Ballroom Blitz

My first ball experience, I was in awe. The energy, the music, the fashion, the glamour,” recalls Luna Khan, father of the House of Khan and Ballroom Hall of Famer. “It was a little gay heaven for a kid who had no gay role models in 1988.”

Khan is one of the ballroom idols who has helped GMHC’s annual Latex Ball become one of the city’s fiercest events. At a time when ballroom culture still inspires queer youth the way it inspired Khan the Latex Ball is marking a huge milestone: its 25th anniversary.

The Ball was initially created in 1990 as an HIV prevention program by Gay Men’s Health Crisis in an effort to educate black communities, who have always been disproportionately affected by HIV and AIDS. “AIDS hit all the communities terribly, but because the house and ball scene is so small, it felt like we were the hardest hit,” explains Kha, who has been with the Ball since the beginning. As a member of GMHC’s House of Latex Project, Khan would go out into the communities to provide HIV prevention information, details on where to get tested, and free condoms and lube—a project that eventually transformed into the Latex Ball. “We learned to survive by sticking together, and the Latex Ball became the celebration of life we all needed.”

“The Ballroom scene has a lot of history with [outsiders] getting what they wanted and leaving, using us and our services,” says Hector Xtravaganza, Grandfather of the Houses of Xtravaganza and Ninja, as well as the House of Latex. “But the Latex Project became part of the scene.” Xtravaganza was adamant that if the Latex Project was going to get the community they were trying to reach to listen, they’d have to actually become part of the community, and there was no better way to do that than by walking in a ball, and thus the Latex Ball was born and, “they became part of the family.”

Besides celebrating talent and individuality, the Latex Ball also spreads an important message of prevention without stigma. “What sets the Latex Ball apart from other balls is simply the prevention, the health and wellness messaging, the free HIV testing,” Khan continues. “It’s the ball where, as an HIV-positive person, you do not feel stigmatized. You feel community, unity, and love. When we vogue or pump the runway at Latex, we are calling the ballroom angels we’ve lost in the fight, and they pump right along with us.”

Part of The Latex Ball’s longevity can be credited to it’s timing, as it began when ballroom culture was starting to gain attention in mainstream society. Lee Soulja, a Latex competitor and the executive director of Black Pride, recalls that the first Latex Ball felt so exciting because the world was just starting to get a real glimpse into the scene with the release of Paris Is Burning, Queen Latifah’s “Come Into My House” video, Malcolm McLaren’s song “Deep in Vogue,” and, of course, Madonna’s “Vogue.” “It just seemed like the whole world was talking ballroom,” he says.

There’s now a younger generation that was inspired by the scene’s visibility, who are injecting new life into the Ball scene. Native New Yorkers especially have grown up aching to join the world, like 25-year-old Kimberly Smallz, who has been a member of the House of LaBeija for two years now and regularly competes at the Latex Ball. As a gay teen, before becoming a LaBeija, she’d visit the pier and see kids voguing or practicing their runway walks. “It’s always felt like my culture more than anything else I identify with,” she explains. “There’s something so unique about having grown up queer and of color in New York, and part of that is tied to the ball scene and growing up where it all began.” And even the up-and-coming kids know that the Latex Ball is one of the pinnacles of the scene every year. “Latex is one of the most anticipated events in the ball scene and it attracts competition from all over the world,” she adds. “The energy is overwhelming, especially when the vogue battles begin. I think most people who are less familiar with the scene forget that the majority of categories aren’t vogue or performance related, but maintain other traditions like the ‘realness’ categories. The dynamic between the performance and presentation categories, together, always makes the Latex Ball worth seeing.”

The Latex Ball is a complicated, multifaceted event, but its main attraction is the competitions, broken down into five major categories: vogue/performance, body, realness, runway, and face. Within these categories there are dozens of subsets; in realness alone, hopefuls can compete to win for school boy, pretty boy, thug, executive, butch, trans man, drags, and fem queen. In addition to trophies, winners will also take home cash prizes of up to $400 per category. You can certainly clean up at the Latex Ball—if you have what it takes to win.

More important than competition and money, though, the Latex Ball brings the community together year after year. “Of course the balls were fun and I loved voguing, but it was the family and the bonding we’ve created that I loved most,” says Khan, who got involved with the ball scene in 1988. “We make lifetime friendships and it’s the only scene I know where we celebrate each other and we uplift each other. We love and support each other in ways I’ve never seen before. The ballroom community is very empowering, so we want to see our own succeed.”

“Although the Latex Ball was created as an HIV prevention and outreach program, it has always felt like a big family reunion,” Soulja adds. “It is the biggest and most grand event for the ballroom community every year. That’s an important legacy in itself.”

Rest assured it won’t all be touchy-feely good vibes and STD outreach at the Latex Ball—you will also see the fiercest vogue competition of your life. Competitors and organizers say that the Latex Ball is where everyone pulls out their best moves, and there are moments that people talk about for years. Aisha D, the first cisgender House Mother of the House of Latex, reminisces about a ball where Runway icon Jay Blahnik “did the unthinkable and actually created a runway on the crowd and walked on them onto the actual Latex Runway. It mimicked someone walking on water over a wave of 3,000 spectators.”

The Latex Ball remains as vibrant as ever, especially now that Ballroom has infiltrated the popular consciousness once more. “Not only has Ballroom culture spread across the United States, but it is now flourishing in Europe, Russia, and Japan. It is exciting to see all the new talent that is coming from abroad to walk at the Latex Ball,” Soulja says. “Now the Ballroom scene is global, and the motherland is New York City,” Xtravaganza adds. “The fact that you have kids coming from across the globe is amazing, and they come to New York once a year specifically for the Latex Ball.”

“It’s amazing how the ballroom and voguing scene has influenced pop culture,” adds Khan. “You see a little ballroom language on Bravo every day, RuPaul has exhausted ballroom quotes on Logo, and let’s not forget the influence ballroom has had on fashion and music. Ballroom culture is important to pop culture, but it’s important to us because it’s life—and survival.”