Voguing

This research aims at analyzing how Madonna’s career presents dialectical articulations with the postmodern period, emphasizing the strong relationship established between her performances and cultural identities of ghetto groups. It is interesting to note the ambiguities contained in the binomial perpetuation/rupture, as seen in the way in which Madonna provokes the visualization of subaltern expressive forms and, at the same time, seems to reproduce the hegemonic ethos of the capitalist nexus. Thus, the present research has been developed through bibliographical investigations of concepts such as gender,
postmodernity and myth, whose theoretical interlacings have made possible to understand Madonna as part of a time loaded with ambivalences, making it an archetype of contemporary culture.

Como parte de la asignatura Estética Moderna y Contemporánea #EMyC que compartirmos en la Licenciatura en Artes Visuales de la Facultad de Arquitectura, Artes y Diseño de la Universidad Autónoma de Yucatán (UADY) y en el marco de la segunda unidad de aprendizaje "Paradigmas de la Estética Moderna y Contemporánea, una mirada experiencial", que tiene como objetivo experimentar los paradigmas a partir de nuestras prácticas artísticas y desde un enfoque de género, nos dimos a la tarea de revisar el artículo "Estéticas feministas contemporáneas (o de cómo hacer cosas con el cuerpo)" de Escudero para abrir una discusión y experimentar, en carne propia y junto con otras, una práctica estética contemporánea: la estética ballroom de la mano de uno de los colectivos más destacados a nivel nacional en la actualidad en este ámbito: House of Apocalipstick y compañeras de otras casas en la ciudad de Mérida, Yucatán: House of Mamis, House of Coco y #HouseofLove-que las identifica a todas ellas-. Aprovechando la visita a la ciudad de Mérida, Yucatán de Ery Díaz, integrante de House of Apocalipstick en Monterreina-Apok Monterreina-organizamos junto con Nany Guerrero, madre de la misma casa en Mérida la ponencia performativa Charlando en pose: Estéticas del ballroom junto con la comunidad "voguera" de Mérida y la comunidad estudiantil del #CAHAD #UADY.

W RUCHACH OPORU badam narzędzia i strategie oporu wykorzystywane w pracy choreografek i choreografów, zastanawiając się nad tym, co ciała robią i jakie praktyki ruchowe i produkcyjne wykorzystują, by wyrazić sprzeciw. Wychodząc z założenia, że choreografia odszyfrowuje społeczne napięcia, analizuje je i przepracowuje, projektując alternatywne scenariusze, skupiam się na związkach choreografii społecznej i protestów w przestrzeni publicznej z działaniami choreograficznymi, wykorzystującymi opór jako strategię artystyczną.

Koncepcja, teksty: Anka Herbut
Projekt graficzny: Agata Bartkowiak

Teksty ukazywały się w 2019 roku w internetowym magazynie kultury Dwutygodnik www.dwutygodnik.com

Projekt RUCHY OPORU zrealizowany został w ramach stypendium badawczego Grażyny Kulczyk 2019 z zakresu współczesnej choreografii.

« Ambivalences des resignifications subjectives dans le voguing : entre subversion parodique et imitation resubordinatrice » (Lecture personnelle de la réponse faite a « Is paris Burning » in. Black Looks : Race and representation de Bell Hooks par Judith Butler dans l'article « Le genre brule : questions d'appropriations et de subversion » in. Ces corps qui compte, de la matérialité et des limites discursives du « sexe)

The paper at hand interrogates the queer temporal politics of “houses” in the  ballroom and voguing scene. Houses constitute the axiomatic unit of this community marked by racial and sexual marginalisation and as such create alternative familial relations between members in response to rejections from the biological family and society in general. Mirroring the traditional family institution, vogue houses not only  become a source of protection, care, trust and knowledge; their very structure, I argue, induces a queer repro-generational time. Countering the sequential heteronormative
time of lifetime milestones and age-tting achievements, the queer time of voguing is a temporal disidentication that jumbles around and constructively misappropriates
generational and reproductive imperatives. In doing this, the politics of voguing opens the horizon of possible futures: it is a spark of embodied resistance with a queer utopian imaginary.

Building on the case study of the performative practice of voguing within ballroom culture among LGBTQIA1 communities, the aim of this article is to recognize a facial agency capable of putting into tension three thresholds of meaning: visibility and invisibility; identity and otherness; nature and artifice. On the basis of these tensions, interpretive habits concerning identity are incorporated into the face as a semiotic dispositif that negotiate sociocultural expectations and limitations. These habits, when agentively performed through the face, give shape to a communicative project that manipulates platforms of identity into biopolitical masks. The analysis will also give an account of how "worn" biopolitical masks reproduce and perform a facial monstrum, or warning, and how this specification warns others of the normativity of aesthetic and biopolitical appearance while activating an intentional transformation of identity.

Der zeitgenössische Tanz beschäftigt sich nur selten mit explizit religiösen Themen. Dennoch gibt es eine enge Verbindung zwischen Tanz und Spiritualität, auch scheinbar profane Bewegungen können einen transzendierenden Charakter haben. Alexander Schwan, Tanzwissenschaftler und evangelischer Theologe, erläutert aus diesem Blickwinkel das Geschehen in der zeitgenössischen Tanzszene.

These notes represent a first documentation and reflection starting from the experience of performative research on the "class", started on the occasion of the MareMuro project dedicated to borders and trespassing, created by Teatri di Vita (Bologna, Italy), Theater X (Berlin, Germany ) and Arka Center (Shkoder, Albania), co-financed by the Creative Europe program of the EU. The theatrical/performative research experience object of this report has been conceived by Andrea Adriatico and had 3 public results at Teatri di Vita: "Classe 1989" (November 13, 2019), "Classe 1990" (February 20, 2020) and "Classe 2020 "(October 16, 2020).

This article is the result of ethnographic fieldwork among amateur dancers, mainly among gay adolescents from the outskirts of Salvador de Bahia (Brazil), who label themselves as “flexible”. This self-definition arises out of bodily flexibility techniques, cultivated through intense physical work. By focusing on specific training situations, such as stretching exercises, I trace understand how the “flexible” body is built. I propose that the language mobilized by these young people offer an important guide to understanding the distinctive elements of this practice. The practitioners’ accounts and my own observations of the practice indicate that the embodiment of acrobatic skills occurs in a process that weaves body and environment. Following Ingold, I argue that an ecological approach help us to comprehend this kinesthetic practice as spatial realization, as well as providing useful insights into its learning practices exploring the richly sensory dimension of learning practices and development of motor sensibilities, such as the sound and the imperative pain experience. Furthermore, I analyze how my interlocutors’ concept of body fits the theoretical idea of how bodies should not be defined by what they are, but rather by what they are able to do.

This article explores vogue femme as a performative way of creating ruptures with normative understandings of balance. As normative balance, I define a set of binary and heteronormative stereotypes and conventions that are enforced on a sociopolitical level, contributing to the survival of the capitalist patriarchal system. The focus lies on two specific elements of vogue femme: the spins and dips, and the floor performance. Both elements open up, I suggest, possibilities for ‘posthuman becomings’, as they are improvisational, coincidental and ephemeral, based on the here and now of the dancing bodies. The article is based on fieldwork conducted between January and March 2020. I employed participatory observation and ethnographic interviews with voguers in vogue femme sessions and ballrooms in Berlin and Malmö in order to explore and analyse potential posthuman aspects and the aesthetics of the dance, the possibilities it offers for deconstructing normative identities and becoming-other through erratic spins, dips, and drops. In this process, spasm and sweat are considered to be central generators of affect. The characteristics of the voguing space, as well as the atmosphere that is constructed every time the bodies meet and collide with each other are also explored.

In the first half of the 1990s, Western popular culture experienced an infusion of drag. The success of Jenny Livingston’s seminal but highly problematic documentary of the Harlem Ballroom drag scene, Paris is Burning (1991), signaled an intrigue from popular and critical circles alike. The dance form “voguing,” born of the same Harlem Ballroom scene, appeared before and after the film’s release in music videos for Liz Torres, Taylor Dayne, Malcolm McLaren, and Queen Latifah. Madonna’s song “Vogue” and its accompanying video and live performances capitalized on the dance’s underground chic that had begun to bubble over into the mainstream. RuPaul’s “Supermodel (You Better Work)” and the clean and relatable image she created for herself around it soon after catapulted her from the Queen of Manhattan to legitimate stardom. In doing so, she and her team of collaborators turned her into a household name, musical performer, model, actress, and host of her own talk show. RuPaul’s rounding off of the edges of the drag queen image led drag characters to take center stage in the films Mrs. Doubtfire (Columbus 1993), The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert (Elliot, 1994), To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything! Julie Newmar (Kidron, 1995), and The Birdcage (Nichols, 1996). Lady Bunny’s Wigstock festival also became a documentary focus in Wigstock (Shills, 1995) during the height of drag queen visibility in film. This dissertation traces the emergence of drag into the mainstream culture of the 1990s. I argue that three separate subcultures dramatically altered the aesthetics and aims of drag: Downtown New York new wave, Harlem House Ballroom, and London New Romantic. I explore how each of these artistic nightlife cultures incorporated drag and queer performance as well as the ways that each garnered increasing attention for drag from new audiences and media outlets. Susanne Bartsch’s role as a purveyor of drag to the worlds of fashion and art are also explored. Lastly, I examine the Hollywood films mentioned above and how drag and sexuality are treated in each, reflecting the approaches major studios, directors, and actors took in seeking a heterosexual audience for drag.

The ballroom scene is a Black/Latinx LGBTQ+ subculture that
emerged in New York City during the 1960s. The ballroom scene serves
as a space of refuge for its members who continue to struggle, survive,
and find community amidst the material realities of their lives.
Throughout the turn of the twentieth century and on, various films and
TV shows have shed a light on the “underground” ballroom scene, and
the overt presence of ballroom in mainstream culture has evolved since
Paris is Burning (1990). Members of the scene have influenced mainstream
culture, with many not getting the adequate compensation or credit that
was deserved.
This thesis interrogates the entanglement between ballroom’s
ascendance into mainstream culture and the coercive elements of
imperialist white supremacist capitalist patriarchy. I argue that the
evolution of ballroom’s overt presence in mainstream media shifts the way
that members of the scene engage with notions of social mobility,
intracommunal tensions, representation politics, and generational change.
Through qualitative research, observation, and interviews with various
members of the scene, this thesis highlights the tension that arises when a
subculture is commercialized. Utilizing queer of color critique, trans
feminist thought, and Black Marxist theory as my theoretical framework, this project hopes to construct a critical approach to how both members
and non-members of the scene engage with new forms of representation
and new opportunities that were previously unthinkable. Unlike previous
studies of the ballroom scene that have discussed representation and/or
social mobility, arguably within neoliberal reformist frameworks, my
project bends toward a more liberatory approach to understand and
uncover the dynamics of people in and outside of the scene.

in Apparence(s) [En ligne], n° 10, "Cultures physiques-Cultures visuelles", mise en ligne en décembre 2021. URL : https://journals.openedition.org/apparences/2827

This article deals with the visibility of voguing, this dance that developed among Afro and Latin American homosexual and transgender minorities from the second half of the 20th century. Distinguishing the traditional space of its practice, the balls, as a heterotopia according to the notion forged by Michel Foucault, I establish the counter-cultural charge that this dance carries against the established norms. Undoubtedly, voguing is part of the struggles for the recognition of racialized queer people. But how this struggle can be heard beyond the heterotopia of the balls? Through this question, I observe the extension of the field of visibility of voguing, since the end of the 1980s. I begin by analyzing a recent case inscribed in a symbolic context on the political level that pose the different issues raised by the new visibility spaces of this dance. Then, starting from the first moments of public exhibition of voguing, at the turn of the 1990s, I look at how this visibility was structured between the heterotopia of the balls and the studio space. I end by considering the way in which these two spaces of visibility can meet and complement each other to overcome the pitfalls of past representations of voguing.

INTRODUÇÃO O texto aqui apresentado é um dos produtos da pesquisa que temos desenvolvido em torno das interfaces cultura urbana e pós-modernidade. Aqui tratamos precisamente de um estilo do hip-hop denominado Voguing, nascido nos Estados Unidos no último quartel do século XX, emoldurado em consonância com o cenário pós-moderno. Performatizado pela comunidade LGBT, após os anos 1990 o estilo Voguing ultrapassou as fronteiras estadunidenses e adentrou o universo underground gay ao redor do mundo. A este respeito parte desta pesquisa se estruturou, objetivando compreender as articulações dialéticas entre o Voguing e o contexto histórico pós-moderno, levando em conta o complexo trânsito de signos na contemporaneidade. Portanto, interessa-nos compreender a forma como a comunidade LGBT subverte seduções hegemônicas e ressignifica os sentidos de identidade através do Voguing. Para tal, tornou-se necessário recorrer aos debates em torno da pós-modernidade, sem perder de vista as ambiguidades epistemológicas que ainda cercam este conceito. Considerado o maior expoente sobre o tema, Lyotard (1990) entende que o desprestígio do racionalismo científico potencializou uma descrença generalizada nas metanarrativas de legitimação, fato que robusteceu formas múltiplas de emancipação. Este cenário é também realçado por Hall (2006, p. 8), ao entender que "as identidades modernas estão sendo 'descentradas', isto é, deslocadas ou fragmentadas", inserindo uma combinação incontável de variáveis que fragilizam referenciais rígidos de identidade. Aliado à fragmentação dos sujeitos, o binômio individualização/sociabilidade também contribui para desestabilizar as identidades pós-modernas. Assim, embora a estrutura político-ideológica neoliberal sugestione o recrudescimento do individualismo,