Paris, in 2013. Now there are about 14 houses in the city. All but one — LaDurée — are offshoots of American houses. The scene is expanding across Europe: in Italy, the Netherlands, Britain, Germany and Russia. Each country’s take is slightly different, reflecting the local context.

The scene in Paris is in its third generation of “kids,” or new members, who are helping to spread the ideas of ballroom beyond the underground.

Allyn Gaestel

The underground ballroom scene of the Netherlands, 2018. Dustin Thierry

Dustin Thierry

Kiddy Smile, a D.J. and electronic dance singer, is one of Ms. Mizrahi’s kids. A music video he released in 2018, “Be Honest,” chronicles the search for a space for free expression. In the opening he sings with a church choir, decked out in a white robe, but busting a bit, dancing harder than the other singers.

The video cuts to a scene at a colorful club where kids are vogueing. Ms. Ninja appears. Then, on the street, a member of the choir passes Kiddy Smile and takes a picture of him kissing his lover.

The next morning the priest shuts him out of the church. Kiddy Smile finds his way then to a “church for everyone” that had been advertised at the club. And in the final scene he is dancing with a choir dripping in rainbow and glitter, singing, “be honest above all.”

Black and queer creators tend to invent and reinvent the avant -garde, but their contributions to popular culture are not always accurately attributed nor compensated for their work. Many people, for example, believe Madonna is to thank for vogueing, because she popularized it with her 1990 music video for “Vogue.”

Now, though, more and more members of the community are owning their cultural capital. “Pose,” a TV show that chronicles the lives of members of New York’s scene in the late ’80s, is popu lar within the ballroom sphere. It includes a cast of transgender actors, and veterans of the scene are involved in its creation and its development.

As Ms. Ninja travels the world sharing ballroom and teaching workshops, she said her focus is on empowering her community first. “I have room for everybody, but when you have a straight life you’re kind of good in society, so you don’t really get the wrath of being outcasts,” she said. “When they come to ballroom, they should be educated on black history, because don’t forget that that culture started because of discrimination and racism.”

Willi Ninja died of complications related to AIDS in 2006, before he could see the nascent ball scene spread across Europe. But his essence is still felt.

“What’s so crazy is what he had put in the universe in that documentary, he was like, ‘I want to take ballroom to the real Paris and have the real Paris burn.’ We were able to magnify that idea,” Ms. Mizrahi said. “It’s not about us, we just cracked the match. Now others have to keep the fire alive.”

The underground ballroom scene of the Netherlands, 2018. Dustin Thierry

n.d. Dustin Thierry

Dustin Thierry’s ongoing Opulence series docu ments the queer people of color who have continued to give meaning to Ballroom as the years have gone on and the culture has moved across the Atlantic.

The heritage of ballroom culture lies deep within Harlem. Immortalized in the 1990 documentary Paris Is Burning and the recent critically acclaimed TV show POSE, Ballroom as we know it was born of the pervasive discrimination experien ced by queer people of color in 1980s America.

Walking at a ball was a way to offer the emancipatory possibilities of gender and racial expression in Ronald Reagan’s America, where queer people of color’s existence was denied and criminalized. In the nearly 40 years since this underground ballroom culture emerged in New York, houses (the scene’s organizing structure of alternative families) have sprung up all over the world. In Amsterdam, Berlin, London, Tokyo, Saint Petersburg, Barcelona, Helsinki, Milan, and Paris, Ballroom is thriving, mixing fashion and attitude with mutual affirmation.

In Paris, pioneers Mother Lasseindra Ninja and Mother Steffie “Nikki” Mizrahi built a scene from scratch that most closely resembles New York’s, reflecting some of the similar racial and colonial dynamics in play. In Berlin, the scene was fostered by a cis hetero Black woman, Mother Leo Saint Laurent, who spent years teaching voguing throughout Germany. Cis women easily followed her; it took longer for her to gain the trust of the country’s queer and trans kids.

Ballroom stories are starting to become more well known, but what is important is who tells them and how. Ballroom is trendy today. Every hipster and cosmopolitan around the globe has probably heard about a “ball” or “voguing.” There are all kinds of Ballroom gifs on Instagram to enhance your stories with a little “slay” or “snat ched” animation, but who looks at the people who actually did the work? Who are they and where do we see their faces? Ballroom was built by the least wanted in their society, and within that slice,

Sophie-Yukiko Hasters

there are still hierarchies of privilege and discri mination. Dustin Thierry’s Opulence documents these European scenes and the queer people of color—mostly gay black men and trans women— who have continued to give meaning to Ballroom as the years have gone on and the culture has moved across the Atlantic. In times where black fishing and pink washing seem to be the key to successful marketing strategies, the challenge of a culture growing as fast as this one won’t be to become Harlem’s best replica, but to own its own narrative and history.

Thierry’s work shows how these scenes provide necessary spaces outside New York and how they are honoring the culture’s heritage by giving it new voice and purpose. The need to create spaces where queer communities of color can gather, shine, and find meaning translates beyond those original halls in Harlem.

Mother Rheeda Ladurée at “The Olympics Ball” of Legendary Father Charly Ebony, July 2019. Dustin Thierry for Vice Magazine

Dustin Thierry

Opulence, Love necklace detail on Lesly Ebony at the 'Twinyx Birthday Mini-Ball Vogue Edition'. Dustin Thierry

Opulence, Thaynah Vineyard at the 'We Are The Future And The Future Is Fluid' Ball Body painting by visual artist Airich. Amsterdam, 2018. Dustin Thierry

Opulence, Enki Laduree after walking the category; 'Butch Queen Face' at the Cleopatra Ball Pt.II. Dustin Thierry

Mary Jo LaDurée. Dustin Thierry

The crowd at the Cleopatra Ball Pt. II. Dustin Thierry

Black and Queer in Europe: Portrait Series Explore Interesting Identities in Amsterdam, Berlim Ballroom Scene. Dustin Thierry

Sarah-Lou Maarek, who competed in the Female Figure Face category at the Cleopatra Ball. Dustin Thierry

Steffie Mizrahi. Dustin Thierry

There’s Madonna’s hit “Vogue,” the moving docu mentary Paris Is Burning, and of course Netflix mega success Pose. Everyone knows about voguing, but wait, do we really? Voguing is a type of dance and part of New York’s ballroom scene fou nded by the black and Latinx LGBTQ community in the 70s to escape the marginalization caused by the white heteronormative society. So called

Juule Kay

"houses" became the surrogate families for the ballroom kids.

Over the years ballroom — especially voguing — became a global phenomenon. Maybe it's the fascination for the extreme movements of the voguers or the feeling of community that spills out to the crowd. It’s not only queer people who are welcome, all people are as long as they treat the

scene with respect. “Originally, it was gay and trans people of color who created this world, this safe space for themselves,” explains Andra Wöllert aka Zueira Mizrahi Angels, who won the Award as Germany’s Finest for the second time in a row. With good reason, as she’s responsible for two houses in Germany: the Kiki House of Angels and the Iconic House of Mizrahi from New York.

But this isn’t all she’s got for you. Zueria is also the host of the first Vogue Ball in the history of Melt Festival. The perfect occasion to get to know the queen of voguing and her ballroom kids a bit more.

Andra aka Zueira Mizrahi Angels, 33, German Mother Kiki House of Angels und German Parent Iconic House of Mizrahi

What’s the best about being a mother?

To see how someone is growing with and next to you. To shape someone as a performer, but also as a human because most of the kids are 10 years younger than me. It really is a mommy feeling.

Where did your fascination for voguing come from?

I got in contact with voguing as a dancer and realized how unique the aesthetic was and how far away it was from everything I did before. While trying out a lot of things, I found my categories: Sex Sirens and Body — both are very sensual, very naked. I quickly realized I can claim back my own sexiness. That isn’t something that is put on me from the outside world, especially from men in everyday life. That I am the one that can decide to be the uber-woman and hyper-femi nine and play with it as a performance, as a character. Luckily, cis women also have a space in ballroom as it’s an inclusive culture. It’s not about chat-ups or flirting. You can totally act out and still feel the masculine energy at the same time as you’re not only among females. There is no space for sexism, racism, queer trans or homophobia.

What do you want the people to know about voguing?

Originally, it was gay and trans people of color who created this world, this safe space for themselves. Everyone should counter it with a healthy portion of respect for a culture that was neither born in Germany nor from hetero cis women like I am. Watch, learn, and free your most opulent fierce self. Everyone is welcome as long as you bring respect.

Andra Wöllert aka Zueira Mizrahi Angel, the Berlin queen of Voguing and her Ballroom kids. Agata Powa

We will see beautiful people in shiny metallic looks, who will compete against each other in a lot of different categories. One of them is Face which is all about showing the structure and beauty of your face, but I also added some fun categories like Shake that ass. We celebrate queerness, femininity, and all people from the LGBTI community. As it’s a competition nothing is choreographed, and anything can happen. It’s going to be a fucking feast, so come by!

What can we expect from Stainless-Steel Ball at Melt festival?

Christopher, 26, aka Christopher Angels Melody

Christopher Kiki House of Angels, Berlin. Agata Powa

Juule Kay

What does community mean to you?

Family. Feeling comfortable and safe. I often don’t feel safe in society because of my skin color and sexuality — when I hold hands with a man in the streets for example and get harassed for it. It not only makes me really sad, but also very surprised that this happens in such a developed, western metropolis like Berlin. Community for me means having support from my network, in which I can be my true self without fear or glances from society.

Berlin is said to be the queer mecca. What do you think of this statement?

It definitely is, that’s why I moved here. We’re still a minority and the minority is suppressed by the majority, that’s how it works unfortunately… though it’s less here than in other cities.

What categories do you like to walk?

I mainly walk New Way as I like the aesthetic and the idea of putting your body in impossible posi tions. I have a black, queer body and I was always told I can’t dance and don’t have the typical body of a ballet dancer. When I do voguing and New Way I can run free, I can be whoever I want to be and make the impossible possible. That’s really empowering for me!

Do you think it’s a good thing voguing entered the mainstream with series like Pose?

I actually think it’s a good thing. A lot of actors are queer and part of the scene, which means it’s made by people from the community and not from someone outside. I have a lot of friends who are trans and have never seen a show in which their lives are presented in a positive way. They always play the victim role but in Pose you see that they are just people who want to live a normal life, who want to be loved and who are powerful.

David, 26 aka David Angels

When do you feel free the most?

When I’m on stage and my category is called up. It’s my moment to show how I am and what I am good at. I walk All American Runway, Pretty Boy Realness, Old Way, and Twister. So quite a lot.

How did you first get in contact with voguing?

I started with House Dance and there was this event in America called House Dance International with voguing as a category. At one point I walked in it just for fun and after that I started to dwell on it more and more.

David Kiki House of Angels, Berlin. Agata Powa

What’s so fascinating about it?

Everyone is unique and everyone is free in whate ver they want to do. It’s so much fun. You celebrate yourself when we come together, and this doesn’t happen that often in life.

What does community mean for you?

Solidarity. Trust. Going through ups and downs together. And to talk about things that are some times a bit inconvenient.

Celine, 24, aka Celeesi Angels

What advice would you give someone who wants to start with voguing?

Don’t be lazy and get informed. You must approach voguing with a lot of respect as it’s more of a lan guage and culture than a way of dancing you can learn. Go to balls and look for what you like most. If you start loving it, you will find a way.

Juule Kay

Ballroom is connected to the LGBTI scene. How do you see LGBTI rights in Germany develop?

Just recently, there’s a new flag which includes a color for the trans community, that’s amazing. Nonetheless there’s also a lot of discrimination taking place within the LGBT-community — mainly by white muscular gays. They are the ones who are in the commercial spotlight most of the time, where else trans people get in the background. Thanks to the Netflix show Pose, six of the main actors are trans. Hopefully that’s just the beginning.

Do you think it’s a good thing voguing entered mainstream with series like Pose?

I think, you can’t do anything against it — mainstream will always reach the subcultures. All you can do is to ensure the right representation. Through the fact that the actors in Pose also do voguing in their real lives it gives the series the authenticity it needs.

What do you want people to know about vogue?

How much it is connected to history and culture. You should acknowledge that you come from a certain background but also shouldn’t let your self be defined by it. I for example see myself as a guest, but still, I don’t define myself through the fact that I’m a cis woman. That’s not the meaning behind Voguing. You should be allowed to be the person you want to be without being reduced to the fact that you’re cis, gay, or bi.

Lucy, 21, aka Kitty Angels

Would you say you found yourself through vogue?

Absolutely, and that was also important. Before I got into it, I lost a bit of connection to what I wan ted to do in life. Now I do see much clearer who I actually am. I can experiment and play with different looks. Voguing and this community have

Lucy Kiki House of Angels, Berlin. Agata Powa

Celine Kiki House of Angels, Berlin. Agata Powa

given me so much in the last few years. After each ball, I am pumped with energy because we all love the same thing and hype each other. It brings so much positivity!

What do you want people to know about vogue?

It’s important to acknowledge the history; it’s the most important part. It’s a community thing which was born out of a place of oppression. You shouldn’t forget this, otherwise it’s just appropriation.

There’s a huge hype around voguing at the moment. Do you think it’s a good or a bad thing?

It’s good as long as the community profits from it and the magazines or festivals that want to do something with Voguing respect that it’s not just something you can sell. When they respect us and pay us for our talent, sure, but if they just want us to make their event cool, it’s not the right way to go.

Juule Kay

What do you feel when you’re on stage?

Stress, but only at the beginning. In the first half of the year, there were about a million things running through my head. But once you reach a certain level or walk several times, you know what matters and can relax more. I am still nervous every time I go on stage, but I don’t have to force myself that much anymore.

Shayne, 23, aka Shayne Angels

What’s so special about your crew?

We are family. It’s a mix of different people from different fields. As we’re close, it’s very loving.

Do you remember the moment you got in contact with ballroom for the first time?

I was 16 and as a teenager you start googling loads of stuff and spend your time on YouTube. That’s how I stumbled across this one video which was something about “Voguing” and “Run the world” from Beyoncé.

What does community mean to you?

Solidarity. In some fields, having the same interests and goals. Being there for each other and also to offer criticism if your opposite does something wrong.

How would you describe the feeling when you’re on stage?

It’s an energy boost, similar to having superpowers. You have the feeling that nothing can get close to you — not in a sense of snootiness, but rather that you can be yourself. You feel and reflect the energy of the crowd. I am the most myself when I dance.

Lee, 26, aka Lee'elle Mizrahi

Lee Kiki House of Angels, Berlin. Agata Powa

When do you feel the most free?

When I’m voguing. I tend to overthink things a lot, so often I just have loads of thoughts running through my head at one time. When a ball is coming up, I’m always the most nervous one. But once I finally get up the confidence, I hit the floor. It feels a bit like a blackout, and I become whatever my ballroom persona is at that time.

How did you get in contact with Voguing?

I used to watch dancing television shows a lot. One of them was America’s Best Dance Crew on MTV. In season four, Leiomy, Malechi, Dashaun, Pony, and Prince were on, and it was the first time that I’d seen it properly on screen, especially vogue fem. Seeing Leiomy doing spins and dips, and what you’d perceive as not masculine. From then on, I was watching videos, practicing for hours and hours, sweating, bruising my knees, and eventually I got to a point where I was good.

What do you think of the term ‘new masculinity’?

I wouldn’t say I strive to look straight in my normal life, but I’ve been told that I don’t look gay. But when I hit the floor, I’m a completely different person. It just takes over me in a way that is hard to explain, as if something else comes out. My whole body is pins and needles in a nice, warm way. I feel super feminine and one with the music. I enjoy it a lot and play with it a lot, too. It’s insane how much freedom it gives you.

What do you want people to know about Vogue?

Voguing is almost a tool of an oppressed class. Obviously, it was born from black and Latino, trans gender, and gay culture in the 70s. I want ballroom to keep the essence of knowing that it’s a safe space for queer people of color to feel fab. You are able to wear a dress if you want to, to wear makeup, or dance like a girl. It’s a dichotomy between what

your real life is and what your ballroom life is. I want it to be a space for people to escape all the crazy stuff that is happening right now. AND: It’s called a dip and not a death drop. Please RuPaul, just change it. It doesn’t make sense and sounds dangerous.

Giulia, 21, aka Princess Blossom Angels

What’s so special about your crew?

We are a real family — I even live together with two Angels. Also, we are also in the major scene though we officially don’t belong together there.

How does your dream category look like?

I wish I could walk Body but I’m somewhere between curvy and fitness. That would be my dream category, as I am not confident with my body. But I am also happy with Sex Siren, even though you must be extremely in the mood for it — and I don’t find this moment at every ball.

Did the perception of your body change through Voguing?

Yes, I didn’t feel happy with my body for a long time. Back then, I weighed 10 kilos more than I do now and still thought I was chubby. But today, my mind’s changed and I feel better from the inside out because I’ve learned to love myself and accept my body the way it is.

When do you feel the most free?

When I dance, wherever or however that is, or when I listen to music that touches me. I like instru mental beats because I can interpret them my way. It’s this feeling of femininity and freedom. Through ballroom I discovered myself, how I wanted to be, and how I can be. I felt at home immediately.

Vogue Into Fashion

House of Enid - The Garden of Unearthly Delights; Model: Markus; Makeup: Melanie Almanza. Enid Almanza

House of Enid - The Garden of Unearthly Delights; Model: Markus; Makeup: Melanie Almanza. Enid Almanza

The Mugler Ball, which took place in Queens, New York last weekend, was probably the most fabulous party you weren’t invited to. A sea of gay and straight scenesters gathered at a ballroom to watch a mix of new and legendary vogue dancers compete on stage. It featured all that one would expect from the drag event of the year: theatre, excitement, drama, scandal and sequined catsuits galore. But beyond these hallmarks, it revealed that vogue ballroom culture has reached a new level of cultural influence. FKA Twigs, who has been training with the vogue dancing legend Jamel Prodigy, took the stage for a 30-second routine of classic hand illusions before gracefully sliding to the floor into a dramatic dip, which is to voguing what the triple Salchow is to figure ska ting (i.e., very difficult). Later that night, Rihanna got on to the stage to do a little preening of her own. Afterwards, pictures from the ball went viral

thanks to the stream of famous guests such as Balmain designer Olivier Rousteing, who gushed, in all caps no less, on Instagram about his “FIRST VOGUEING [sic] BALL”.

Voguing, a form of dance that was created on the streets of Harlem by a subculture of young gay men in the 1980s, is most easily recognized for its flamboyant hand movements, twirls and poses based on the runway walks of models, and usually performed to house music and a chorus of men screaming “Werk!” and “Yaaaasss!” But it’s more complex than that. Voguing is an art that’s inextri cably linked with ideas of fashion, luxury, and social and economic mobility; its dramatic hand and leg movements are based on elements of classical ballet, jazz, and modern dance techniques such as those founded by Martha Graham and Lester Horton (many voguers are professional dancers). Balls are the traditional voguing platform.

House of Enid - The Garden of Unearthly Delights; Model: Markus; Makeup: Melanie Almanza. Enid Almanza

House of Enid – Urban Paradise, Hair: Dennis Clendennen; Models: Honey Greenwood and Brandon Arvie; Makeup: Melanie. Photo by: Enid Almanza

They are judged competitions with some musical theatre, some fashion week and a bit of X-Factor style battles mixed in, and the Mugler Ball is reflective of a wider flirtation between ballroom culture and the worlds of fashion, art and music, the likes of which hasn’t been seen since the early nineties when Madonna co-opted the movement for her Vogue video and reduced it to a series of MTV hits. The critically adored fashion label Hood by Air, founded by the former vogue dancer Shayne Oliver, frequently incorporates references to voguing in their runway shows, and have had such an impact on the fashion industry that the New York Times recently speculated Oliver may have had an influence on the catwalks of Riccardo Tisci and Alexander Wang. And then there’s the gender fluid rapper Mykki Blanco, a fashion crowd favorite and Hood by Air collaborator, whose decidedly countercultural work is praised by very mainstream outlets such as Entertainment Weekly and

Interview magazine; in his video, Wavvy, he dances in glam-rock drag at a black tie ball. Meanwhile, at the end of London fashion week in September, Christopher Kane, Roksanda Illincic, Jonathan Saunders, Hamish Bowles and a long list of other fashion notables joined the performance artist Jonny Woo for his staging of the Miss Hoi Polloi pageant at the Ace hotel. The event was based on the documentary The Queen, which chroni cled a series of drag pageants hosted by Flawless Sabrina. And last week, MAC Cosmetics held a party to celebrate the iconic drag performance artist Joey Arias. “There’s a new generation explo ring. There are more transsexuals, people are experimenting more,” Arias says.

It has been 24 years since the documentary Paris is Burning first put a spotlight on Harlem’s ballroom culture and the gender fluid black and Latino young men who frequented it. Their styles were eclectic – elegant transwomen, melodra matic butch queens, rough banjee boys, and a myriad of permutations in between – but they were always well dressed, even going as far as to name their loosely organized crews after iconic fashion brands such as the House of Balenciaga or the House of St Laurent. In ballroom culture, the house you belong to is everything. More than a members’ only club, the house is a chosen “family” and social network; a safe place in a city where life can be difficult for a gay black boy. It was a particularly strong act of devotion to name one’s house after a fashion brand, considering the world of pret-a-porter was rarely accessible to them. But today, it’s the opposite. Fashion, art, and music seem to be increasingly influenced by ballroom culture rather than the other way around, and it’s the young men who came up in that scene, long a countercultural fringe movement, who are the new arbiters of taste.

But before that happened, ballroom culture went the way of most fashion trends: in and then out. After co-opting it, Madonna turned it into a glo bal phenomenon that climaxed with the release of her documentary, Truth or Dare in 1991. After that,

mainstream interest in voguing died down, though musicians and model agencies hired some dan cers for behind-the-scenes roles such as video choreography and catwalk coaching.

Rashaad Newsome, the contemporary artist based in New York, is arguably the godfa ther of the next generation ballroom movement. “I think it has to do with the work called Untitled I put in the 2010 Whitney Biennial,” he says. “Before that I had never seen work in a gallery or institution about ballroom culture.” Untitled featured a dan cer demonstrating various styles of voguing on camera. It also cemented Newsome’s position as the connector of all the scene’s buzziest players. For example, the Untitled dancer was a then-unk nown Shayne Oliver.

Last summer, Newsome put on his own vogue extravaganza called the King of Arms Ball. He brought together luminaries from the contem porary art and underground ballroom scene to watch dancing competitors, including the popu lar dancer Alex Mugler, a member of the iconic voguing collective, House of Mugler, the same group that had its own now legendary ball this past weekend. Newsome also works with Jamel Prodigy, the dancer who has been training FKA Twigs since he met her through a choreogra pher at a club. “He introduced me to this girl from London who really wanted to learn how to vogue. And then when I met her, I realized hers was the face I had been seeing on posters all over New York. She wanted to get the authentic New York experience from a ballroom legend.”

It all seems to add up to an overall celebration of gender fluidity in fashion and beauty culture, a moment in which people who may have been relegated to the status of camp entertain ment in years past are finally being taken seriously.

House of Enid – Urban Paradise; Hair: Dennis Clendennen; Models: Honey Greenwood and Brandon Arvie; Makeup: Melanie. Enid Almanza

Kenya Hunt

Perhaps the most potent example of this is Redken, the mass -market beauty Behemoth, hiring Lea T, transgender model, and countercultural heroine, as its latest face. “Gay is the new black,” as Prodigy puts it. And while the fashion and beauty worlds have always embraced, and to an extent been largely dominated by gay men, they haven’t been particularly open to transgenders. “It’s one of those things where everything that wasn’t, now is. And everything that was a ‘no’ is now a ‘yes’.”

It could be argued that fashion’s current celebration of gender nonconformity is a natural step in its slow but gradual shift towards diversity. Or possibly it’s the latest frontier in fashion’s perennial search for the new. Roger Joseph, a luxury brand consultant who is familiar with ballroom culture, thinks it’s a bit of both. “I think that when compared to the increasingly corporate art and fashion worlds, ballroom culture feels more real, inclusive and expansive.” He adds: “I think we’re seeing ballroom culture referenced more now because the fashion industry is beginning to reflect what it sees. If the lovely Laverne Cox, the transwoman star of the Netflix hit Orange is the New Black, can grace the cover of a storied American publication like Time magazine and bring compassion, eloquence, and wit to conversations around gender and the trans community, then why wouldn’t designers want to seize its currency?”

House of Enid - Lost Youth. Enid Almanza

House of Enid - Celestial Orchid; Models: Victoria Robinson and Cecelia; Muah: Liz Alfred. Enid Almanza

Voguing Session. Thomas Goldblum

Voguing Session. Thomas Goldblum

Earlier last month, Opening Ceremony made headlines when it announced a collaboration with Sasha Velour, season nine’s winner of RuPaul’s Drag Race, on the brand and retailer’s SS19 collection debut. The show, which took place on 10 September, was nothing short of a lip-sync extravaganza. The line-up included a number of fellow Drag Race contestants — Shea Couleé, Miss Fame, Jiggly Caliente and Farrah Moan — who were invited to reinterpret a fabric from the collection, construct a look and performed in it.

Opening Ceremony is just one of a long list of fashion labels that are casting gender non-conforming individuals to celebrate queer culture. Gypsy Sport’s AW18 campaign features child drag star Desmond is Amazing and drag queens Nina Bonina Brown and West Dakota; Art School’s SS19 show saw designers Eden Loweth and Tom Barratt, who both identify as nonbinary, cast transgender models Munroe Bergdorf and Josephine Jones alongside coun terculture icon Princess Julia; Charles Jeffrey, who routinely uses his collections to reflect on various LGBTQ+ issues, spotlighted a drag Queen Elizabeth in his SS18 show; Shayne Oliver’s streetwear label Hood By Air and Telfar Clemens’ unisex line Telfar have both routinely featured models who don’t identify as cisgender.

It appears as though the industry — or at least a segment of it — is attempting to dismantle and deconstruct heteronormativity. Fashion does, after all, have a legacy of subversive politics, and clo thes have played a crucial role in problematizing ascribed identities throughout history. For example: both the 19th century Macaronis and the subsequent Dandies dressed themselves in extravagant and often effeminate clothes in an effort to combat and challenge the rigid social classifications of Victorian England. Our identity, and by extension our sense of self, is imagined, constructed, and communicated by what we wear and the ways in which we choose to present ourselves.

“Clothing is an integral part of gender performativity,” says non-binary fashion designer William Dill-Russell. William, whose sharply tailored clothes can increasingly be found in the pages of high-end magazines, actively seeks to combat gender binarism through his costume-like designs. His sculptural garments point to the artificiality of our appearance, emphasizing the theatrical dimen sion of our day-to-day interactions. “I’m inspired by queer history, particularly the balls from the 1960s, 70s, 80s and 90s because of the people who participated in them. They were trailblazers for my community. They were totally unapologetic about who they wanted to be.” It is the unabashed gender-bending confidence of legendary performers like Pepper LaBeija that the designer hopes to instill in those who wear his dark, dramatic creations.

Daphne Milner

Theatricality is equally central to fashion designer Dennis Schreuder’s creative output. It is the “power to transform yourself, to assume a different form” that inspires many of his bold, unconventional designs. “Making the abnormal the norm, this is what appeals to me,” Dennis tells me. “I want to shock everyone with expressions that are dramatically different in order to make it difficult for people to respond to them.” For his

latest catwalk show, Dennis encouraged models to interpret their ensembles and construct cha racters around the clothes they were wearing; one walked, another ran, while a third model vogued down the runway. The designer’s openminded, democratic approach hands the reigns over to the wearer, and transforms Dennis’ conceptual designs into vessels for people to express themselves freely.

Voguing Session. Thomas Goldblum

But queering the catwalk is also an act of revolt against the racist, sexist, and transphobic prejudices that permeate the fashion industry. According to The Fashion Spot’s 2017 fall report, only 27.9% of models cast for fashion week were women of color — the vast majority of women walking the AW17 shows were white. Plus-sized models made up just 0.43% of all castings, and only 0.17% of the castings were made up of transgender women. A more recent survey published by The Cut shows that just 14% of major fashion brands are helmed by women.

“The fashion industry is a difficult, some times vicious place and I don’t want anything to do with it,” says designer Yamuna Forzani who specializes in graphic knitwear. An active member of the Dutch ballroom scene, Yamuna chooses to showcase her clothes through pop-up balls — the most recent event took place outside London’s

National Gallery during London Fashion Week. “I cast all my friends from the scene and design the outfits with their personalities in mind,” she explains. “I instruct each model to take their time and to really show themselves. A runway show is usually very fast; one after the other, with two models walking at the same time. I want each model to dance, twirl, do a dip, whatever they feel like in the moment. I tell them to just be yourself because you are more than enough, to me you are everything.” By integrating ball culture into her collections, Yamuna reframes the catwalk as a queer, inclusive space and prompts us to reconsi der where fashion can exist and who it belongs to. Photographer, director, and fellow vogue performer Celine Fortenbacher spends much of her time foregrounding non-normative identities through her celebratory pictures of balls. At the heart of her art lies the subculture’s political roots:

Voguing Session. Thomas Goldblum

Daphne Milner

Voguing Session. Thomas Goldblum

“it’s essential to understand that the language of voguing, really a language of protest, stems from a community that actively subverts conventional ideas of femininity and masculinity. It’s the voguers who inject my pictures with energy, attitude, and self-expression.” This sentiment is echoed by Guy Tahi Roland, Kiddy Smiles’ personal stylist who recently worked on MAC Cosmetics’ Bread&Butter ball. He believes that the fundamental pillars of the ball scene are artistic activism and acceptance. “The most important lesson I’ve learnt

Voguing Session. Thomas Goldblum

Daphne Milner

from the LGBTQ+ community,” Guy reflects, “is that you can be whoever you want to be, that I can be whoever I want to be. There is no judgement.”

This inclusive mindset is made all the more radical in light of the restrictive norms that gate -keep and police the fashion world. Brands like Opening Ceremony might be fighting to diversify the industry, but the stats still reflect a system

that conforms to long established frameworks. In a time when fear of difference has given rise to Brexit and Trump, the designers and artists que ering the catwalk have become crucial political actors. They offer us an alternative imagination of the future, one where gender is not fixed, beauty not prescribed, and our identity not reduced to predetermined social codes.

Voguing Session. Thomas Goldblum

Honey Fucking Dijon, starring Ethan, Dara Allen, Martine Gutierrez and Jan Carlos Diaz. Ethan James Green

Honey Fucking Dijon, starring Ethan, Dara Allen, Martine Gutierrez and Jan Carlos Diaz. Ethan James Green

Honey Fucking Dijon, starring Ethan, Dara Allen, Martine Gutierrez and Jan Carlos Diaz. Ethan James Green

Honey Fucking Dijon, starring Ethan, Dara Allen, Martine Gutierrez and Jan Carlos Diaz. Ethan James Green

Honey Fucking Dijon, starring Ethan, Dara Allen, Martine Gutierrez and Jan Carlos Diaz. Ethan James Green

Rachel Hahn

Berlin-based DJ and producer Honey Dijon strad dles the worlds of fashion and music—she’s just as comfortable spinning at New York Fashion Week after-parties as she is at some of the world’s finest clubs. But with her newly launched Comme des Garçons line—cheekily titled Honey Fucking Dijon (or HFD for short)—she’s getting entangled in the fashion marketplace like never before.

The HFD collection includes everything from T-shirts emblazoned with the streamlined HFD logo to headphone and USB-stick carriers to leather record bags for DJs. All of the HFD products were artfully arranged by Andrew Taylor-Parr up at Dover Street Market’s New York City store this past Saturday night. Dijon hosted HFD’s East Coast launch party (she also hosted an unveiling of the line at the Los Angeles Dover

Street Market in mid-October). In an all-out festive spirit, Dijon wore a sparkling Comme number to the event: a CDG Homme Plus velvet coat (with coattails!) embroidered all over in sequins. Dijon cut her teeth as a DJ in New York in the ’90s. Familiar faces from those early club days came to celebrate, including Masters at Work’s Louie Vega and his wife, vocalist and DJ Anané Vega. Some of Dijon’s newer acquaintances made appearances as well, like NYC-based photogra pher Richie Shazam Khan. She also reconnected with former collaborators like nightlife impresario Ladyfag. It was a New York City homecoming of sorts for the DJ and newly anointed fashion desig ner, where her peers could go home wearing their allegiance to Honey Fucking Dijon on their sleeve.

Honey Fucking Dijon. Ethan James Green

Voguer, The House of Mugler. Danielle Levitt for Gayletter Magazine

Voguers, The House of Mugler. By: Danielle Levitt for Gayletter Magazine Voguer, The House of Mugler. By: Danielle Levitt for Gayletter Magazine

American Vogue Today

Justin LaBeija, NYC, 2017. Photography Kevin Buitrago, photography assistant Anna Zanes

Jocelyn Silver

It is a sticky summer day in Harlem, and Justin “Monster” LaBeija is literally dancing in the street. He vogues down the sidewalk, his sinewy arms winding into impossible angles, emphasized with the twirling of a bright red ribbon. Two women in nursing uniforms are delighted; they offer a cou ple of shimmies in response. An elderly man on a stoop smiles. Justin finishes and takes a bow.

Justin was charming the residents of 129th street because we were there to visit an essen tial spot for previous generations of voguers: the Harlem Elks Lodge and church that played host to many of the balls chronicled in the 1990 classic documentary Paris is Burning. Voguing evolved from balls, the Black and Latinx trans and queer -centered events in which members of different houses (Ninja, Xtravaganza, LaBeija, etc.) would compete in drag-centric categories based around style, dance, and attitude.

Balls used to be held at the lodge at night, going so late that by morning competitors would brush up against church ladies. But despite nume rous pleas, the church’s current bishop won’t let us in. So, Justin vogues in the street.

At 28, Justin isn’t old enough to have seen a ball here. But as we chatted on the sidewalk, he was reverent of the past. “The leaders that we still have now, that were in Paris Is Burning, that know about the culture, the history, and voguing, should come back and own it,” he tells me. “They should teach the youth what voguing is and what it really means and feels. It’s more than just doing a movement, you know?”

A simple definition of voguing is that it’s a dance born of imitating poses in Vogue magazine; it is artful and angular and very challenging, and there are several forms of it (my favorite, name wise, would be “Soft Cunt”). And while voguing is still very much a New York art form – every per son featured in this article is a New Yorker, born and raised, and balls are held all over the city, from establishment concert halls like Irving Plaza to Bushwick clubs like House of Yes – over the past three decades it has exploded internationally.

There are voguing houses in Europe and Asia, not to mention across the greater United States. It has been represented in the mainstream for some time. The goddamn Madonna song came out nearly thirty years ago.

Voguing master Willi Ninja, the first founder and mother of the House of Ninja, expressed a dream in Paris is Burning. “I want to be worldwide,” he says. “I want to take voguing to the real Paris and make the real Paris burn. And not just there, but to other countries as well. My House name is Ninja, and I would really like to take my whole House and go to Japan and have them accept it there.” And as renowned dancer and current father of the house Javier Ninja tells me, “Willi’s dream came true. We are global.”

But the expansion of vogue into dance cur riculum and popular culture at large isn’t entirely welcome. Many dancers express that creators aren’t given their due credit, and that the dance itself is being watered down. “It’s a double-edged

sword that it’s gone so international,” says superstar voguer Jose Xtravaganza. “Because it’s an art form that everyone should see, that should be respected like ballet or modern. I would love to see it at Lincoln Center. But I think it’s become about financial gain, and peo ple are starting to all look like they’re doing the same thing. Voguing is too technical now. It used to be about a feeling, not about how high you could get your leg in the air.” Jose, along with many others, asserted that there are too many voguing teachers who themselves are new to the ball scene.

Justin LaBeija, NYC, 2017. Photography Kevin Buitrago, photography assistant Anna Zanes

Revisiting Paris Is Burning, NYC, 2017. Photography Kevin Buitrago, photography assistant Anna Zanes

Jocelyn Silver

“We lost a little control of the ballroom scene,” says Justin LaBeija. “Of what it meant, the history, the vogue”.

Regardless of whatever the side effects may be, you do see the influence of voguing and ball culture everywhere: RuPaul’s Drag Race, FKA twigs’ videos, dance TV shows and Azealia Banks’ music. People are constantly using and misusing the term “shade.” Enormously influential Hood by

Air founder and current Helmut Lang designer Shayne Oliver was a voguer, and he’s incorpora ted the dance into his runway shows. Beyoncé has imitated “Wonder Woman of Vogue” Leiomy Maldonado’s signature hair flip, the “Leiomy Lolly.” Maldonado herself recently starred in a Nike cam paign. Ryan Murphy is working on a show about ball culture called Pose.

“It reminds me of hip-hop,” says the father of

Kimiyah Ebony, NYC, 2017. Photography Kevin Buitrago, photography assistant Anna Zanes

Jocelyn Silver

the House of Milan, Stan Milan. “First it was a sub culture dance and now it's in all the major dance schools, and I think that this is what it is going to take to put vogue on the same wavelength as all the other dances.”

In one of the opening scenes of Paris is Burning, the legendary Pepper LaBeija describes balls as “our fantasy of being a superstar, like the Oscars or whatever. Or like being on a runway as a model.” But as Kenya Hunt wrote for The Guardian, ‘Fashion, art and music seem to be increasingly influenced by ballroom culture rather than the other way around.’”

After the Elks Lodge, dancer, photogra phers, a video crew and I continue on to different spots featured in the film: Washington Square Park, the LGBT Center in the West Village, the Christopher Street Piers. I’ve been to all of them about a million times, but I am white, and I am not a voguer nor a part of ball culture, and the dan cers obviously saw those places through a very different lens. But even though the city has been gentrified to death in the years since Paris, many said that the Piers and the LGBT Center remained good places to go. Washington Square Park has changed a lot — it’s where Paris is Burning director Jennie Livingston first met voguers, and she shot both Willi Ninja and a few dancers here. We all agreed that there were too many NYU students here today, all jumping into the fountain.

You do have to give New York a little bit of credit for still being weird – nobody blinks an eye at the dude covered in pigeons or the various barefoot hula hoopers. But when vogue legend Grandfather Hector Xtravaganza and the young Kimiyah Saul start to dance, people want to watch. Kimiyah, a trans woman and Brooklyn native, is only 22, and she’s been dancing for about six years. A high school friend brought her into the ball scene. “The ballroom scene was a whole new world to me,” she tells me as we huddle in the video crew’s van. “It was just so much creativity. I was like, ‘I have to join, I have to join.’”

“I was young,” she continues, laughing. “So,

I would go to the balls, and I would take a sneak peek of the first ten minutes of it and then I would have to run home because I would get in trouble.” Kimiyah says she dances, “more hip-hop-ish. More with the swag. I like that.” And even though she is comparatively so young she, like other young dancers I spoke with, says it’s important to understand the lineage. “You can’t be in the ballroom scene and not know your history,” she said. “You can’t walk a category and not know who started the category and who paved the way for you to walk the category”. The previous genera tion of dancers know their history. They see a lot of ghosts.

We were lead on this tour by Melanie Johl, aka Melanie Ninja Xtravaganza, a voguer and model turned yoga teacher who possesses the calming air of an ASMR video. Melanie is currently running “tea dances” at New York’s Museum of Sex, mini balls featuring famed dancers like her friends Jose Xtravaganza and Javier Ninja, cove ring styles including Old Way, New Way, Runway, and Posing (tea dance DJ Slim Ninja told me that Melanie is particularly good at getting excellent MCs and commentators). It’s her major re-entry into the ball scene – after years away, Melanie returned last year for the ten-year anniversary of the death of her best friend, iconic voguer, and Paris star Willi Ninja.

Melanie is a cis, white woman, rare in the ball scene. But she was always with Willi, whom she met at 17 after a salesperson at an East Village boutique told her to go to one of his rehearsals at the LGBT Center. “I was not prepared for what I saw when I got into that room,” Melanie recounts. “There was Willi, and he was so incredibly gor geous, tall, just stunning, androgynous, beautiful, charming, lovely, warm, kind, and did I say funny? He was hilarious and an instantly loveable person. I was absolutely in awe of him from the minute I saw him because he was so stunning in just the way he moved; it was so gorgeous. It was a love -love connection,” she says, making eye contact despite the bright sun. “Instantly.”

is like receiving a crash course on one of the city’s best eras of nightlife. She and Willi would go to Palladium (now an NYU dorm), The Saint, Sound Factory. “But I didn’t drink,” said Melanie. “I’d just have water and gaze at the lights.” She told me about walking in the Village with Jose Xtravaganza, dancing around just for the joy of it.

Willi was featured on the first-ever record about voguing, Malcom McLaren’s “Deep in Vogue;” Melanie appeared in the video with him, and they all went on tour. After a benefit performance with McLaren, Willi and Melanie looked up to see Madonna in the wings. “Oh my god you guys,” she screamed. “Don't stop! I want to see more!”. We walked to the LGBT Center in the West Village with Grandfather Hector Xtravaganza, doing so is certainly an experience – he’s well

known on 7th Avenue. Hector has been in the ball scene for decades, and as his name would imply, he is the Grandfather and co-founder of the House of Xtravaganza. He just turned 59. “But I’m still moist, you know?” he laughed. “That’s my hashtag. ‘Still Moist.’” Icon is an overused word. Hector is an icon. He made Lil’ Kim’s fur bikini for the “Crush on You” video.

The LGBT Center wouldn’t allow us to record and, lacking other quiet options, I had a voguing legend stand in a dirty stairwell. I felt ter rible, but Hector thought it would look cool and asked me to take a picture. He posed with the sides of his forearms facing forward — they are each tattooed with “XTRAVAGANZA” in block letters. “My blood type is ‘X,’” he said. “That’s Xtravaganza to the core". Dorian Corey, Hector’s “gay auntie,” took him to his first ball in 1979. He started competing in

Walking around New York City with Melanie

Melanie Johl, NYC, 2017. Photography Kevin Buitrago, photography assistant Anna Zanes

Melanie Johl, NYC, 2017. Photography Kevin Buitrago, photography assistant Anna Zanes

Melanie Johl, NYC, 2017. Photography Kevin Buitrago, photography assistant Anna Zanes

Jocelyn Silver

categories like “Leather vs. Suede” and “Model Body vs. Muscular,” and eventually began voguing. He co-founded the House of Xtravaganza with fellow dancer Hector Valle as a way for Latinos, who he says were previously excluded, to enter the ball scene. “The name Xtravaganza fit us like a glove,” he explained. “You know. Because we’re loud”.

Houses are family, especially for those who wouldn’t have one otherwise. “My House is not a house,” said Hector. “The House of Xtravaganza, we’re really a home. We’re family first. House of Xtravaganza is second.”

I ask Hector what he remembers from his early days in the ball scene. “Well,” he swallows. “What I remember from back in the day that stays with me was when the epidemic came. I lost my gay mother [Angie], I lost Hector. I started losing my family, and I started losing my friends. I can only think I’m next. It was bad enough coming out of the closet, and now we had to go deep into a dungeon and hide. And family didn’t accept it because we didn’t know what was going on. So, in the ballroom it was so joyful and happy. But I noticed nobody was really touching each other like before. Nobody was really around one another like before.”

In 1982, after Hector’s friend Princess passed away from Aids, he got tested. As of August 18, he has been HIV positive for 35 years. “What keeps me going are my kids,” Hector said. “I need for them to do more than me. Push more than me. So, I fight for them.”

Two weeks ago, Melanie took me to meet Jose Gutierez Xtravaganza, current father of the house of Xtravaganza, before a ball. He brought along the newest member of the house, 18-year-old model and Instagram star Alexis Jae. They met at one of Melanie’s tea dances at the Museum of Sex. “I found him on Instagram, and that’s when it all hit me,” she says. “I’d been watching him in Truth or Dare and the ‘Vogue’ video since I was like, ten.”

Jose has been successful for decades. At just eighteen, he choreographed Madonna’s “Vogue” video with Luis Camacho (“I couldn’t say I worked my whole life for this job ‘cuz I’d be lying”). It’s pretty much been a steady stream of accolades since – he also stars in the lionized documentary Truth or Dare, about Madonna’s Blonde Ambition tour, as well as the follow up film focusing on her dancers, Strike a Pose. You can briefly catch him voguing (and winning) at his first ball in Paris Is Burning.

Debi Mazar introduced Jose to Madonna in a club. “Madonna said, ‘I heard you’re great at this vogue thing, will you show me?’” Jose recounted. “I remember I was wearing this Gaultier outfit, and it was very constricting, and who wants to roll around on the floor in Gaultier? And she looks at me like what, is it your outfit, is that

Hector and The House of Xtravaganza, Face as House. From the book “Legendary: Inside the House Ballroom Scene”. Gerard H. Gaskin

Jocelyn Silver

what it is? So, she made her bodyguard give me her slacks, and he waited for me in a towel in the VIP bathroom. They were larger than life, but I just tied a belt around them, and I went out there.” He killed at the impromptu audition, and that was that.

Madonna has long been regarded as an appropriator of voguing culture, someone who stole the credit. But Jose disagrees. “People say, ‘oh they ripped us off, or whatever,” said Jose. “And I can’t say that. It took someone like her to bring it to the masses. And she took two of us from the community and gave us a stage to show it on.”

“I don’t feel bitterness towards Madonna,” he continued. “On the contrary, I’m very grateful.

I’m so glad that I was given the opportunity to show the world this thing that was so beautiful, that was made out of nothing, made out of struggle.”

There’s of course a similar debate surrounding Paris is Burning, one that has been raging since the film’s release. There have been argu ments that the white, lesbian director Jennie Livingston should not have come into the ball scene at all. Some of the film’s subjects threatened to sue. Pepper LaBeija told the New York Times that she felt betrayed – she wanted exposure but felt she had been promised money she did not receive. “They all got rich,” she said. “And we got nothing". Livingston, who has been struggling

to fund another project for years, maintains that she did not become wealthy from the project (documentarians almost never do). But she did break with journalistic ethics and gave $55,000 to be split amongst 13 subjects. “The journalistic ethic says you should not pay them,” she told the Times. “On the other hand, these people are giving us their lives! How do you put a price on that?” Dorian Corey, a sage voice of Paris is Burning, hit the nail on the head. “I’ll tell you who is making out is those clever Miramaxes,” she says about the film’s distributors.

The debate about Paris is Burning caught fire again in the summer of 2015, when Celebrate Brooklyn organized a public screening that was to include appearances from Livingston and musician J.D. Samson – and no trans or queer people of color from the ball scene.

There was a petition, there was a boycott. And the debate is still going; there are all kinds of concerns about Paris is Burning. Dancers Stan Milan and Ito Ninja both said that they took issue with the film’s inclusion of hustling and drug use (Stan thought the film leaned negative).

A gorgeous trans woman in her early 20s named Enigma, wearing a headscarf in honor of Paris star Octavia St. Laurent, told me that she did not like the depiction of “the LGBT community trying to assimilate to heteronormative society,” saying that while times were different then and she knew some assimilation was necessary for survival, it still made her uncomfortable to see. And there are numerous people who take issue with the concepts of recognition – that Livingston made a respected name for herself, and yet the stars of the film did not become celebrities.

Everyone I spoke to who had problems with the documentary still acknowledged how enter taining it is, how much they enjoyed watching it. And it also obviously makes sense to be angry at an unjust world in which the beautiful Octavia St. Laurent could not become a supermodel, where Pepper LaBeija would not be a superstar, where Venus Xtravaganza was murdered.

Circumstances are such that pioneers did not get their due credit, and while Livingston didn’t become wealthy or a household name, she did receive awards and recognition that those she filmed would never get. And there should of course be more stories told from within the ball scene –like this year’s gorgeous documentary Kiki.

“People have told me that the film has been helpful to them, helped them self-define, helped them survive in various ways,” Livingston wrote in an email. “So, I think it's given some people ima gery, perhaps particularly for people who don't come from bigger cities, to inspire them. To fire their imaginations. On the negative side, I'm sure it's made people who have nothing to do with ball culture (straight people, white people, and others) feel proprietary about it, which understandably irks some people from the ball world.”

“There’s some hard stuff in [Paris is Burning],” says Jose Xtravaganza. “But it’s life, and that’s what was going on back in those days. Aids hit and no one knew what it was, and people were afraid. And I think this film helped us to lean on each other, and it made us feel like somebody.” Perhaps something getting lost here is that voguing is fun. Balls, however shady and competitive Kimiyah warns me they get, are fun. Melanie’s tea dances are fun. And it is beyond fun to see artists, people who are so wildly talented, do what they love to do.

“I took dancing as an escape, to just make myself feel happy again,” says Justin. “I took dan cing and I turned it into a talent, something that I fell in love with, something that was joyful for me to express myself in every way that I can.”

At the end of our big shoot day, Melanie gathered ten voguers on the Christopher Street Pier. Everyone was dressed up. Dancer and MC Princess Magnifique asked if someone could play a song from their phone, and everybody started dancing and posing. It was magic hour. There were young kids who were voguing by the water; they came over to watch legends dance. The song was called “Love is the Message.”

Jocelyn Silver

Javier Ninja, NYC, 2017. Photography Kevin Buitrago, photography assistant Anna Zanes

Ballroom legend of Atlanta’s underground voguing scene, 2018. Christian Cody

Ballroom legend of Atlanta’s underground voguing scene, 2018. Christian Cody

Michelle Lhooq

The Ballroom legends of Atlanta’s underground voguing scene, 2018. Christian Cody

There’s a certain energy in the air when a party is truly lit — when every element of the complex social chemistry fuses perfectly, the outside world dissipates, and the room collectively elevates to a higher vibrational plane. Disco DJ David Mancuso, who presided over New York’s first underground dance party The Loft, compared this feeling to an airplane taking off on a runway. It doesn’t happen often, but when it does, you can feel liquid adrenaline coursing through the atmosphere like jet fuel, burning as it licks your skin.

It took no time at all for “Atlanta is Burning” — a vogue ball thrown by LGBTQ party crews Morph and Southern Fried Queer Pride (SFQP) in collaboration with Red Bull Music — to hit this feve rish peak. On a chilly November evening, hundreds of colorful club kids draped in glitter, sequins, and fur poured into an industrial freight depot in downtown Atlanta. After performers like Cakes Da Killa and Divoli S'vere spat bars over blistering ballroom beats, headliner Leikeli47 stormed the stage. “This shit is a girl blunt! I only smoke girl blunts!” the Brooklyn MC chanted over skittering 808 drums; a white bandana wrapped around her entire face. When she raised her arms triumphantly, the crowd exploded in a deafening roar as the air crackled electric, and I was consumed by that familiar feeling of liftoff.

One of the last great American subcultures, ballroom began in Harlem in the late 70s with Black and Latino drag queens. Dancers imitate the freeze-frame model poses in Vogue magazine as they face off in nightclubs and rented banquet halls, competing in various categories to win cash prizes and glory for their “Houses.” Thanks to TV shows like Pose and My House, ballroom is back in the mainstream glare, nearly two decades after Jennie Livingston’s documentary Paris is Burning first brought it to the wider public’s attention. While the culture originated in New York, it has been quietly thriving in Atlanta for decades — and “Atlanta is Burning” was a rare chance for all 18 local Houses to converge under one roof. There are a few cities in America with reputations built from the outside looking in — which is to say that you get to know them from afar through their movies and music. Atlanta is one of those cities; to most people, it’s all about hip-hop and trap. But it also has a less famous and equally deep history of house music. Vjuan Allure, who has been DJing at balls for decades, told me that ballroom landed in Atlanta in the late 80s, when four friends at Morehouse College started the House of Escada. Bopping around in a cartoon monster backstage, Allure listed all the DJs and Houses that have been established in the city since: DJ Brooks, DJ Envy, DJ Taj… the Houses of Mizrahi, Ebony, Escada, Mugler, Chanel… “Everyone is like, ‘Atlanta doesn’t have a ballroom scene!’” He exclaimed, rolling his eyes emphatically. “Why yes it does! New York is the largest,

DC is second, Atlanta is third.” Nearly everyone I spoke to agreed that ballroom in Atlanta remains strictly underground, unlike New York’s scene, which is attracting many outsiders (including several Hollywood celebrities) with its increasing fame. Local ballroom DJ and producer D’voli Svere explained that balls happen at least once a month in Atlanta, but you might never hear about them if you’re not plugged in. “It’s very word-of-mouth and who you know,” he said with a grin, adjusting a pink homemade crown on his head. “Atlanta Is Burning” co-organizer Taylor Alexander added that staying under-the-radar can be a form of self-protection for queer and trans communities. “After so many years of being appropriated, they have to be defensive,” she explained. “That’s why they have to be so secretive.”

Teaming up with a corporate sponsor like Red Bull Music — the modern-day Medici family for the underground electronic community — allowed Alexander and her co-organizers, Leonce and Jsport, to dream big. “If it wasn’t black queer people like us working with these large corpora tions, it would be somebody white taking the job but doing it all wrong,” said Leonce, who told me he’s been going to balls since he was 19. “We have to be here, to make sure there’s attention to detail and sensitivity.”

“Usually, balls will be in run-down warehou ses in far-out parts of town with no AC,” he continued. “Atlanta is Burning” took place in a polished venue with expensive lighting and pains taking attention to detail — down to the texture of the ground, which has exactly the right give for the dancers’ vertigo-inducing drops and spins. (Masonite boards, in case you’re curious.)

Making sure prominent members of the local ballroom community were involved was cru cial. But according to Jsport, earning that approval wasn’t easy. He first reached out to Andre Mizrahi, an esteemed vogue dancer who founded one of the first houses in Atlanta. “He wasn’t responding and was like ‘Leave me alone!’” recalled Jsport. “But I hit him up again because I knew we weren’t

trying to exploit the scene. Finally, he was like, ‘OK call me.’ Then he told me, ‘The first thing you need to know is that ballroom is built around shade!’” Jsport chuckled as he noted, “It’s like an initiation: can you handle this environment? You got to have thick skin to be one of the girls.” Once Mizrahi was in, they were able to get the rest of the community on board. Leiomy Maldonado, a statuesque vogue icon who is the mother of the House of Amazon,

Michelle Lhooq

and an actor and choreographer for Pose, was another vogue celebrity that graced the Atlanta ball. Amidst the buzzing backs tage din, I spotted her posing by the mirrors and preparing to step out onto the runway, hair swept into an elegant bun.

“Yes, ballroom can be for everyone — but you can’t just take something and call it your own, and I’ve seen a lot of people try to do that,” she tells me in her quietly powerful voice. “The most important thing is for people to understand that the ball community might seem like entertainment — but it’s a culture first.”

“Atlanta is Burning” — a vogue ball thrown by LGBTQ party crews Morph and Southern Fried Queer Pride (SFQP) in collaboration with Red Bull Music, 2018. Christian Cody

Leiomy Maldonado, a Ballroom legend of Atlanta’s underground voguing scene, 2018. Christian Cody

The Ballroom legends of Atlanta’s under-ground voguing scene, 2018. Christian Cody

The Ballroom legends of Atlanta’s underground voguing scene, 2018. Christian Cody

The Ballroom legends of Atlanta’s underground voguing scene, 2018. Christian Cody

Ballroom legend of Atlanta’s underground voguing scene, 2018. Christian Cody

Ballroom legend of Atlanta’s under-ground voguing scene, 2018. Christian Cody

Marginalized by prejudice, violence, housing insecurity, and HIV infection rates among other burdens, Black and brown transgender, and gender-nonconforming people face particular challenges in establishing secure, nourishing communities—both within LGBTQ spaces and in society at large. One response to these stigmas has been the formation of self-sustaining social networks and cultural groups, such as the ballroom scene, a formidable social movement and creative collective for LGBT people of color.

Amid what has been called a new golden age for Black cul ture and storytelling, a particular “Renaissance” in queer Black art and cultural representation is clear. Ballroom culture is now widely seen and celebrated (and appropriated) in the mainstream—across fashion campaigns, music videos, social media and in TV shows like Pose, Legendary, and RuPaul’s Drag Race. And in this moment, ballroom and voguing as the body politic has much to teach the world about what it means to be human, and to struggle for freedom, in the face of catastrophe.

Ballroom emerged amid the Harlem Renaissance, and in response to a decades-long campaign undertaken by the Black church to rid the New York neighborhood of its LGBTQ residents. In the quest for Black freedom, these community leaders decided queer folk did not deserve representation. But rather than be cast out, the ballroom scene centered its’ participants radical presence in an empowered performance space.

From their inception, balls have incorporated fashion, pageantry and dance alongside community-building and self-care. The scene also fostered a kinship system of “houses”—chosen fami lies with anointed ‘mothers’ and ‘fathers’ who guide and support their ‘children’—and uplifted a collective rejection of both white supremacy and Black homophobia. Alongside the Black Freedom Movement, ballroom soon spread across the U.S., continuing to confront systems of oppressions, and demanding more freedoms. (It also notably returned to Harlem in the late 1960s led by the legen dary trans drag queen Crystal LaBeija, who began hosting balls specifically for Black people as a response to racism in then-New York’s larger downtown drag scene.)

Through oral histories and the work of ballroom scholars, voguers trace their dance form’s origins to pageants organized by incarcerated trans and queer people at New York City’s Rikers Island prison in the late 1970s. Now one of the ballroom scene’s signatures “categories,” the original voguers created the dance as a source of entertainment, but also as a means of envisioning freedom while in a state of bondage. It was a tool both for claiming queer space behind prison walls, but also generating a vision of a world beyond the walls

Benji Hart

Michael Roberson

The makeup artist Suede Harris walks in the Iconic House of Old Navy Ball in 2014. Each ball features different categories, with performers showing off their skills as dancers, artists, and costume designers. Here, Suede is walking in the category "Face," which is essentially a beauty competition. Preparing for the balls helped Suede hone his skills as a makeup artist. Since 2014, he has gone on to work for celebrities such as Missy Elliott. “I have a very deep love for making black women feel beautiful,” he says. “I’m a young black man, and was raised by black women. They are an inspiration.”

By: Anja Matthes

of gender, of national borders, of state violence.

In June 2019, on the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall Riots that sparked the Gay Liberation movement, Layleen CubilettePolanco, an Afro-Dominican trans woman and member of the legendary Ballroom House of Xtravaganza, was left to die at the same prison, after having an epileptic episode while in solitary confinement. At the Black Trans Lives Matter rally in New York on June 18, 2020, voguers danced as a means of grieving Layleen, Tony McDade, and other lives lost. They danced, using their bodies like generations of queer people before them, to assert their right to exist free from harm, and to imagine a world where that constant assertion is no longer necessary.

This Black History Month, we cannot celebrate voguing without celebrating the ingenuity of Black trans women, sex workers, and incarcerated people. We cannot honor the ballroom houses

Benji Hart

Michael Roberson

The legendary Aniyah Juicy performs at Christopher Street Pier in New York City.

Anchored around elaborate performances called balls, kiki subculture borrows from a long legacy of LGBTQ ballroom culture but insists on a youth-focused leadership and identity. Here, Aniyah is voguing, a form of stylized dance that was developed by LGBTQ people of color in New York."

without acknowledging the parallel pandemics of HIV and COVID that have forced generations of queer people to forge their own networks of safety and support in the face of disinvested commu nities and indifferent governments. And we cannot fully understand the form, fully participate in its power and beauty, without committing to carrying on the struggles of those who’ve passed it on to us.

The same communities that created vogue are the ones heralding calls to defund police and abolish ICE. The same activists responsible for overturning New York’s walking while trans law are also demanding the decriminalization of sex work. The same orga nizers who mourned Layleen are also fighting in her name to end solitary confinement permanently, to halt the construction of new prisons, and reallocate funds toward housing, healthcare, public education, and the other resources that actually protect Black trans lives. Vogue is a part of all these struggles, for it allows its dancers to dream and enact these seemingly impossible demands, to generate freedom in real time.

Black prophetic tradition not only sees a way forward but offers this necessary critique of the present moment. And this is the gift of ballroom, at its core. Ballroom has been courageous in daring to ask the question: in this moment of Black Lives Matter, which Black lives matter most? And which do not matter at all? But it also offers hope, because it’s a reflective mirror of what democracy can really look like: radical inclusivity, relevant now perhaps more than ever as we witness white nationalists’ mobbing the U.S. Capitol, as we confront a country’s racial reckoning, as we struggle in the midst of a global pandemic. As with ballroom’s birth within the Harlem Renaissance, itself a cultural reset following the Spanish flu of 1918, we can and should consider its rebirth after COVID-19.

If the moment we are inhabiting is one our Black trans and queer ancestors once imagined, vogue and ballroom are a potent means through which we continue their work ushering in new worlds. It is an insurgent act of joy that reminds us that futures other than the ones we’ve been prescribed are possible, and we already possess the tools to make them real.

Photo by: Anja Matthes

From the book “Legendary: Inside the House Ballroom Scene”. Gerard H. Gaskin

Elements

of Vogue

Terminology

Amazon: For runway contestants, the tall division, regardless to gender. Angel: A Vogue Femme performer with softer and daintier execution. Arms Control: A category solely dedicated to the dexterity and coordination of ones "slight-of-hand" arm and wrist movements; hand tricks and illusions. Banjy (adjective): The street-savvy look; also, looking like "rough trade". Battle: When a performer challenges another in and out of the ball; A tie breaker; a chance for the contestant to show up his opponent. Big Boy/Girl: A class of ball competitors, usually 250 lbs. and over; "Luscious" for the ladies. Box Dip: A floor pose that consists of positioning the forearms flat on the floor, legs over the head, with feet planted to the floor in front. Bring (It): A challenge; call of defiance; "Come on down, you're the next contestant..." Sometimes contestants are allowed to "call out" a rival. Butch Queen: A gay man. Performance categories with this description are usually for cis-gendered gay men only. Butch Queen In Drag: A gay man who is presenting a female illu sion. This description is used for categories in balls for men who dress in drag. Butches: sometimes referred to as "male illusionists", are generally clas sified as masculine lesbians, but any female possessing manly appearance and mannerisms can qualify, regardless to sexual preference.

Cat-walk: Upright Vogue Femme sashaying. Category: Categories are created based on various themes, skills, and techniques. Some are open to all performers to compete in, depending on the type of ball. (Kiki balls are known to some times have open categories.) Carry: To lose control and show off during your performance. Also describes moments when the music has stopped or the battle is over and the voguer(s) continue to perform, making the crowd go wild. Chants: Clever rhymes and raps used to hype up a performance. Some of the most legendary MCs use a unique mix of references and wordplay over a house beat to create the soundtrack for the battle. Chop: To be eliminated in a ball as a contestant. Judges will often say, “Thank you, but that’s a chop”. Clicking: A contortion involving the arms manipulated up over the head and down behind ones back, keeping the hands locked together. Clocked: To be called out or have emphasis put on something you’re wearing or doing (ie. “I’m glad you clocked Tasha for that hair. It looked ter rible”). Come (for): To challenge; "Don't come for me, 'cause you don't want it...". Craft(ed): Obtained by illegal means- credit card or check writing scams usually; "Miss Thing, that Galliano gown was crafted..."; also Stunkus. Cunt(y): Ultra femi nine; also, interchangeable with "ovah". Designers'

Mariana Braga

Delite: A category for aspiring designers and home sewers. "The garment must be made by YOU!". Devil: A Vogue Femme performer with dra matic and stunt-filled execution. Dip: In vogueing, a ground-level stunt. Dip for Dip: When you are battling another voguer and you exchange dips every 4 counts, creating consistent "ows" and snaps from the crowd. Duck-walk: Crouching, foot-sliding and scooting movement requiring balance on the balls of the feet. Sashaying in a squatted position . Effect: A prop or set of items that maximize the impact of your visual perfor mance. These vary depending on your aesthetic or the category you’re walking. Femme Queen: A trans woman. Categories with this description are for trans women only. Legend: A highly recog nized competitor with history in the ballroom scene. These veterans are usually multi-trophy winners with a host of prestige and accolades. Face: One of the most critiqued ballroom catego ries because it is not a category you can learn. You have to be born with face or you have to go under the knife to achieve the 5 elements. Competitors compete by displaying their beauty to the judges who vote based on these elements: Teeth, Skins, Eyes, Nose, and Bone Structure. Fem Queen face is one of the most highly competitive and lucrative ballroom categories. to date. Feel (it): To be totally absorbed in the moment. Five Elements: The building blocks of Vogue Performance: Hands, Duckwalk, Catwalk, Floor performance, Spins & Dips. Grand March: The opening ceremonies.

The hosting house's members are introduced, along with the categories they represent. Mother and Father are introduced last, for maximum effect. God(dess): A title paired with a particular category winner, either currently or consistently. Examples include: label god (always "serves" this category- head to toe, and often layers), and face goddess (dare anyone defy her?). Hairpin: An extreme backbend dip where your butt touches your head. Hand Performance: Illusions, precision, or flamboyant interpretation executed through that part of the body; see also Arms Control. House: An organization within the ball room community that serves as a system of support, provides resources, and enters and throws balls. A traditional house is headed by a mother and father of the house. House Mother and Father: Two leaders of a house who are known and respected in the ball scene. A mother or father of a house takes on a leadership role in providing support, knowledge, and camaraderie to the house’s “children.” Icon: A ballroom history maker; beyond the status of a Legend. Judy: Characterized by favoritism, as in a judge that gives high scores based on friendship. Kansai: An "Old Way" dip, inspired by a mannequin in a Kansai Yamamoto boutique window (NYC, circa '70s). Kiki: A kiki is a low-key function, sometimes inclu ding dancing and friendly competition. Always fun, never serious. The kiki ballroom scene is focused heavily on community, and events are often run by up-and-coming members of the ballroom scene.

Participants refer to the growing ballroom scene in the Northwest as a kiki scene because the scene is so new. Legend(ary): A multi-trophy win ner, with a ballroom history; A veteran. Legendary Children: Up-and-coming members in the ball room scene. Live: Immense joy. (ie. “Did you see the new Beyonce video? I’m living for it”). Lofting: A dance performed by banjie or straight boys that combined vogueing arm movements with break dance floor work, named after the now defunct New York dance club where it was practiced (The Loft). LSS (Legends, Statements, and Stars): The opening portion of the evening where the most famous competitors are introduced by the MC. Makeveli: A "suicide" dip, requiring a fall to the floor, landing on the back, using one leg as a lever; a prat fall. Men: denotes contestants from the "straight" pool of patrons that still attend these functions. "Male" is used in other cases where sexual preference has no bearing on a particular category's fairness, such as with "Best Dressed Male" or "Male Muscular Body". Midget: For runway contestants, the petite or short division; anyone shorter than male/female model industry standards. Model's vs. Muscular (Body): Two separate male categories, the later leans toward bodybuilding. New Way: New way is a style of vogue that emphasizes rigid movements, contor tions, flexibility, tutting, and locking. Old Way: Old way is the first style of vogue. Originally called “presentation,” old way emphasizes creating strai ght lines and angles. Open To All (OTA): When a

category does not designate gender. However, there may still be other requirements to compete (ie. props or costume). Ovah: A variation of “over” or "over the top". Usually used to describe excel lence. Passing: The ability to be perceived as either a cisgender man or cisgender woman. This term is usually reserved for trans people. Pay It: Ignore and move on. Often used when dealing with something negative or unfavorable. (ie. “Who cares what she said about your moves. You did amazing. Pay it!”). Peeling: A runway stunt in which you remove garment layers gracefully, down to your best ensemble. Pop, Dip and Spin: An earlier name for the dance now called vogueing, with a style leaning toward graceful acrobats, and tran sitions that alternate between standing and floor positions; also "Performance". Prince(ss): That son or daughter most likely to take the lead as mother or father, should the current parents not continue their role; "Heir to the Throne". Punish: To greatly surpass in performance. Also "destroy". Pyramid: Several voguers performing together, tiered one in front of the other. Realness: In ballroom culture, realness is the ability to pass as a certain gender or sexuality in everyday society. Reading: The art of insults. A good read should never be overtly bitchy. You find a flaw in your opponent and verbally exaggerate it. Ruler: Someone currently known for winning a particular category. Rulers come and go, but Legends are forever! Scorpion: Martial art inspired Old Way dip, requiring a prone position, with one leg

Mariana Braga

dangling over the head. Seed(y): An undesirable person, or described as such; low rated. Serve/ Serving: Bringing 110% attitude and confidence to your performance. If you’re “serving” an outfit, you’re strutting your stuff and living your best life. Shade: An underhanded jab that’s slightly insul ting and usually an inside joke. Shade can also be an action, such as an eye-roll or even a smile. (ie. “Did you catch that shade Barbie was throwing at Ken?”). Shoplifting Model's vs. Luscious (Body): Two separate female or FQ categories, the later leans toward full-figured. Shwam!: Exclaimed by an emcee when a contestant executes a suicide dip. See also Makeveli. Snatch: To win . Star: An up-and-coming Legend; a frequent winner that is making a name for themselves. Statement: An up-and-coming Star; not always winning, but fre quently "getting your tens". Stunkus: See Craft(ed). Tea: In pop culture, the “tea” is the news, the scoop, the latest gossip. (ie. “I'm waiting for Kelsey to spill the tea about what happened at Layna's party”). The Ball: An event where compe titors face off against their rival houses for money and glory. Tens Across the Board: Receiving perfect reviews from the judges in a ball, which means you’ll proceed to the next round of the com petition. Turn It: When a performer stuns the audience with their performance at the ball. (ie. “She turned it with that outfit on the runway.”) Words like “serve” and “work” can also be used here. Twister: A Butch Queen who walks Realness w/ a Twist. A category that requires the competitor

to receive 10's in a realness category and then come back later in the night to vogue femme. Uglina: Fictional character created to represent unfavorable elements of the ball scene: excessive shade, petty bickering, etc. Verbal Vogue: A cate gory created to test your sharp wit in the art of insults. Contestants are often made to sit in sepa rate chairs and exchange turns at the mic to "roast" each other. Thin-skinned patrons need not apply! Also "Reading", or "Deadly Daggers". Virgin: A first-timer, who’s never walked or performed in any category before. Vogue: Vogue is a style of dance originated in Harlem in the 1970s. Vogue began in Riker’s Island prison at a time when straight inma tes were separated from their queer counterparts. These mostly Black and Latinx inmates created a game where they would imitate the poses and photos in Vogue magazine, seeing who could best serve the look. Paris Dupree brought this game from Riker’s Island to the clubs, where it became a form of dance celebrated internationally. Vogue Femme: Vogue femme is a style of vogue that emphasizes feminine movements. There are five elements to this style: cat walk, duck walk, hand performance, spins and dips, and floor perfor mance. Waacking: A club style dance from the ’70s, traditionally danced to underground disco music. Some of the main elements of the style are “punking” (dramatic storytelling), arm and hand performance, and precise musicality. Walking: Is simply the act of competing in a category at the ball. (ie. "Miss Thing, you should not walk for "Face"). 2022

Categories

Butch Queen (BQ): A gay/bi/same-gender-loving cisgender men. Femme Queen (FQ): A trans and femme-presenting woman. Butches: Masculine presenting women. Drag Queen (DQ): Cisgender men who dress in women’s clothes and present as women (cross-dressing). Female Figure (FF): trans women, cisgendered women, and drag queens. Male Figure (MF): Butch queens (see above), butch women, and transgender men. OTA: Open to all genders/sexualities. Butch Queen (BQ) Schoolboy Realnes: This person should be a cisgender male, not a butch cisgender female or transgender male (FTM). The “realness” aspect is centered on being able to “pass” as a heterosexual male. The degree of “realness” a person exhibits is a positive indicator of their appropriateness for this category. Drag Queen (DQ) Realness: This person should be a cisgender male who presents as a female (crossdressing), not a transgender female (MTF) or cisgender female. The “realness” aspect is centered on being able to “pass” as a female. The degree of “realness” a person exhibits is a positive indicator of their appropriateness for this category. Trans Male Realness: This per son should be a transgender male (FTM), not a butch cisgender female or cisgender male. The “realness” aspect is centered on being able to “pass” as male (not androgynous). The degree of

“realness” a person exhibits is a positive indicator of their appropriateness for this category. Where a person is on the social transition or medical tran sition spectrum is not relevant. Femme Queen (FQ) Realness: This person should be a transgen der female (MTF), not a drag queen or cisgender female. The “realness” aspect is centered on being able to “pass” as female (not androgynous). The degree of “realness” a person exhibits is a positive indicator of their appropriateness for this cate gory. Where a person is on the social transition or medical transition spectrum is not relevant. Butch Realness: This person should be a butch cisgen der female, not a cisgender male or transgender male (FTM). The “realness” aspect is centered on being able to “pass” as male. The degree of “realness” a person exhibits is a positive indicator of their appropriateness for this category. Femme Queen (FQ) Face: This person should be a transgender female (MTF). This category is designed to allow the participant to sell their face, like they are on a photo shoot set for a major fashion magazine. The point is to highlight their face, their best features, in the way they move down the runway, use their hands, and angle their face. The elements of face are: eyes, teeth, skin (tone/complexion), structure, and nose. Consider whether you would likely see this person grace

Stephaun E. Wallace

the cover of major fashion magazines. Butch Face: This person should be a butch cisgender female, and not a drag queen or a transgender female (MTF). This category is designed to allow the participant to sell their face, like they are on a photo shoot set for a major fashion magazine. The point is to highlight their face, their best features, in the way they move down the runway, use their hands, and angle their face. The elements of face are: eyes, teeth, skin (tone/complexion), structure, and nose. Consider whether you would likely see this person grace the cover of major fashion magazines. Butch Queen (BQ) Face: This person should be a cisgender male, and not a transgen der male (FTM) or butch cisgender female. This category is designed to allow the participant to sell their face, like they are on a photo shoot set for a major fashion magazine. The point is to highlight their face, their best features, in the way they move down the runway, use their hands, and angle their face. The elements of face are: eyes, teeth, skin (tone/complexion), structure, and nose. Consider whether you would likely see this person grace the cover of major fashion magazines. Women’s Face: This person should be a cisgen der female, and not a drag queen or a transgender female (MTF). This category is designed to allow the participant to sell their face, like they are on a photo shoot set for a major fashion magazine. The point is to highlight their face, their best features, in the way they move down the runway, use their hands, and angle their face. The elements of face

are: eyes, teeth, skin (tone/compexion), structure, and nose. Consider whether you would likely see this person grace the cover of major fashion magazines. OTA Runway Walk: Judged purely on the strength and style of your walk. Creativity!

Elements of runway: straight-away (strut), poses, the “look”. Any female figures should walk straight up and down, incorporating poses, but leaving the “antics” out as much as possible (think European runway shows). The same applies for male figures, except that it is generally acceptable for them to give extra “antics” or shade or stunts. Effects and garments should “hold up” during category and not fall off or fall apart. Big Girl: This category is reserved for women and trans women over 250 lbs. Creativity! Elements of runway: straight-away (strut), poses, the “look”. Any female figures should walk straight up and down, incorporating poses, but leaving the “antics” out as much as possible (think European runway shows). Effects and gar ments should “hold up” during category and not fall off or fall apart. Big Boy: This category is reserved for men and trans men over 250 lbs. Creativity!

Elements of runway: straight-away (strut), poses, the “look”. Participants should walk straight up and down, incorporating poses, but for male figures, it is generally acceptable for them to give extra “antics” or shade or stunts. Effects and garments should “hold up” during category and not fall off or fall apart. OTA Bizarre: This category is open to all. Creativity! Bizarre and out-of-this-world looks!!! Effects and garments should “hold up”

during category and not fall off or fall apart. OTA Modified Body: This category is regional to the Pacific Northwest. This category is open to all.

Serve the judges your tattoos, piercings, gauges, scarifications, hooks, or any body modification. Male Figure (MF) Sex Siren: This category is for male figures - transmen, butch women, and butch queens. A well-developed male figure (large gym body) helps to get your 10s Think “strippers” or the hottest masculine strip tease. Generally, the more skin revealed the better. This is not an exotic dance or “go-go” category. Masculine presentation is expected, in look and movement. Male Figure (MF) Catboy: This category is for male figurestransmen, butch women, and butch queens. Catboys are expected to be less muscularly large Male Figure Sex Sirens. Think “strippers” or the hottest dual masculine and feminine strip tease. Generally, the more skin revealed the better. This is not an exotic dance or “go-go” category. More feminine energy in look and movement is acceptable in this category and expected. Female Figure (FF) Sex Siren: This category is for cisgendered women, transwomen, and drag queens. Think “strippers” or the hottest masculine and feminine strip tease. Generally, the more skin revealed the better. This is not an exotic dance or “go-go” cate gory. Feminine presentation is expected, in look and movement. OTA Virgin Vogue: This category is open to all performers with 1 year or less vogue experience. All vogue elements are not necessary for this category. Is the performer on beat? That

is an important consideration. Vogue Femme/ Twisters: This category is for butch queens and trans men only. All vogue elements are required: catwalk, duck-walk, hand performance, floor per formance, spins/dips. Performer should be on beat with movements, including dips. Presentation can be masculine (realness w/twist or “twisters”) or feminine (vogue femme). OTA Old Way vs. New Way: This category is open to all. Old Way incorporates angles, lines, some martial arts, some “miming”, and other styles to tell a story. New Way incorporates stretches, flexibility, and contor ting body movements to tell a story. Performer should be on beat with movements, including dips. Presentation can be masculine or feminine. OTA Hand Performance: White Gloves: Hands only! Show us what you got! Must have on white gloves or you will be chopped! (This category is open to all). Guidelines are: Performer should be seated in a chair for the entire duration of their performance. Arms and hands should be the primary body parts moving in the performance to tell a story. Performer should be on beat with movements, including dips. Presentation can be masculine or feminine. Femme Queen (FQ) Performance: This category is for femme, trans women only. All vogue elements are required: catwalk, duck-walk, hand performance, floor performance, spins/dips. Performer should be on beat with movements, including dips. Presentation should be feminine. Women's Vogue: This category is for cisgende red women only. All vogue elements are required.

Stephaun E. Wallace

Backstage

Richie Saint Laurent, House of LaBeija Ball, 1990. Photo: Chantal Regnault

at the Grandest Grand March Ever, Aids Benefit, Palladium, New York, 1990. Photo: Chantal Regnault

Legendary Temperance Saint Laurent at the House of Adonis Ball, New Jersey, 1989. Photo: Chantal Regnault

Vanity Legend at the House of LaBeija Ball, Kilimanjaro, 1990. Photo: Chantal Regnault

Tina Montana, furs category at the House of Pendavis Ball, Red Zone, 1990. Photo: Chantal Regnault

Main Personalities: Aaron Eningma (founder of the House of Enigma) × Adrian Magnifique (model)

× Angie Xtravaganza (mother of the House of Xtravaganza) × Archie Burnett (dancer, teacher and a grandfather of the House of Ninja) × Avis Pendavis (femme queen × Carmen Xtravaganza (model) × Crystal LaBeija (transgender, founder of the House of LaBeija) × Danny Xtravaganza (founding mem ber of the House of Xtravaganza) × Ian Xtravaganza (member of the House of Xtravaganza) × David Ultima (former father of the house of Xtravaganza) × Derrick Magnifique (member of the House of Magnifique)

× Dorian Corey (drag queen and fashion designer) × Eric Christian-Bazaar (founder of the House of Aviance) × Hector Xtravaganza (grandfather of the House of Xtravaganza, entertainer, fashion stylist, and public advocate for AIDS and LGBTQ+ organizations) × José Gutierrez Xtravaganza (dancer, choreographer, record artist, NYC nightlife personality and current father of the House of Xtravaganza) × Juan Aviance (mother of the House of Aviance) × Kevin Aviance (voguer of the Sound Factory) × Kevin Ultra Omni (founder of the House of Omni) × Luis Xtravaganza (Madonna’s dancer and member of the House of Xtravaganza) × Muhammad Omni (voguer) × Octavia St. Laurent (model and AIDS educator) × Paris Dupree (drag performer, cast from the documentary “Paris Is Burning”) × Pepper LaBeija (drag queen and fashion designer) × Tommie LaBeija (father of the House of LaBeija)

× Tyrone Proctor (pioneer of the Waacking dance style, member of the Outrageous Waack Dancers)

× Venus Xtravaganza (trangender performer) × Willi Ninja (the godfather of Vogue, model)

Legendary Mother Pepper LaBeija at the 2nd Love Ball Aids Benefit, Roseland, 1990. Photo: Chantal Regnault

Legendary Dorian Corey at the 2nd Love Ball Aids Benefit, Roseland, 1990. Photo: Chantal Regnault

Legendary Dorian Corey at the backstage of the Grandest Grand March Ever Aids Benefit, Palladium, New York, 1990. Photo: Chantal Regnault

Legendary Mother Paris Dupree, Escualita, 1990. Photo: Chantal Regnault

Legendary Mother Angie Xtravaganza, Think Pink Ball (L'Amour Pendavis Ball), Marc Ballroom, New York, 1991. Photo: Chantal Regnault

Mariana Braga

References

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Freeman, S. (2008, August 1). The Vogue trend returns. Dance Spirit Magazine. https://web. archive.org/web/20101121152407/http://dances pirit.com/articles/1844

Gaestel, A. (n.d.). The New York Times: The Look — ‘Paris Is Burning’ Goes Global. Dustin Thierry. https://dustinthierry.com/commissioned/

Guzman, S. (2017, April 6). Strike a pose: These dancers taught Madonna how to vogue. NBC News. https://www.nbcnews.com/news/latino/ strike-pose-documentary-spotlights-dancers -who-taught-madonna-vogue-n743461

Hahn, R. (2019, November 5). Honey Dijon Celebrated the Launch of Her New Comme des Garçons Line with Some Familiar New York City Faces. Vogue. https://www.vogue.com/ vogueworld/article/honey-dijon-dover-street -market-new-york-hfd-comme-des-garcons-ho ney-fucking-dijon-line

Hart, B., & Roberson, M. (2021, February 26). The Ballroom Scene Has Long Offered Radical Freedoms for Black and Brown Queer People. TIME. https:// time.com/5941822/ballroom-voguing-queer-black-culture-renaissance/

Hasters, S. Y. (n.d.). Vice Magazine: Identity — Beautiful Photographs of the Thriving Underground Ballroom Community. Dustin Thierry. https://dus tinthierry.com/commissioned/ HECTOR VALLE XTRAVAGANZA. (2020, April 14). Gran Varones. https://granvarones.com/ hector-valle-xtravaganza/ House of Xtravaganza. (n.d.). In Wikipedia https:// en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_of_Xtravaganza

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Levenson, J. (2021, October 28). In vogue: How pho tographer Chantal Regnault captured the Harlem ball scene’s rise to fame. It´s Nice That. https:// www.itsnicethat.com/features/chantal-regnaul t-voguing-and-the-house-ballroom-scene-of-new-york-city-1989-92-photography-281021

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Colophon

Acknowledgements:

Rosa Maia

Mário Aurélio

Rui Vitorino dos Santos

Eduardo Aires

António Modesto Nunes Pedro Amado

Renato Garcia

Fernando Lopes Nala Revlon Piny 007

José Cruz Pedro Walgode Sara Gonçalves

Catarina Oliveira Marco Antunes Beatriz de Lima Henrique Romão Carolina Ribeiro Rogério Valente Tânia Castro Rui Costa

Imprint: Ballroom Scene: From Underground Vogue to Mainstream 1920-2020 Graphic Design Mariana Braga

Cover Design Mariana Braga

Editing Mariana Braga Research Mariana Braga Preface Mariana Braga Printer Orgal Impressores

Faculdade de Belas Artes da Universidade do Porto, 2022

Avenida de Rodrigues de Freitas, 2654049-021 Porto, Portugal https://sigarra.up.pt/fbaup/pt

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording or any informational storage and retrival system, without prior permission from the publisher.

Prejudice, discrimination, and racism are, unfortunately, very common and still current subjects nowadays, as well as topics related to gender identity and fight for equal rights. Vogue, a dance origina ted in the Harlem neighborhood of New York City, was created in the 1960s by Afro and Latin American members of the LGBTQIA+ community, with the purpose of deconstructing certain precon ceived ideas and opening some minds about issues that are still so contemporary, such as racism, homophobia, or transphobia.

The present project aims to explore the subject of vogue and ballroom scene, the underground subculture to which it belongs. An anthology or edited volume that seeks to bring together not only a collection of texts considered essential to the understan ding of ballroom culture, but also a selection of images that resume and illustrate the movement from the time of its conception to its rise to mainstream culture.

The purpose of this book is to be a compendium of material from different sources which best summarize and explain the ballroom movement. For that we have chosen a bunch of authors who, in our opinion, best describe vogue and its subculture. Since the goal was to faithfully represent this subculture, it was important that this selection included authors who belong to the ballroom, LGBTQIA+ and/or Afro-Latin American community.

Through a point of view of a graphic designer, that is at the same time author and editor, the main purpose of this artifact is to affirm the role of graphic design as a tool that enhances different views on what may be considered marginal, or subculture, counterculture, through a publication that gives it visibility and values the plurality of its manifestations and its members.