Gay ballroom

The Ballroom scene (also known as the Ballroom community, Ballroom culture, or just Ballroom) is an African-American and Latino underground LGBTQ+ subculture. The scene traces its origins to the drag balls of the midth century United States, such as those hosted by William Dorsey Swann, a formerly enslaved Black man in Washington D.C.

Ballroom culture has made rich contributions to LGBTQ+ culture at large and its history, spawning iconic queer staples and ideologies. Hosted in part by Lilianna Reyes, a local Latina trans activist and Health Equity and Outreach Director at the Ruth Ellis Center in Detroit, the ball event uniquely uplifted Black and Brown, BIPOC, queer, and.

Traditional ball categories and gender guidelines written by Ballroom Icon Stephaun Elite Wallace of The Legendary House of Blahnik. Regionally inspired categories created by House of Luna for the Lunático Ball. A gay/bi/same-gender-loving cisgender men. A trans and femme-presenting woman. Masculine presenting women. The balls provided an interracial space for drag queens, gay people, and other gender nonconforming people to embrace their identities.

But they also drew scrutiny from New York authorities.

Ballroom is an underground LGBTQ subculture in which participants, who are largely Black or Latinx trans people and gay men, compete for prizes, trophies, titles — think “legend” and “icon”. This could not be further from the truth. Some of the most influential residential enclaves for these communities were in New York, one of the most notable being Harlem.

The Harlem Renaissance was particularly influential to this process. The intellectual, cultural and artistic movement took the neighborhood by storm, bringing with it a flurry of literature, art, and music that centered black life. The movement offered a new language that challenged social structures and demonstrated the ways that race, gender, sex and sexuality distinctions were actually intersecting, fluid and constantly evolving.

Named after the famous fashion magazine, vogue took from the poses in high fashion and ancient Egyptian art, adding exaggerated hand gestures to tell a story and imitate various gender performances in categorized drag genres. This creative performance through voguing was even used to peacefully settle disputes among rivals in an environment that assumed a degree of mutual respect and compassion.

Regardless of the style, voguing shows the courage of black and Latino LGBTQ communities to make an art form that goes beyond creative expression. Vogue offers a sense of identity, belonging and dignity in a world that does not fully value their lives. Although it is widely celebrated as an invaluable piece of documentary history on LGBTQ communities of color, the film remains controversial.

Yet they had to sue to be paid next to nothing for their participation in the film.

ballroom scene

Feminists like bell hooks believe that Livingston was not critical of her position as a white filmmaker. Other scholars maintain that the imitation used in vogue creates a black imaginative space where aesthetics and LGBTQ life can be explored in all its complexity. These complicated issues of race, representation and appropriation in relation to vogue continue today.

Explore our Cultural Expressions exhibition to learn more about social dance and gestures! Academy Entertainment. Tags Communities Historic Moments.