Voguing is a dance created in the ballroom culture of Harlem, where Black and Latino LGBTQ+ communities formed ‘houses’ and competed at balls in categories of fashion, attitude and dance. Inspired by fashion-magazine poses, it uses sharp angular lines, hand performance and dramatic floor work.
Drag balls existed in Harlem since the 1920s, but the modern house-ball system took shape in the 1970s, when Crystal LaBeija founded the House of LaBeija. Houses work like chosen families, led by ‘mothers’ and ‘fathers’, and protect young people rejected by their own families. Voguing developed through Old Way (lines and precision), New Way (flexibility, ‘clicks’) and Vogue Femme (catwalk, duckwalk, hands, spins and dips). Willi Ninja, the ‘godfather of voguing’, brought it to fashion runways; the 1990 documentary ‘Paris Is Burning’ and Madonna’s ‘Vogue’ made it famous, and today the ballroom scene thrives worldwide.
