Tag: lgbtq

Vogue may have been a single by Madonna, released in 1990, but the track has a large back history worth more than the platinum single.

Vogue was a dance style started by LGBTQ African American and Latino American groups of Harlem in the 1970s, as a way to seek refuge from the poverty, crime and prejudice they faced. It was part of a larger subculture called Ball Culture, started in New York the 1920s.

Vogue as a dance style was developed from the magazine ‘Vogue‘; dancers would imitate the poses of models from covers of magazines or catwalks, displaying their desire to be as glamorous and famous as the cover girls. The whole culture derived from a longing for glamour and fame that, at the time, was extremely difficult for these minority groups to achieve – the ball scene allowed them to live their fantasies, which is why the dance was so valuable to this minority culture.

‘Balls to us is as close to reality as we’re gonna get to all that fame and fortune and stardom and spotlight‘

(Paris is Burning, 1990)

The scene became a safe space for the youth of marginalised Harlem to be free and expressive in the sense of their personalities and sexualities, away from the mainstream society that constrained their right to be who they wanted to be.

Identity

One of the things that dance has created in minority cultures is an identity, in the sense of recognition both to themselves and others.

A lot of accounts of people in ballroom culture suggest that in the heteronormative environment of the US in the 1970s and 1980s, some found it difficult to embrace their sexuality in the more heteronormative world. In Paris is Burning (Livingston, J, 1990), the film that documented the ballroom scene of New York in the 80s and 90s, David Xtravaganza told Livingston ‘you feel 100% right being gay’ in relation to vogue balls. This shows that the dance was a way for the community to feel self-assured: seeing people and being with people that likewise didn’t conform to heteronormality could dispel any doubts that the way they lived and who they loved was anything less than okay.

The sense of identity also relates to the way dance has created a doorway for these minority cultures into the mainstream American and European society

In Vogue, a lot of this was through Madonna and her track ‘Vogue‘ released in 1990 on the album ‘I’m Breathless‘. The live performance of ‘vogue‘ on the 1990 MTV awards was a good representation of the people of Ballroom culture; minority cultures were well portrayed and elements of vogue were used in the performance, which was actually choreographed by Jose Gutierez and Luis Camacho – two vogue dancers that were established in the vogue scene. Following her blonde ambition tour, Madonna released a tour video called ‘Truth or Dare’ which documented the star and her crew’s life over the tour. The movie showed the openly gay dancers (5 of the 6 main dancers) in a way that was not often shown to the public, especially in a time of heteronormativity. This movie ended up becoming very influential to the larger LGBT community of the US and Europe.

‘Being gay was to be ‘the other’ and be subversive and perverse and all of a sudden there was this message that you can be gay and happy and successful‘

( Strike a Pose, 2014) – Kevin Stea (one of the dancers) reflecting on the movie’s effect.

Through the song, tour and movie, Madonna created a demand for the dance style and a window into the minority community in the commercial entertainment world; vogue reached Japan and Europe in the 1980s.

This arguably contributed the beginning of the less hetero- and gender normative environment of our western society today. Vogue can now be found throughout Europe Japan and the US, with European vogue houses, lessons open to anyone and an appearance in most social media forms.

‘People in Europe got to know voguing via YouTube; YouTube started in 2005, I returned to Paris in 2006 and by 2007-8 there you were seeing it in European dance competitions.‘

(Rayner, A, 2017) – Laissandra Ninja.

This was so for dancer and choreographer Benjamin Milan, who discovered the ballroom scene and voguing via youtube in 2009, when the european vogue scene was much smaller. Milan then moved to New York for a year to learn the style from ‘the masters of the art form‘.

‘I find great value in voguing as it helped me to connect with myself, my sexual identity and to know that it was ok to be different‘

(Milan, B, 2018)

The style has clearly found a place within commercial dance and entertainment, and so has the minority community along with it, which is not forgotten even now in the 21st century. The identity created is now a way for other people in similar situations and communities to feel the same self-acceptance and confidence, whether directly from ballroom culture and the vogue, or through musicals like ‘Everybody’s Talking About Jamie‘ and movies like ‘Saturday Church‘.

There is some debate however around the use of vogue in the commercial world: British choreographer and founder of House of Suarez, Darren Suarez told me about the annoyance of the ‘hierarchy’ of voguers as commercial dancers are taking the voguing jobs after just a few masterclasses.

‘Most dancers want to learn it because it’s very current at the moment. There is no time to envelope yourself in it, to go and become enriched in it‘

(Suarez, D, 2018)

Suarez spoke of the way vogue has evolved but has also become disjointed over time, due to its popularity; its uprise has encouraged the community to grow but has also meant the dance style has been exploited for commercialised dancers and choreographers to gain ‘originality’ without the correct knowledge of the style’s background.

Community

Historically, social dances have been a way to create community, continuing throughout the 20th and 21st centuries. The category relates to sociability and socialising, as well as forming a place for people to meet and connect.

With vogue, these dancers of Harlem were not only LGBTQ in a heteronormative America, they were also victims of social exclusion and marginalisation. In the same way that this group had created an identity, they also created a community for themselves in which they could have support and protection.

In Ball culture, the groups that dancers would train with and represent were known as houses, with the leaders of these groups refferred to as fathers and mothers. This metaphor in the context of the struggle these people faced was not a coincidence: for a lot of them, their actual parents had rejected them because of their way of living, and so the men and women who took on caring roles as leaders of their houses, were a way of filling the void. In Paris is Burning (1990), Pepper Labeija explains the extent of rejection these ‘children’ experienced:

‘A lot of these kids that are in the balls, they don’t have two of nothing, some of them don’t even eat’ 

Many dancers involved in ball culture earned money from escorting and stealing in order to pay for outfits and food, as some admitted in Livingston’s documentary. But still homeless and penniless, these groups provided support and companionship as well as protection from racism and homophobia that was common in New York in the 70s and 80s.

As these dance styles have become more known and common, they still act as a source of community for dancers – communities with the same values, as well as more creative values too.

Benjamin Milan told me ‘Vogue helped me find a community of like minded people where I felt creatively challenged and inspired‘ (2018)

Now, people still use the community of balls and houses as a way to artistically express themselves, to belong to a like minded group and to get away from the constraints of society that have not yet cleared all together. But they also use these competitions and houses as a source of inspiration and creative development, many dancers and choreographers like Milan then interpret the style and present it in their works, therefore spreading the dance styles further and developing them.

Using the LGBTQ community of 1980s Harlem as an example, Dance has become a vessel for culture, community and social escape. Dancing has aided the rise and creation of music genres, fashion and overall culture many times and allows marginalised people to be accepted where they are a minority.

Dance has been used as a support system, providing a sense of belonging and a distraction from social injustice and crisis. It has also supported participants of subculture, by giving a voice and sense of place in society, as mainstream culture slowly embraces their art.

The globalisation of such styles influences commercial art and dance thus intertwining subcultures into the commercial western art scene. Some may believe that the influence of the art of minority cultures on mainstream western society is stealing, as sometimes the art is used, repeated and globalised and the subculture or minority culture is forgotten and those who participated in or created the genre reap little financial gain.

Subculture is however, always evolving and the communities and support mechanisms created for the fringes of society can still find the same values through dance, club culture and developing improvement and regeneration schemes. Dance remains an alternative means of escapism and a way to cope with hardships, as opposed to more harmful, less developing distractions such as crime and drug abuse.

In summary, dance holds value and opportunity for minority cultures that other means of support do not through a sense of identity and community.