Ballroom Culture Transcript
Updated: 2 days ago
Hey folks! I’m Jessie, and this is the podcast of the Pittsburgh LGBTQ+ Community Museum.
Today we’re delving into Ballroom Culture. Now, I promise this episode is not about people waltzing. However, I will be talking about formal competition with rules that are just as serious as quote-unquote traditional formal ballroom dancing. Black and Latinx queer and transgender individuals created the ballroom subculture in New York City during the 20th century. It used to be more underground but has gained mainstream attention through shows like RuPaul's Drag Race and movies like Paris Is Burning. Participants compete in categories like walking, performing, dancing, lip-syncing, and modeling. The scene has shifted over the years, but it has remained a vital safe space for young LGBTQ folks, especially trans individuals, to find community and family.
Now this episode is going to have a lot of slang; some you may have heard and used for a while, but some words and phrases are unfamiliar. I’ve included a list of slang and important people in the transcript for this episode, so make sure you check it out on our website, along with our review of Paris Is Burning, which gives an authentic glimpse of Ballroom culture in the 1990s. I won’t go over Paris Is Burning in depth here, so if you are interested in the film, be sure to check out that post too.
To understand where Ballroom Culture came from, we have to understand the history of Voguing and Drag.
There is a dangerous assumption that queer life did not exist publicly before the 1960s. The belief is that LGBTQ identified people were closeted in isolation. This is so far from the truth. Historical scholarship like the work we do here has unearthed a world of salons, parties, and drag balls that existed since the late 1800s. In fact, drag history can be traced back to the 17th century, when men dressed as women in theater because women were not allowed on stage. Many historians consider the first record of a drag queen to be a formerly enslaved man named William Dorsey Swann. Swann was known to hold private balls, also known as drags, in Washington, D.C. The parties eventually drew the attention of authorities, who raided the events and described them to the Washington critic as gatherings of men dressed in elegant female attire with corsets, bustles, long hose, and slippers.
What we most closely associate with modern-day drag is vaudeville theater, which was a variety theater that emerged in the UK during the late 19th to early 20th century. Men dressed up as women and performed for large fan bases of other men. This type of theater continued up through the 1950s during World War 2 even at the height of distaste for homosexuality. LGBTQ plus culture developed in pockets around the world. These spaces allowed identities to be visible and openly celebrated. Historians trace contemporary ballroom culture to interracial drag balls that were staged in cities such as New York, Chicago, and Baltimore as early as the 1890s. George Chauncy argues the events were the largest and most significant collective events of gay society in the early 20th century.; They brought thousands together in a world that disparaged their culture;, and at the drag balls, more than anywhere else,, the gay world saw itself celebrated, affirmed,firmed itself balls were satire of the debutante and masquerade balls of dominant culture the term coming out was play on the language of woman's culture in this case the expression referred to the ritual of a debutante's formal introduction or coming out to the Society of her cultural peers. Album culture mimicked this as young drag Queens would wear elaborate gowns, jewelry, and heels as they entered the city's gay subculture.
One of the most culturally significant areas was Harlem, New York, at the Hamilton Lodge. At the beginning of the 20th century, Harlem was in the middle of a period known as the Harlem Renaissance; it was an intellectual, cultural, and artistic movement that took the neighborhood by storm, bringing literature, art, and music centered on Black life. Many of the movement's leaders were openly gay or had, quote, UN quote nuanced sexualities. They included Angela Weld grimke Claude McKay, Langston Hughes, and Richard Bruce Nugent, as well as others. This movement challenged social structures, which allowed for new ways of gender and sex in sexualities to be more fluid and evolving. Out of this came vogue, a highly stylized form of dance. Named after the famous fashion magazine, vogue drew on poses from high fashion and ancient Egyptian art, adding exaggerated hand gestures to tell a story and imitate various gender performances in categorized drag genres.
Through performance, drag queens flanderized gender. They put on makeup or beat face, styled their hair, and wore extravagant clothes. This creative performance through voguing was even used to peacefully settle disputes among rivals in an environment that assumed mutual respect and compassion. Using dance and pantomime, the voguers would “read” each other. Ultimately, the winner would be the person who “threw the best shade.”
According to Michael Roberson, an activist artist and ballroom community leader, some believe that Paris Dupree—a pioneer in the house ballroom scene—created vogue. In contrast, 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 called the “Godfather of Voguing.” Regardless of its creator, the art form probably had another name before it was called vogue.
Over time, vogue shifted from the “old way,” which emphasized hard angles and straight lines, to the “new way" in the 1980s, which incorporated things like the catwalk, the duckwalk, spinning, bussey, and enhanced hand performance. Today, New Way is characterized by more rigid movements and “clicks” or joint contortions. Side categories were also created, such as Vogue Femme, which uses New Way elements but focuses on speed, flow, and stunts.
By the 1960s, Drag Balls and vogue grew in popularity. Regardless of how taboo the outside world saw drag, it continued to spread across the country; competition still thrived in the underground. While Drag Balls were a place of self-expression and acceptance, they were still subject to the prejudice of popular culture. Many black and Latino performers were ostracized by Drag Balls. Rarely winning and were sometimes not allowed to compete. For example, Drag Balls were interracial at the Hamilton Lodge, though judges favored while, Eurocentric features. It wasn’t until 1936, 69 years after their first ball, 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. In 1967, at the Miss All-American 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.
Crystal is legendary within the Drag community, and I’ll tell you why. When asked about her loss to Ms. Philadelphia, Rachel Harlow said, “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’s not beautiful, but she wasn’t looking beautiful tonight”
Beyond her ability to read another queen and the injustices presented to her, Crystal changed the Ballroom scene with her outrage. With the help of Harlem drag queen Lottie LaBeija, they created their own ball. The House of LaBeija—the first ever ballroom “house”—was born, with Crystal at the helm as the “mother.”
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 exclusively 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.
Now that we’ve established the history of Ballroom Culture, we can explore how it works. One of the largest shifts from Drag Balls to House Ballroom was the participants: largely, Drag Ball contestants were trans women, many of whom would not have called themselves trans and female-presenting people. House Ballroom included gay men and male-presenting people.
From its very inception, ballroom houses offered security for Black and Latinx queer, gay, and trans people. Ballroom culture has two primary features: anchoring family-like structures, called houses, and the flamboyant competitive balls they produce. Houses are a part of a national social network, and many have several chapters throughout the country. Led by house mothers and fathers, houses function as families whose main purpose is to organize elaborate balls and to provide support for their children to compete in balls as well as to survive in society as marginalized members of their communities of origin. Houses offer their children multiple forms of social support, a network of friends, and a social setting that allows free gender and sexual expression. Ultimately, houses within the ballroom community constitute figurative, and sometimes literal, “homes” for the diverse range of members involved in them. House parents recruit and prepare their children to compete in runway categories that are based on the deployment of performative gender and sexual identities, vogue and theatrical performances, and the effective presentation of fashion and physical attributes. House members compete individually and/or “as a house” in a diverse and forever evolving array of categories. The intense, often collectively competitive performances create a space of celebration, affirmation, and critique.
Houses get their names from fashion brands, like House of Balenciaga, House of Armani, and House of Gucci; in some ways, this was an act of rebellion. According to Moon Glasgow Brown, a National Ballroom Leader and a co-host of the Black Fantasy Ball, "House names come from fashion designers. It was unheard of to have Black women or Black Trans Women walking down a Chanel fashion show. Because of this, we named our houses after these designer names because we were claiming it. We are claiming the runway."
Now what do these competitions look like? As mentioned previously, “new way” and “vogue fem” dominated 1990s Ballroom Culture, and you can see the remnants of the style in most modern-day drag performances. While new way is characterized by precise movement of the arms, wrists, and hands, vogue fem is broken down into either fast, angular movements or much slower, sensual, and deliberate movements. The five fundamental elements of vogue fem include hands, catwalk, duckwalk, spins, and dips. You may know these as shablams or death drops. These dance competitions often included throwing “shade,” or insults, at one another to impress judges and onlookers. That said, I suggest watching the 1990 film “Paris Is Burning” or the 2015 film “Kiki”; both explore the day-to-day lives of these performers over a few years. Not only do they have excellent footage of the competitions, but they also explore how prevalent homelessness, HIV/ AIDs, and violence were in these communities.
Vogue dance presents gender as a performance. Queens play on traditional gender expectations with their costumes. Depending on the competition category, participants may perform the traditional behaviors of their assigned gender to demonstrate "realness" or pass as straight. Although there are varying gender and sexuality classifications and categories, each fits into either female figure (FF) or male figure (MF). Female figure includes trans women, cisgender women, and drag queens, while male figure includes butch queens, butch women, and transgender men. No matter the category, performances and competitions are camp, which embodies the spirit of extravagance and is exaggerated and artificial. A panel judges them based on their abilities, overall appearance (including costume and makeup), theatrics, presentation, and realness. Realness being defined as an (embodied / visual believability or authenticity in the way they look. Judges' approval, or “receiving your 10s,” results in the 10s battling one-on-one against each other for trophies, prizes, and glory.
Julian Kevon Glover, assistant professor of Gender, Sexuality and Women’s Studies and Dance and Choreography at Virginia Commonwealth University, describes the performance: “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,”. “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 understand what it is that I'm saying clearly.”
Ultimately, ballroom culture is about much more than the competition, the costumes, or the performances. It grew out of a history in which Black and Latinx queer and transgender people were often excluded from spaces that were supposed to celebrate them. The creation of houses gave people a place to build their own families, support one another, and create a space where they could express themselves freely. The balls themselves became a place where that creativity could be celebrated and recognized.
Even the competition reflects this history. Contestants are judged on their appearance, movement, presentation, theatrics, and their ability to embody different identities through performance. Receiving a “10” and battling for a trophy is not simply about winning. It is about being seen, being recognized, and proving that you belong on the runway. Voguing, in particular, allows performers to tell their stories through movement and to challenge the expectations placed on their bodies and identities.
As Julian Kevon Glover explains, voguing can be understood as an “embodied” form of resistance—a way of saying that queer lives have meaning and that queer people have stories worth telling. That may be the most important thing to take away from ballroom culture. What began as a response to exclusion became a community built around creativity, family, competition, and resistance. Ballroom has continued to evolve, but at its heart remains the same idea: creating a space where people who were told they did not belong could claim the runway and say, we are here, we have a story to tell, and we deserve to be seen.
That was so much fun, Don’t you think? I’ve attached some interesting articles and links that expand even more on Ballroom Culture in the transcription for this episode on the website. Please hop over and take a look.
That was Ballroom Culture by the Holiday Pride. Thank you for listening and thank you for sticking around.
Vocab List:
William Dorsey Swann – Identified by many historians as the first Drag Queen in United States History. Lead the first gay resistance group.
Crystal LaBeija - An American Drag Queen and mother figure for homeless and underprivileged youth who are a part of the LGBTQ+ community. LaBeija was also known for being a co-founder of ball culture and etiquette.
Vaudeville – A variety theatre routine that encompassed many genres. A typical North American vaudeville performance was made up of a series of separate, unrelated acts grouped together on a common bill. Types of acts included singers, dancers, female and male impersonators, clown, mimes, comedians, magicians and more.
Ballroom Culture - An underground LGBTQ+ subculture created by Black and Latinx queer and trans people in New York City during the mid-20th century
Voguing – A stylized dance routine, originating in the late 1980s. This style evolved out of early Ballroom Culture.
Drag - A performance art where artists use clothing, makeup, and stylized behavior to exaggerate gender (such as drag queens and drag kings).
Harlem Renaissance – An African American cultural movement that originated from the Harlem Neighborhood of NYC in the 1920s. It predominately featured Black artists, writers, and musicians in their own stories as a response to degrading and racist depictions from white society.
Angela Weld Grimke- An African American journalist, teacher, playwright, and poet. She is most known for her works "The Eyes of My Regret", "At April", "Trees", and "The Closing Door" and Rachel. Literary critics have analyzed her work and suspects Grimke was either lesbian or bisexual living a life of repression.
Claude McKay – McKay was a Jamaican American writer and central to the Harlem Renaissance. He wrote "If We Must Die", one of his best known works, a widely reprinted sonnet responding to the wave of white-on-black race riots and lynchings following the conclusion of the First World War.
Langston Hughes - Langston Hughes was an American poet, social activist, novelist, playwright, and columnist from Joplin, Missouri. An early innovator of jazz poetry, Hughes is best known as a leader of the Harlem Renaissance. Some academics and biographers believe that Hughes was homosexual or bisexual and included homosexual codes in many of his poems
Richard Bruce Nugent – Also known as Richard Bruce and Bruce Nugent. Nugent was a prominent Black-American modernist poet, writer, and painter of the Harlem Renaissance. He was one of the few Harlem Artist that was publically out at the time.
Beat Face – Or “beat” or “beaten face” means to apply a full, expertly applied makeup . It stems from the technique of fast-paced tapping or pressing motion with makeup sponges and puffs to firmly press products into the skin.
Read - To "read" someone means to point out their flaws, weaknesses, or absurdities with sharp, witty, and often humorous observations ("throwing shade").
Paris Dupree – An American Drag Performer featured in Jennie Livingston's 1990 documentary, Paris is Burning. Dupree was the founding member and mother of the House of Dupree.
Willi Ninja – A dancer and choreographer known for his appearance in the documentary film Paris Is Burning. Ninja specialized in voguing and was a fixture of ball culture
Catwalk - An exaggerated, stylized walk used as a fundamental element in Vogue, mimicking the high-fashion runway strut with intense hip sways and precise footwork.
Duckwalk - The duckwalk in dance is a dynamic movement performed by walking or bouncing forward while staying low in a deep squat or crouch
House - A "house" is a supportive surrogate family for LGBTQ+ youth who have been rejected or estranged from their biological families.
Butch - A "butch drag" or "butch queen" in drag refers to a ballroom culture term for a cisgender gay or bisexual man who performs in drag with a masculine or rugged aesthetic, or a drag performer who plays with traditional masculine presentation.
Camp - An aesthetic and performance style defined by theatricality, over-the-top exaggeration, irony, and a playful celebration of bad taste or artificiality
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