Strike A Pose, Vogue, History of Ball Room Scene

  With this new fad of GAY lingo being thrown around here and there, I took the time to dig a little deeper. Find out where does all this come from and explore the subculture within the LGBT community. We also get to see how one subculture has influenced others.I’m going to get into the Ballroom scene and I feel everyone should experience this kind of event at least once in their life, you will see how many pop artist take from the icons of the ballroom scene. To name a few, Madonna, Brittany Spears, Lady Gaga, Beyonce etc. Down to the way a runway models walks down a runway in a fashion show derives from the Ballroom. Here's a clip from Legendary Leiomy Mizrahi who have inspired artist in the music scene.

When we hear the word Ballroom we often think about dancing with the stars because of course they’re doing traditional ballroom dancing but in the LGBT community, this is like a competitive fashion show featuring all types of pageantry. This is giving you runway and its also giving you sex, yes I said it! This is no new phenomenon, Balls has a history and has a tradition that dates back to the 19th century and going strong into the 21st century.The Ballroom scene was born out of queer culture in New York City. It began as drag pageants, which expanded to include categories for realness, performance (vogue), sex siren, runway, bizarre and a host of others.The scene is organized into Houses. These houses are like crews or even like real family and often members rely on each other outside the scene for support and love in times of need. They become “children” and the house has a “mother” and “father”, they have rules to follow like any household and they take on a family name. Usually the name derives from a fashion designer, for example, they have the House of Mizrahi which is named after Issac Mizrahi or maybe after a ballroom icon like Willie Ninja, it would be called the House of Ninja,etc.  So I'm Camille but my new name would be Camille Mizrahi. Hope you get the drift. So the ballroom scene is all about houses competing with each other in different categories and winning prizes. Check out this famous clip of Crystal Labeiga from the movie "The Queen" in 1968, there is also a documentary on the Ball room scene called "Paris is Burning"

Now let's get into the categories that are within the Ballroom scene. Performance, this is the category is the one that gave birth to the vogue form of dance. It is broken up into 5 components that can be used as their own categories in a ball. The 5 components are Duckwalk,Catwalk,Hands,Floor work, Spins and Dips. You find a lot of theatrics in the performance category, a lot of shady gestures against their opponent. Runway, this category is exactly what it sounds like. It is walking on the runway like a high fashion model. There are two types of runway walking and they are All-American Runway and European Runway. This is where you see how this scene has major influence on our fashion runways. A lot of the top models today and in the past have been trained to walk by Icons like Willie Ninja. Then we have Realness, this category comes from a time when blending in with heterosexuals was a key component of gay life.  The challenge of this category is to present yourself as heterosexual as you can project, you have Thug, Executive, and Schoolboy.The face category is about who has a classically beautiful face.  Judges examine the eyes, the nose, the teeth, the lips and the structure of the face, they will only look at the face of a competitor which should not have much makeup and should appear flawless. The category Body is about health.  A competitor will have hit the gym quite a lot, and are willing to show off.  The judges will be looking for someone who looks attractive, and healthy. Last but not least Sex Siren, this category is all about sex.  Who can seduce the judges?  Participants will do their best to tease and seduce the judges. Some may strip all their clothes off, others might do erotic dancing, and some may do both just to snatch a trophy. In this category you'll mostly see transexual women that gives sexiness but keep in mind real women compete as well, there more in the realness category. This entire production is a MUST see!!

One of the most popular balls to date is the Latex Ball, it’s an event that is held every year and it’s purpose is to shed awareness on the HIV/AIDS epidemic and how its affecting the LGBT community. You will find people getting free std testing as well as receiving goody bags with all you can possibly need to enjoy safe sex. You will also find a slew of celebrities who come to this affair, it is that huge of an event and everyone is welcomed to attend. So guess where I will be next year?  You got it, having my very first Latex Ball experience!! To my right is a clip of 2013 Latex Ball, enjoy.