My Journey Through the European Ballroom Scene

Monday 3 September 2018 John Taylor Travel Grant Award Summary

“I’m so into voguing right now:” My journey through the European ballroom scene

For three weeks this summer, I was lucky enough to be given the opportunity to travel through Europe to do research on the music of the European Ballroom Scene. The Ballroom Scene is an underground queer subculture created by gay and transgender Black and Latinx people in the 1960’s in Harlem, New York. The culture has been brought into the mainstream various times over the last few decades, most notably by Madonna, who’s single ‘Vogue’ was inspired by the scene, the 1990 documentary ‘Paris is Burning’ and more recently by RuPaul’s Drag Race.

Balls are structured as competitions. They go through each category and crown a winner. At the beginning of each category is a process called ‘tens,’ where the MC opens the category and invites the crowd to walk in the category. Competitors take the stage one at a time and show off to the judges. The judges decide if they get through to the next round by holding up 10 ﬁngers, hence why it is called ‘tens.’ A competitor needs to get tens from every judge to get through to the next round and if they get a chop (AKA not tens), they cannot continue. After tens are the battles. The competitors are put into pairs (occasionally groups of 3 or more) who battle against each other. The judges then each vote for the competitor who they think deserves to stay, and the competitor with the most votes stays. This continues until there is only one person standing, who wins the category.

Typical categories seen at balls are:

• Runway - Where competitors have to dress in their interpretation of the given theme and give a runway walk.

• Old way vogue - the ﬁrst style of voguing that is based on creating lines and poses with the body to try and replicate a high-fashion photo shoot.

• New way vogue - An adaptation of old way that features more contortion and a high level of ﬂexibility

• Vogue femme - A modern vogue style that is very effeminate and requires a high level of acrobatics

• Hands - Where a performer uses their hands and arms to convey a story while the body stays still

1 Monday 3 September 2018 There are countless more categories, but these are the 5 most popular. An important role in Balls is that of the MC. The MC opens and closes each category, does a form of commentating that resembles rapping, and generally sets the atmosphere.

During my travels, I went to three different Balls across Europe. The ﬁrst one I attended was the ‘Super Kiki-Ball’ in Barcelona. According to people I talked to, Barcelona doesn’t have a very large Ballroom scene, with the majority of Spain’s balls being held in the capital, Madrid. There was a panel of 5 judges from across Europe. The MC of the night, Caribú, held down the commentating for the entire evening but seemed to have a repertoire of typical ballroom chants that he kept repeating. The majority of the tracks that the DJ played at the ball were pre-recorded ha beats - most of which I knew. After the ball ﬁnished, I felt incredible. It was one of the only scenes I had been in where male femininity is not only welcomed, but encouraged.

Alan Raul and Raisha Cosima battling in the Vogue Femme competition at the Super Kiki-Ball. Photo by Tania Gavilanes.

The second ball I went to was the ‘Drag-On Ball’ in Nuremberg and was quite similar to the ball in Barcelona. This was not only the ﬁrst ball in Nuremberg but also the ﬁrst ball in South Germany. There were three judges, again from across Europe, two MC’s and a DJ. The DJ, who I had gotten in contact with prior to the event, had informed me that she was an outsider to the scene and was asked to do the ball because she is the resident

2 Monday 3 September 2018 DJ at a local queer bar. She told me that she had been given playlists of pre-recorded songs to play for each category.

“Just stick to ‘The Ha’,” said one of the judges to the DJ after she had given the performer a runway track which wasn’t suitable for vogue femme performance. “For those of you who are new to the ballroom scene, each category has different musical requirements,” she continues, trying to explain to the audience why she stopped the show mid-performance. Most vogue femme beats incorporate samples of early ballroom house classics, but the one that is most sampled is ‘The Ha Dance’ by Masters At Work. Initially used as a track for New Way performance, the original ’Ha’ is solely responsible for the style of music created for vogue femme performance. The reason why it is called ‘The Ha Dance’ is because of the clash every fourth beat mixed with a sample from the movie ‘Trading Places’ that ﬁnishes with ‘ha’ on the fourth beat. This, as mentioned before is where the performer would do a ‘dip.’ This ‘ha’ has been sampled for over two decades in ballroom music and is one of the main characteristics of vogue femme music. The driving percussion, the pumping bass and all of the samples ﬁll the track with drama - something which, according to legendary ballroom producer, Vjuan Allure, is essential in ballroom music.

“There are 5 elements to vogue femme:” ‘hands,’ where the performer uses their hands and arms to tell a story, ‘runway,’ which is a dance inspired by model runway walks an photo shoots, ‘duckwalk,’ where the performer crouches down and kicks their legs out to imitate a duck walking, ‘ﬂoor work' and ‘spins and dips.’ Spins and dips are the most recognisable characteristics of vogue femme. The dancer spins around, falls back on one leg and kicks the other leg in the air. All of these elements correspond with the music. Generally hands is performed during the introduction/build-up of the beat, the runway is done when then beat comes in, duckwalk when it develops more, and a spin and dip on the 4th beat of a cycle. If the performer does a dip any time other than the 4th beat, they will be disqualiﬁed.

The ﬁnal ball I went to was ‘The Paris Awards Ball,’ in Paris. Paris is considered to be the capital of ballroom culture in Europe and hosts some of the worlds largest balls every year. I had watched footage from the 2016 and 2017 Paris awards balls which seemed to have a very large turn out. I was amazed by the performances that each contestant gave. With this in mind, I went to the ball with a preconceived idea of what the ball was going to be like.

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Mother Riya Valentinó West during the House Mothers Walk. Photo by Xavier Héraud.

The ball didn’t have as good of a turn out as the previous years, later I found out this was due to conﬂict between different houses. Despite this, the level of performance was extremely high despite there being less performers. This ball, as I expected, was much different from the previous two balls I had been to. There was a live DJ, DJ Lazy Flow, who is one of the main ballroom DJ’s in Europe. Unlike the previous two balls, this DJ did live ballroom mixes where he used samples of classic ballroom pieces like ‘The Ha Dance’ to create tracks that matched each performer’s style. Ways he would do this is by matching the ‘ha’ clash to whenever the performer does a dip. Typically in pre-recorded ballroom tracks, the ha is every 4th beat, but when it’s live, sometimes performers prefer to a dip every 8th beat instead. If this was the case, the DJ would match the ha to whenever the performer dipped. This seemed to make the audience much more engaged with the performers. Another unique aspect of this scene was the audience chanting. Each house has a different chant to cheer on the performers. This was especially exciting when there was a battle between houses because the two chants would interlock to create a beat that the DJ would try to replicate. It was interesting to see how much a live DJ can improve a ball.

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Sky Banks Ninja performing a dip during the vogue femme battles. Photo by Xavier Héraud

After my trip concluded, I was so inspired and motivated to get more involved with the London ballroom scene. I have started producing my own ‘ha’ beats and intend to start doing runway and vogue femme classes. I want to thank the SOAS Music Department and my parents for helping me make this trip happen and also all of the people I met at the balls who made me feel so welcome in the scene.