This pancocojams post presents several excerpts from online articles about the history of drag balls (also known as "house ball culture").
The content of this post is presented for historical and cultural purposes.
All copyrights remain with their owners.
Thanks to all those who are quoted in this post.
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EXCERPTS ABOUT THE HISTORY OF DRAG BALLS
Pancocojams Editor's Note: These excerpts are given in no particular order and are numbered for referencing purposes only.
Excerpt #1:
From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ball_culture
"Ball culture, drag ball culture, the house-ballroom community, and similar terms describe an underground LGBT subculture that originated in the United States, in which people "walk" (i.e., compete) for trophies, prizes, and glory at events known as balls. Ball participants are mainly young African-American and Latin American members of the LGBTQ community. Attendees dance, vogue, walk, pose, evaluate, and support one another in one or more of the numerous drag and performance competition categories. Categories are designed to simultaneously epitomize and satirize various genders and social classes, while also offering a glamorous escape from reality. The culture extends beyond the extravagant formal events as many participants in ball culture also belong to groups known as "houses", a longstanding tradition in LGBT communities, and communities of color, where chosen families of friends live in households together, forming relationships and community to replace families of origin from which they may be estranged.
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In his essay "Spectacles of Colors", Langston Hughes describes his experience at a drag ball in the 1920s.[20]
"Strangest and gaudiest of all Harlem spectacles in the '20s, and still the strangest and gaudiest, is the annual Hamilton Club Lodge Ball at Rockland Palace Casino. I once attended as a guest of A'Lelia Walker. It is the ball where men dress as women and women dress as men. During the height of the New Negro era and the tourist invasion of Harlem, it was fashionable for the intelligentsia and social leaders of both Harlem and the downtown area to occupy boxes at this ball and look down from above at the queerly assorted throng on the dancing floor, males in flowing gowns and feathered headdresses and females in tuxedoes and box-back suits." —Langston Hughes
Although balls now feature mainly Black and Latinx participants, the first known ball at the Hamilton Lodge was integrated. This was uncommon because at the time, racial segregation was nearly universal.[21] Although the ball was integrated, racism was still very present, which prevented many Black performers from receiving prizes. There were no Black judges and many believe that the balls were rigged so that only Whites could win.[22] This racial discrimination prompted Black and Latinx attendees to form their own balls. In the subsequent decades, drag balls eventually developed the modern, mainstream format we know today.
The modern ballroom culture has existed for at least five decades. However, it remains largely underground and unknown for this particular community of Black and Latino queer youth. It began in Harlem more than 50 years ago, and has now expanded rapidly to other major cities such as Chicago, Atlanta, Baltimore, Charlotte, Cleveland, Detroit, and Philadelphia.[5] In New Orleans in the 1950s, they appeared at Mardi Gras celebrations and were originally called "krewes". In 2010, a documentary by Tim Wolff, called The Sons of Tennessee Williams, follows their history.[23][24]
Moreover, with the advancements of social media, it has migrated to other countries such as Canada, Japan, and the UK.[25] Ball culture also known as "house ball culture," was first captured in Jennie Livingston's documentary, Paris is Burning (1990).
New York City
New York City is the epicenter of the world's drag ball culture. Cross dressing balls had existed in the city since the 1930s, consisting of primarily white men. They competed in fashion shows in bars 2 or 3 times a year. Black queens would sometimes participate but rarely won any prizes.[25] Due to discrimination, Black queens Crystal LaBeija and her friend Lottie began their own drag ball titled 'House of LaBeija,' kickstarting the ballroom scene in New York.[25] In 1989, The House of Latex was created as a call to action in the ballroom community to bridge the gap between HIV-STI prevention and ballroom culture.[2]
Washington, DC
This account from the metropolitan Washington, D.C. area describes how ball culture and drag houses developed about 1960:
Some regular house parties became institutionalized as drag "houses" and "families." The leader, or "mother," often provided not only the opportunity for parties but also instruction and mentoring in the arts of make-up, selecting clothes, lip-synching, portraying a personality, walking, and related skills. Those taught became "drag daughters," who in turn mentored others, creating entire "drag families." Drag houses became the first social support groups in the city's gay and lesbian community. House names often came from addresses of the house 'mother', such as Mother Billy Bonhill's Belmont House at 15th and Belmont NW, or associations with the "mother's" chosen personality, as Mame Dennis's Beekman Place.[26]
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The dance styles which later characterized drag houses had not been developed; competitions between houses involved standard drag performances in which entertainers lip-synced or, rarely, sang. In contrast to the New York houses in Paris Is Burning, some of the Washington, D.C. house mothers were white. However, African-American drag queens were a prominent part of the community:
Venues for drag shows and competitions were a constant challenge in the 1960s. The Uptown Lounge sponsored monthly drag contests, an event later duplicated at Johnnie's on Capitol Hill. Chunga's drag shows at the Golden Key Club in North Beach, Maryland were a popular Sunday event. The major hotels' resistance to drag events was not broken until February 1968 when African-American drag impresario Black Pearl staged the gala Black Pearl International Awards at the Washington Hilton. It was the drag event of the year.[26]
The Washington, D.C. ball community consists primarily of African-American and Latino participants, and has adopted many attributes seen in Paris Is Burning. Nineteen-sixties-style drag shows and competitions still exist, with their own audience. Ball patrons will find similar categories (such as "banjee thug realness" and "vogue") as an audience member.
The Washington ballroom scene was founded in 1986 by Icon Lowell Adonis-Khanh (Lowell Thomas Hickman) and Icon Eric Christian-Bazaar. During the 1990s, more houses appeared in the area due to the efforts of Twain Miyake-Mugler ("father" of the House of Miyake Mugler, D.C. Chapter), Icon Harold Balenciaga (founder of the house of Balenciaga), Icons Shannon Garcon and Whitney Garcon (founders of the House of Garcon[27] and charter members of The Legendary House of Miyake-Mugler).[28] The city hosts a series of annual balls, in which contestants compete for trophies and cash prizes."...
Baltimore
In 1931, the newspaper Baltimore Afro-American covered a local drag ball. The article detailed the "coming out of new debutantes into gay society." By the 1930s, the drag ball culture was starting to emerge in the Black communities in major cities such as Baltimore, Chicago, and New York. The Afro reported that "The coming out of new debutantes into homosexual society was the outstanding feature of Baltimore's eighth annual frolic of the pansies when the art club was host to the neuter gender at the Elks' Hall."[29]"...
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Excerpt #2:
From https://haenfler.sites.grinnell.edu/subcultures-and-scenes/underground-ball-culture/ Grinnell College: Subcultures and Sociology [no editor/s or date given; retrieved on September 25, 2019]
"The drag ball scene is fascinating subculture that illuminates themes of race, gender, and sexual orientation within society. Balls are competitions that consist of individuals, often drag queens, who perform different drag genres and categories. Drag refers to the practices of one gender dressing in the clothes typically worn by the opposite gender and often adopting the conventional mannerisms of that gender. Drag queens and kings develop a drag persona, adopting a drag name and cultivating their unique style and attitude; for example, Andre Mizrahi, member of the House of Mizrahi, uses his talent for choreography and fashion to become a voguing legacy on the ballroom floor.
HISTORY
Ball culture emerged in the 1920s in and around New York City. At their beginning, performers consisted mainly of white men putting on drag fashion shows. Black queens rarely participated, and when they did, they were expected to lighten their faces (Cunningham 1995). Fed up with the restrictive and racist ball culture, the queer black ball community established their own underground ball culture in the 1960s. Ball culture in the 1960s contained very few categories, with primarily queens portraying Las Vegas showgirls. However, New York’s Stonewall Riots of the late 1960s, when queer people of color stood up to police, “changed self-perceptions within the subculture: from feeling guilty and apologetic to feelings of self-acceptance and pride” (Balzer 2005:114). The 1970s saw an expansion of ball participation as balls increased their numbers and types of categories to allow inclusivity and involvement of everyone (Paris is Burning 1990). Balls became a safe space for queer youth of color, mainly Blacks and Latinos/Latinas, to express themselves freely.
With this new realm of ball culture came the development of competition. The competitions consist of an entire language of concepts, categories, dances, and slang that are unique to the subculture (Phillips II, Peterson, Binson, Hidalgo, and Magnus 2011:517). Participants “walk” or “compete” on a stage or runway for prizes, displaying their outfit along with their persona for different categories. The performances consist of strutting, dancing, and spoken word. Performances are judged by one’s fashion, appearance, and dancing. One common category is “Realness,” where participants in drag are judged on their ability to “pass” as heterosexual males or females. Other common categories include business executive, best dressed, and butch queens in pumps. Not all performances consist of cross-dressing; a few common categories include females highlighting their femininity and males highlighting their masculinity.
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Ball participants use their performances to communicate specific information about themselves to others. The balls create a welcoming, non-critical space for the queer community to construct their sense of self in their own hidden world free of the constraints that mainstream society puts on gender and sexual expression.
Ball culture consists of unique values, and social structures. In the 1960s, with the revitalization of ball culture, many of the participants could not openly express their sexuality and gender identity within their biological families. To fill this void, groups called “houses” or “families” emerged. Houses serve as many ball participants only source of family (Herzog and Rollins 2012:9). Many queer youth join balls at a young age, and sometimes live with their houses if they cannot safely live with their biological family.
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BALL CULTURE AND DRAG TODAY
Underground ball culture, while still prominent as a subculture, has also come into the mainstream eye through TV shows and drag clubs. The process of underground balls seeping into mainstream culture can be understood by examining the career of drag queen RuPaul. The Afro-American drag queen RuPaul is known for his award winning show, RuPaul’s Drag Race, a reality competition searching for the next drag sensation. However, he began his drag career performing in the underground ball circuit and living with fellow homeless drag queens in New York City. However, in 1993 he captured the mainstream eye when his music video “Supermodel of the World” aired on MTV. This performance along with others, including Madonna’s Vogue (1990), marked a change in style and behavior of drag, that helped lead to the increased popularity of drag performance (Balzer 2005:116). Drag catered to the mainstream eye, as clubs showcased drag queens performing (not competing) to the most popular pop songs of the time. During the late 1990s, drag performances gained international hype, as RuPaul became known as an international icon (Balzer 2005:111). Likewise, ball culture has spread all across the country; “Currently, there is a ballroom scene in almost every major city in North America” and there are over 100 active houses (Bailey 2011:368). While ball culture has become more popular throughout the world, it still primarily consists of disadvantaged groups and represents non-mainstream values; thus, it should not be considered post-subcultural”...
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Excerpt #3:
From https://cfda.com/news/striking-a-pose-a-history-of-house-balls; "Striking A Pose: A History Of House Balls" by Karyl J. Truesdale, 8/3/18
..."New York City is the birthplace of drag culture. The underground drag ball scene dates back to 1920s Harlem, during the height of the Harlem Renaissance. It was a time when black queer folks could comfortably lose themselves in refuge and acceptance at a social arena dubbed The Hamilton Lodge. The Annual Hamilton Lodge Ball, dating back to 1869, is the aboriginal documentation of what can now be the provenance of the ballroom scene. It’s allegiance to the black, queer community was a narrative of art, self-expression, freedom and fluidity. This was a place where having cognizance and acceptance was king, or more notably, Queen.
During the Harlem Renaissance, drag ball culture was considered taboo and illegal; and although popular amongst the LGBTQ community, the scene attracted just as many straight, artistic, and curious voyeurs, anxiously anticipating a night of communion and revelry. Prudence was not allowed! This was a no–judgment zone, if you were ever to partake my friends. One can only imagine the valiant displays of what we now call Pride, a retrospective of a bygone era.
Jennie Livingston’s classic documentary Paris is Burning and, more recently, Ryan Murphy’s Pose personify the flamboyance of the “house culture” scene, primarily focusing on the Black and Latino LGBTQ community, circa late 1980s in New York City. The transformation from Drag Ball to House Ball lends adulation to its infatuation for the industry of fashion.
The light has not dimmed on the movement. The culture is still thriving, especially here in New York where the Latex Ball, held at the Highline Ballroom, continues to bring the community together, and, in doing so, revolutionizes the meaning of family."...
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