In the early 1970s, black and Latino homosexuals, transgenders, and queers developed a flourishing subculture in domestic balls, where they could express themselves freely and be accepted within a marginalized community. It was here that the world of drag pageantry, which often favored white competitors, evolved into competitions that spanned a variety of categories, including “vogue” battles. All of these events can trace their origins back to the late 1800s.
Hamilton Lodge No. 710 in Harlem regularly hosted drag balls during the post-Civil War era. Participants varied in terms of race, gender, and gender – some women participating wearing men’s clothing – but the main attractions were the imitators who showed their dresses and bodies to a panel of judges in typical fashion.
As these balls continued for decades, they gained popularity and notoriety. At the start of the 20th century, drag balls were considered illegal and taboo to the outside world. This drove the competitions underground (and also undoubtedly added to their appeal). Drag ball viewers have grown from “a few brave viewers” in the 1800s to thousands in the 1930s, according to a collection of ball essays at the New York Public Library.
Harlem Renaissance fuels the drag ball scene
The growing freedom and expression of black culture during the Harlem Renaissance also fueled the nascent drag ball scene in the 1920s. The era not only enabled African-American artists – from painters and writers to dancers and musicians – to experiment and reinvent their crafts, she has also seen popular black artists experiment and explore gender, sex and sexuality like never before.
“Langston Hughes spoke about his experiences at events where the men were dressed as women, and all that,” said Julian Kevon Glover, assistant professor of gender, sexuality and women studies and dance and choreography. at Virginia Commonwealth University. .
Although the drag balls were interracial at Hamilton Lodge, prejudice was still in play. The judges generally favored white and Eurocentric features. It wasn’t until 1936 – 69 years after their first ball, with an audience of 8,000 spectators – that a black competitor won first prize for the first time. As the balls spread to other major cities in the early to mid-20th century, racial bias in the judgments continued.
When a white contestant, Miss Philadelphia Rachel Harlow, won 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 competition was rigged.
Slide performers on stage as they compete in beauty pageant, New York, NY, February 20, 1967. Among those pictured are Miss Manhattan, Miss New York, Miss Delaware County, Miss Brooklyn and Miss Fire Island.
Fred W. McDarrah / Getty Images
“She can’t help it. Because you’re beautiful and young, you deserve to have the best in life, but you didn’t deserve… I didn’t say she wasn’t beautiful, but she wasn’t beautiful tonight“LaBeija said of Harlow’s coronation.
LaBeija refused to participate in other drag contests, but she did not completely leave the ballroom stage. In the early 1970s, Harlem drag queen Lottie LaBeija convinced Crystal to promote her own ball. Crystal agreed, and the House of LaBeija – the very first ballroom “house” – was born, with Crystal at the helm as “mother.”
The birth of the house ballroom
Since its inception, ballrooms have provided security for black and Latin queer, gay and transgender people. These houses have become more like families than teams, led by house “mothers” or “fathers” to guide and prepare their household “children” for the world.
“In the ballroom, the houses provide the main infrastructure on which the stage is built,” says Glover. “It provides the basic kind of kinship structure and also demonstrates alternate possibilities for what kinship can look like. To move away from this dependence on his biological family and complicate the ideas of a family of choice. “
Crystal and Lottie then hosted the House’s first Ball in Harlem in the early 1970s, titled “Crystal & Lottie LaBeija Presents the First Annual House of LaBeija Ball”. The ball, designed exclusively for black and Latin trans, gay and queer people, was a success. The House Ball and House of Labeija inspired many other prominent figures in the ballroom world to create their own homes throughout the 1970s and beyond.
“Other trans women – some of them would never call themselves trans – the Pepper LaBeijas, the Dorian Corey… The houses are starting to be named after these women,” says Michael Roberson, resident of the Center for Race, Religion. and Economic Democracy (CRRED) and founder of Maison Marison-Margiela.
The House Ballroom further differentiated itself from drag balls in 1973, when Erskine Christian became the first gay man to compete, according to Roberson. This meant a shift from trans women and people featuring women in the home ballroom to the inclusion of gay men and people featuring men in homes and the home ballroom. “And you start to see the shift from mothers-to-children to mothers-to-fathers-children again, so the men start to participate. And so the ballroom turns from drag ball to house ball, ”says Roberson.
Instead of the re-enactment style competition in drag balls, the house balls held competitions between houses by categories. Categories range from face (judging the beauty of members of a house) to body (appreciating the curves of members of a house), runway, performance, including fashion.
Voguing begins as Pop Dip and Spin
Vogue is a type of improvised dance inspired by model poses in fashion magazines. The dance style originated in the black gay and trans world, but its exact origins remain unclear. According to Roberson, some believe that Paris Dupree, a pioneer of the house ballroom scene, created the vogue, while others believe that it was created by a black gay or trans person in the New York prison complex of Rikers. Island. Willi Ninja, another legendary member of the domestic ballroom community, has also been dubbed the “Godfather of Voguing”. Regardless of its creator, the art form had another name before it was called vogue.
“Really, the vogue was called pop, dip and spin,” says Roberson. “And it’s related to break dancing. But when the people who were double-jointed, who were acrobatic, started to put it in their vogue, then they wanted to call it a new way of sailing, and call it pop, dip and spin, old way.
This “old fashion” of pop, dip and spin vogue dates back to the 1970s and 1980s. Then other elements of dance were introduced in the early 1990s, to form two new types of vogue dance, called “new”. way ”and“ vogue fem ”.
While new way is characterized by precise movement of the arms, wrists and hands, vogue fem breaks down into quick, angular movements or much slower, sensual and deliberate movements. The five fundamental elements of vogue fem include hands, podium, duckwalk, twists and dips (which are often mistakenly referred to as “shablams” or “death drops”) and performance on the floor, according to Glover.
Willi Ninja described voguing as a way to shade or criticize opponents on the dance floor, in the 1990 documentary “Paris is Burning”. But, beyond a style of dance and a competition, voguing has come to represent much more.
“Voguing is above all telling your story through movement … And for me, because of who does it, it’s really an act of resistance to a whole world that not only tells us that our lives are empty meaning, but also tells us that we have nothing to contribute, “says Glover.” It’s kind of resistance, kind of resistance embodied, to these cultural messages. Saying, ‘No, I have a story. to tell, and my story is going to be so compelling, that in this special atmosphere, you are going to be able to clearly understand what I’m saying. ‘
Voguing in mainstream culture
Voguage as a form of expression became more common with the release of media such as Madonna’s song, “Vogue” and the documentary, “Paris is Burning,” released in 1990 and 1991 respectively.
Madonna’s “Vogue” paid homage to the ballroom and featured voguers such as José Gutierez Xtravaganza and Luis Camacho Xtravaganza in the video. However, Madonna has been accused of culturally appropriating a culture she had no right to and turning a rich history from vogue into fashion.
Madonna and her dance troupe “Vogue” from her film “Truth or Dare”.
Ronald Grant Archive / Alamy Stock Photo
“Paris is Burning” took viewers straight inside the ballroom stage. Filmmaker Jennie Livingston began filming the events after seeing people fashionable in New York’s West Village. The film is often referenced within the LGBTQ + community and beyond. The term prom “throw shadeWas even added to Merriam-Webster’s dictionary in 2017. But Livingston, as a queer white woman, has been accused of allowing cultural appropriation through her documentation of the house balls. Several participants in the documentary also threatened to take legal action after failing to receive compensation for the film’s success.
Glimpses of ballroom house culture have continued to permeate mainstream spaces more prominently since the early 1990s, through television series such as RuPaul Drag Race, which was established in 2009; MTV series America’s best dance team, with black trans sailor Leiomy Maldonado in 2009; and Ryan Murphy Pose in 2019, which featured a scripted version of the ballroom scene and included the most trans actors in television history.
Glover says they expect ballroom culture to continue to evolve as a vital part of the queer black community and periodically influence a wider audience.
“I think of the ballroom like a whale,” says Glover. “He mainly dwells deep, deep, deep in the ocean. But there are times when the scene takes air and emerges through the water, causing a stir in the popular cultural scene before returning to the depths of the oceans while those on the surface feel its ripples for a while. .
