It was one of the few dance classes dedicated to voguing held in the country – but to call it merely a dance class in San Francisco would’ve done the program an injustice.
The LGBT Rights Movement is inextricably tied to ball culture — the queer underground subculture that dates back as far as the 19th century. It was started by African-American and Latino communities as a means to create a tangible utopia; amid anti-LGBTQIA+ views and ongoing racial tensions in the United States, ball culture became synonymous with “houses,” where chosen families and communities were formed in response to estrangements.
Voguing — the highly animated form of dance synonyms with ballroom and queer rhythmic subcultures — was created by black and Latino LGBTQ communities. Willi Ninja is widely considered the “Grandfather of Vogue,” leading the dance style to prominence in the Harlem Drag Ball scene throughout the 1980s, helping it ascend to world adoption. And fun fact: Ninja, too, play
Ninja rose to prominence in the Harlem Drag Ball scene in the 1980s and took the dance form of voguing around the world. Ninja founded the House of Ninja in 1982, and, fun fact, also helped popularize the term “mother” in queer lexicons; Ninja had many adopted gay and transgender “children” in New York City.
Decades since its inception, ballroom culture has continued breaking into the cultural zeitgeist, spanning the likes of queer-dedicated television on major networks to doubling as center-stage acts for global tours helmed by iconoclastic popstars. (Yes, we’re speaking about the worldwide tours recently helmed by Madonna and Beyonce.)
Amid this renaissance (pun intended), the San Francisco LGBT Center dedicated an entire workshop to all things ball culture, partially voguing — existing among just a few other like-styled dance classes currently available to take in the country.
Alas, as of publishing, the program has sunset (for now), though the memories and impact will carry on indefinitely. We talked to the program’s co-creators and teachers, Aurris Garço — a multi-hyphenate, award-winning performer in both the Kiki and mainstream scenes — and Tristain Joseph, whose accolades span the gamut of regional and national acclaim, on the importance of ballroom culture, how the class exists in a multitude of dimensions, and the many intricacies of voguing.
Matthew Charnock: What was the catalyst behind starting the class?
Tristan Joseph: What prompted me to start “Deep in Vogue” was to create a safe space with all-inclusive for everyone. My intuition told me to reach out to my high school classmate La Shea Sanchez, the Room Rentals Manager at the SF LGBT Center. La Shea then directed me to Timothy Hampton, Associate Director of Cultural Programs. I expressed my interest in beginning a program to help explore and develop their creative side and recruit for the ballroom community.
Matthew Charnock: How many elements of voguing are there, would you say?
Aurris Garçon: There are five base elements: hands, catwalk, duck walk, dips, and floor performance. Then, there are sub-elements that you learn to further enhance your performance style and make it unique. One of these is antics/shade, a way of shading your opponent or showing your Personality.
Matthew Charnock: I know y’all said the class was set to be “immersive” and “educational” on ballroom culture — but can you expand on that?
Aurris Garçon: Through teaching history and self-exploration, we showed our students how they can relate to ballroom and find what category best suits them while also providing knowledge on said categories and where they come from. It’s immersive through finding one’s self in a ballroom and educational by learning queer history.
MC: Why is it so important we keep honoring, celebrating, and supporting ballroom culture?
AG and TJ: We believe highlighting the history of the ballroom is important because these people before us walked so we can run. Unfortunately, queer history isn’t something at the forefront of our community, but it’s important we know where all our culture came from. We also think highlighting ballroom, in particular, is important because we in this community are the driving force of the vast majority of the trends you see in gay culture and pop culture, period. Proper credit was never really given to us, so through education, We wanted to show students the roots of a lot of the styles, dance moves, slang, etc., in our community.
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