Ball culture

Ball culture, the house system, the ballroom community and similar terms describe an underground LGBT subculture in the United States in which people "walk" (i.e., compete) for trophies and prizes at events known as balls. Some who walk also dance; others compete in drag genres, trying to pass as a gender and social class. Most participants in ball culture belong to groups known as "houses".[1][2]

Houses

Houses serve as alternative families, primarily consisting of Black and Latino queer youth, and are meant to be safe spaces.[3] Houses are led by “mothers” and “fathers,” providing guidance and support for their house “children.”[4] Most houses operate in the same way. Houses exist across the United States and in over 15 cities, most being in the Northeastern Coast. Major Cities are New York, Newark, Jersey City, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Washington, D.C.[5] Houses that win a lot of trophies and gain recognition, reach a rank of "legendary."[6] Notable houses include House of Ninja (founded by Willi Ninja), House of Aviance (founded by Mother Juan Aviance),[7][8] House of Xtravaganza (founded by Hector Xtravaganza, né Hector Valle), House of Infiniti, House of Mizrahi, House of LaBeija (founded by Crystal LaBeija)[9][10][11][12] and the House of Dupree (founded by Paris Dupree). Typically house members adopt the name of their house as their last name.[13] Four categories of gender exist within houses: Butch queens, femme queens, butches, and women.[5]

Competition

Houses "walk" (compete) against one another in "balls" judged on dance skills (voguing), costumes, appearance, and attitude.[6] Participants dress according to the category in which they are competing, and are expected to display appropriate "realness".[14] Balls are influenced by hip hop fashion and music.[13] The largest balls last as long as ten hours, with dozens of categories in a single evening. With fewer spectators, nearly everyone comes to compete; some trophies are 12 feet (3.7 m) tall, and a grand-prize winner can earn $1,000 or more. Although some competitive walks involve crossdressing, in other cases the goal is to accentuate a male participant's masculinity or a female participant's femininity as a parody of heterosexuality.[14] Voguing consists of five elements duckwalk, catwalk, hands, floorwork, and spins and dip.[15]

Categories

Some categories include:[16]

History

As a countercultural phenomenon, ball culture is rooted in necessity and defiance. The ballroom culture has existed for at least five decades. However, it remains largely underground and unknown for this particular community of Black and Latino queer youth. It began in Harlem more than 50 years ago, and has now expanded rapidly to other major cities such as Chicago, Atlanta, Baltimore, Charlotte, Cleveland, Detroit, and Philadelphia.[5] Moreover, with the advancements of social media, it has migrated to other countries such as Canada, Japan, and the UK.[18] Ball culture also known as "house ball culture," was first captured in Jennie Livingston's documentary, Paris is Burning (1990).

New York City

Drag balls had existed since the thirties, consisting of primarily white men, they competed in fashion shows in bars 2 or 3 times a year. Black queens would sometimes participate but rarely won any prizes.[18] Due to discrimination, Black queens Crystal Labeija and her friend Lottie began their own drag ball titled 'House of Labeija,' kickstarting the ballroom scene in New York.[18] In 1989, The House of Latex was created as a call to action in the ballroom community to bridge the gap between HIV-STI prevention and ballroom culture.[2]

Influences

New York's legendary Ballroom Culture has been a huge culture impact since the 1980s, all the way up until today.[19]

Dance

The most notable influence of ball culture on mainstream society is voguing, a dance style originating in Harlem ballrooms during the first half of the 20th century and popularized by the video for Madonna's Vogue released in 1990 (the same year as Paris Is Burning).[20] According to one source, "Many people only know of underground ballroom culture from Madonna's 'Vogue' or the film 'Paris Is Burning'." The dance group Vogue Evolution, from America's Best Dance Crew, has again sparked interest in voguing.[21]

Language

Ball-culture terms are sometimes used more generally; "drag mother" may apply to any drag queen in a mentorship role, and "drag house" may refer to a group of drag performers allied personally or professionally. "Fierce" and "fierceness," "work it" and "working it," "fabulous" and "fabulousness" are heard in Paris Is Burning and appeared in the lyrics of "Supermodel (You Better Work)", a 1992 hit by drag queen RuPaul. These terms became more widely used in gay slang, fashion industry jargon and mainstream colloquial language.[22]

Music

Ball culture has been fertile ground for new forms of house music and other genres of electronic dance music through its DJs.[24] The culture has also influenced a wave of queer hip hop artists such as Zebra Katz, House of Ladosha and Le1f .[25][26]

Fashion

Ball culture has influenced "the über-puffed-up peacock sexuality" of contemporary mainstream hip hop. A professor at New York University said about gay black culture, "Today's queer mania for ghetto fabulousness and bling masks its elemental but silent relationship to even more queer impulses toward fabulousness in the 1960s and 1970s."[27][28]

Mainstream entertainment

In 2006, Beyoncé Knowles told a reporter from The Independent "how inspired she's been by the whole drag-house circuit in the States, an unsung part of black American culture where working-class gay men channel ultra-glamour in mocked-up catwalk shows. 'I still have that in me', she says of the 'confidence and the fire you see on stage ... '"[29][30][31][32][33][34][35][36][37]

Media coverage

Most of the New York-based houses appeared in the 1990 documentary film, Paris Is Burning.[10] The 2016 film Kiki provided an updated portrait of the ball culture scene.

See also

General

References

  1. ↑ Podhurst, L.; Credle J. (2007-06-10). "HIV/AIDS risk reduction strategies for Gay youth of color in the "house" community. (Meeting Abstracts)". Newark 07107-3000, US: U.S. National Library of Medicine. p. 13. Archived from the original on August 17, 2009. Retrieved 2007-10-20.
  2. 1 2 Stuart., Baker, (2011-01-01). Voguing and the house ballroom scene of New York City 1989-92. s.n.] ISBN 9780955481765. OCLC 863223074.
  3. ↑ "A GIF Guide to Voguing (+ Short History)". Retrieved 2017-05-02.
  4. ↑ Bailey, Marlon. "GenderjRacial Realness: Theorizing the Gender System in Ballroom Culture". Feminist Studies. 37: pp. 365–386.
  5. 1 2 3 Jackson, Jonathon. "The Social World of Voguing". Journal for the Anthropological Study of Human Movement. 12: 26–42.
  6. 1 2 Susman, Tara. "The Vogue of Life: Fashion Culture, Identity, and the Dance of Survival in the Gay BalIs". disClosure: A Journal of Social Theory. 9.
  7. ↑ Sfetcu, Nicolae, Dance Music (2014),
  8. ↑ Lewis, Darvin, How Big Is Your Faith: The Gospel of Down Low Fiction, ISBN 9781434833471, (2008), p. 129,
  9. ↑ "The Rainbow History Project: Drag in DC". Rainbow History Project. 2000–2007. Retrieved 2007-10-20.
  10. 1 2 Paris Is Burning (1991)
  11. ↑ "Archived copy". Archived from the original on May 20, 2007. Retrieved 2007-01-28. Bent Magazine
  12. ↑ How Do I Look, an instruction DVD with limited distribution in New York City and Philadelphia, delves into the houses of the New York City ball culture.
  13. 1 2 Trebay, Guy; Credle J. (January 12–18, 2000). "Legends of the Ball: Paris Is Still Burning". Village Voice. Retrieved 2007-10-20.
  14. 1 2 Levy, Emanuel (2004–2007). "Paris Is Burning (film review)". Emanuellevy.com. Archived from the original on September 27, 2007. Retrieved 2007-10-20.
  15. ↑ "The 5 Elements of Vogue with Leiomy Maldonado - In Progress | Oxygen". Youtube.
  16. ↑ "The Ballroom Scene: A New Black Art - The Black Youth Project". The Black Youth Project. 2009-10-21. Retrieved 2017-05-02.
  17. ↑ BRTB TV (BALLROOM THROWBACKS) (2015-05-12), BQ SEX SIREN @ VOGUE NIGHTS 5/11/2015, retrieved 2017-05-02
  18. 1 2 3 Bailey, Marlon M. (2014-04-21). "Engendering space: Ballroom culture and the spatial practice of possibility in Detroit". Gender, Place & Culture. 21 (4): 489–507. ISSN 0966-369X. doi:10.1080/0966369X.2013.786688.
  19. ↑ Clark, Ashley (2015-06-24). "Burning down the house: why the debate over Paris is Burning rages on". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 2017-05-02.
  20. ↑ "Madonna - Vogue (video)". Youtube.
  21. ↑ Ottawa Citizen September 6, 2006
  22. ↑ Fantabulosa: A Dictionary of Polari and Gay Slang by Paul Baker
  23. 1 2 "The Art of Shade Is the Instagram Account You Never Knew You Needed". Vogue. Retrieved 2017-05-02.
  24. ↑ Hang the DJ (2006)
  25. ↑ "We Invented Swag: NYC's Queer Rap". Pitchfork, March 21, 2012.
  26. ↑ Mad Decent (2012-01-18), Zebra Katz - Ima Read (ft. Njena Reddd Foxxx) [Official Full Stream], retrieved 2017-05-02
  27. ↑ Pic Up the Mic Archived February 2, 2007, at the Wayback Machine. at Toronto Film Festival.
  28. ↑ "Don't Hate on Us, We're Fabulous: Notes on the History and Culture of Black Glam" Archived August 22, 2006, at the Wayback Machine.
  29. ↑ The Independent Online, September 3, 2006 Archived October 1, 2007, at the Wayback Machine.
  30. ↑ Emily A. Arnold & Marlon M. Bailey (2009) Constructing Home and Family: How the Ballroom Community Supports African American GLBTQ Youth in the Face of HIV/AIDS, Journal of Gay & Lesbian Social Services, 21: pp. 2–3, 171–188.
  31. ↑ Bailey, Marlon M. "Global Circuits of Blackness." Google Books. University of Illinois Press, 2010. Web. 4 November 2014.
  32. ↑ Bailey, M. M. (2011). Gender/Racial Realness: Theorizing the Gender System in Ballroom Culture. Feminist Studies, 37(2), pp. 365–386.
  33. ↑ "The Ball Scene." House of Nuance. House of Nuance, 2012. Web. 4 November 2014.
  34. ↑ Battan, Carrie. "We Invented Swag: NYC's Queer Rap: How a group of NYC artists are breaking down ideas of hip-hop identity." Pitchfork Media. Pitchfork Media Ink, 2012. Web. 4 November 2014.
  35. ↑ Rowan D, Long D, Johnson D. Identity and Self-Presentation in the House/Ball Culture: A Primer for Social Workers. Journal Of Gay & Lesbian Social Services [serial online]. April 2013; 25(2): pp. 178–196.
  36. ↑ "In Baltimore, Ballroom Culture Is Transforming the Fight against HIV." Baltimoresun.com. N.p., n.d. Web. 4 November 2014.
  37. ↑ Bailey, M. M. (2014). Engendering space: Ballroom culture and the spatial practice of possibility in Detroit. Gender, Place & Culture: A Journal Of Feminist Geography, 21(4), pp. 489–507. doi:10.1080/0966369X.2013.786688
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