Reverend King Austin Jr.: Sometimes I feel like a motherless child a long way from home.

Brian Lehrer: No, that's not The Brian Lehrer Show theme. That voice belongs to Reverend King Austin Jr. and it was recorded last night at our theater The Greene Space. The lyrics, as you can hear, and as so many of you know, “Sometimes I feel like a motherless child a long way from home.” It's a sentiment here in Pride Month that much of the LGBTQ community can relate to due to the historic ostracization from family and society due to their identities. This reality led to the formation of the Black ballroom community once upon a time too.

We see ballrooms’ influence sprinkled throughout pop culture. It was introduced to the masses by Madonna with her song Vogue. Fans of pop stars like Taylor Swift and Beyoncé call their idols mother, and RuPaul, you'll remember shared drag with the masses first through his music career, and then through his Emmy award-winning reality show RuPaul's Drag Race. Shows like Pose and the famous documentary film Paris Is Burning offer a window into the ballroom scene of the 1980s and ‘90s.

Despite ballroom cultures influence, many in the community feel that ballroom doesn't receive the credit that it deserves. Let's learn more about ballroom for this conversation. Here about the history and people from artist, adjunct professor at The New School Eugene Lang College and Union Theological Seminary, Michael Roberson. He insists that ballroom has something to say in 2023. Michael, thanks a lot for doing The Greene Space last night, and thanks for doing The Brian Lehrer Show this morning.

Michael Roberson: Thank you for having me. I've literally just got a text from who I call Madame CEO. Kristina Newman-Scott saying, "I heard you're going to be on Brian's show this morning." I said, "I'm on it as we speak."

Brian Lehrer: Awesome. Listeners, were you or are you currently part of the ballroom scene? Who would you like to pay tribute to? What do you want other listeners to know about you or your chosen family, if you want to call it that, and the influence that ballroom culture has had on more general popular culture overall? Call or text us at 212-433-WNYC you ballroom participants, 212-433-9692. Dancers, the phones are open. I'm sure many of our listeners are currently picturing a different kind of ballroom right now. How do you describe contemporary ballroom in the context that I was laying out to those who are unfamiliar with the culture?

Michael Roberson: Well, I think one of the things that you said, which most people will oftentimes say, is just they lead back to 1990 were those two emblematic events both Jennie Livingston's documentary Paris Is Burning and Madonna's video Vogue, which talked about the cultural production for the house ball community. Paris Is Burning by far is one of the most watched documentaries in history. Not only is it most watched documentary in history, but in the academy, if you are studying queer studies, or gender studies, or performance studies, it's on the docket.

If you look at the documentary even then-- I call ballroom today a postmodern ballroom because even then the community has shifted. For layman terms, in the US context, the house ballroom community is a predominantly Black, Latinx, LGBT community that emerges. It's history emerges out of the Harlem renaissance at this intersection of white supremacy, Black folk moving from the South to New York, Harlem becomes a new Black Mecca and homophobia from the Black church. In relationship to that, drag ball was responding to being marginalized or ostracized from that space.

Then after World War II these drag balls migrate out of Harlem into other spaces. Then in 1967, there's a famous event where a Black trans woman named Crystal Labeija resisted racism and colorism in the pageant circuit. She returns back to her old Harlem drag ball circuit, and she has a ball, and then there's the house that is created after her. You begin to see the morphing, so here's a modern ballroom community. You begin to see the morphing from drag ball was just the individual. We call them drag balls only because the language around trans was not accessible then to houses, which is the collective, which was-- at the time there were only trans women, so mother and daughters.

Then in the ‘70s, gay men begin to walk balls and then you saw the construction of houses of mother, father and children. It's a performative space, yes. It is also a community organizing space, yes. If you had to make a quick analogy, it would be like going to the Olympics or watching the Olympics where you have countries being represented, and judges representing those countries, and people battling for different categories at a ball. It would be very similar to that.

Brian Lehrer: For some listeners, the contexts that you're laying out here are going to be new. I'll say that my white, straight parents have done ballroom dancing for most of their adult lives, and probably had little idea about any of this. You have six tenets of ballroom, which are a Black trans womanist theological discourse, Black Freedom Movement, you were just describing these, art collective and political movement, vogue/performance as an organizing tool, radical pedagogy and spiritual formation. It's so deep and so intense and so political.

Michael Roberson: Oh, absolutely. It's not just because ballroom is indicative of being political or theological in and of itself. Ballroom first of all comes out of the history of the Black struggle for freedom. No different than hip-hop as an art collective in many ways. If I talked about political movements, no different than the Southern Christian Leadership Conference or SNCC, and no different than jazz or blues. As a cultural production, ballroom was all of those things. It absolutely makes sense that it is political, that it is theological, that it is a space of fellowship for people who have been marginalized, because that is the history of Black folk, particularly in the US context.

Brian Lehrer: Give me a 1980s lens for a minute. Ballroom was in full swing. How were the effects of AIDS, and crack, and Ronald Reagan seen at the balls?

Michael Roberson: We were having this conversation last night. One of the things that this is-- I don't want to step on people's toes at all, but Reagan representative for particularly in the ‘80s in a particular way that was painful, both to Black Latinx folk, particularly Nuyoricans and to LGBT folk. One because it's neoliberal politics, two because his cut of social programs, three because he actualized a war on drugs even though Nixon created it, which then sent falsely many ways large numbers of Black Latinx men to prison. Four because we critique Donald Trump for having no federal response to COVID for a year when Reagan had none for seven years in relationship to AIDS. He just allowed gay men to get infected and to die.

In fact, he only whispered it through his lips one time. There's a conflicting story, maybe not conflictual, who forced him to, one is Elizabeth Taylor, the other one is Dionne Warwick, but he didn't do it at all. Then Bush became president and he was slow around treatment. For seven years, people just got infected and died. There was literally no federal response. You saw community organizing initiatives like Act Up, community-based organizations like GMAC and Gay Men of African Descent, and ballroom had to take care of its own self, being both impacted by these dual epidemics, both crack and HIV and AIDS, having no agency over and beyond to take care of them. We had to do it ourselves.

Brian Lehrer: Staying in the ‘80s, Madonna didn't create vogue, the style of dance rooted in ballroom culture, but can you talk about the history of voguing, who created it and what was Madonna's influence, and maybe even some of the aesthetics like people who aren't really conjuring up the picture of this in their head what this looks like?

Michael Roberson: This happens to be the 50th anniversary of hip-hop. The very first hip-hop party, DJ Kool Herc was in 1973. Then, of course, we know Afrika Bambaataa and Grandmaster Flash who we call it three fathers of hip-hop. Hip-hop becomes the community and the culture production is rap. It's the same thing with vogue. Vogue was a cultural production of ballroom folk in the ‘70s in Harlem. There's two conflictual stories who created it. One is the pioneer mother of modern house ball community, Paris Dupree, the other one is that Black trans and gay men in prison created vogue. It could be the same story.

Initially it wasn't called vogue. It was called pop, dip and spin. Then in the- -‘80s, so this is the ‘70s, and in the ‘80s, where folk began to be more double jointed, more acrobatic in their performance. They then expanded that until-- but this is not necessarily pop, dip and spin. This is a new way kind of vogue, so they called it new way vogue, and they just made pop, dip and spin called old way vogue. In 1987, though, Jody Watley and Queen Latifah had vogue in their videos three years prior to Madonna and a guy named pioneer Muhammad Omni and Derrick Xtravaganza who just passed away were in both of those videos.

Madonna took not only the names, was smart enough to take the name, the cultural production of it and nationalize it through in many ways her song and had the pioneers, Jose and Luis Xtravaganza in it. The problem with it though is that Madonna still today has not given credit to where she got the cultural production vogue from. A lot of people still today being ignorant in the sense they not knowing will say things like, “Oh, I didn't know that Madonna vogue still happens,” as if she created it and she's never really corrected it.

Brian Lehrer: By the way, you mentioned Xtravaganza. Here's a text from a listener who writes, "As a member of the House of Xtravaganza since circa 1989, I can honestly say that the late mother of the house, Angie Xtravaganza, has never been properly and fully recognized for all she contributed to the culture, especially in uniting Black and Latinx kids in one house. I will always credit Mother Angie for saving my life, showing her kids unconditional love and inspiring us to greatness. Love always, Malcolm Xtravaganza." That ring a bell for you in any way?

Michael Roberson: Yes, it do. I agree with Malcolm in that sense. We literally was on a call yesterday talking about the House of Xtravaganza. Gisele is the reigning mother at the moment, and we're involved in a project, a guy named Mike Stafford and a woman named Kim Reed. Kim is the director, Mike Stafford's a producer along with Dominique Jackson, Genovia Chase. They're doing a documentary on the life and death of Venus Xtravaganza, which was Angie's daughter and was in Paris is Burning, both of them.

As part of this documentary, what's happened is that we have gotten her house that she was raised in or reared in, in Jersey City that was also shot in Paris is Burning, registered as a cultural landmark. We were literally just having this conversation both about Angie and Venus, and particularly the House of Xtravaganza being one of the first-- well, the first or particularly Latin House at first, and bringing in not only a large numbers of Latinos, but to Malcolm's point, that being able to intersect both Latinx folks and African America. I agree with Malcolm with that.

Brian Lehrer: Here's the headline of an article in the Washington Post. It says, "Pop Icons are Mothers Now." Then goes on to say, "The LGBTQ ballroom scene--" Oh, this is the end of the headline. I'm going to read the whole headline again. I apologize. I chopped it up. "Pop Icons are Mothers Now. The LGBTQ Ballroom Scene Wants Credit." Then it says, "It's not uncommon to see fans calling cis pop icons like Taylor Swift, Madonna and Beyoncé mother, but this term comes from Ballroom.”

In fact, ballroom features lots of family dynamics. There's houses, you were just talking about the House of Xtravaganza, fathers, children and of course mothers. I guess my question is, why are these family dynamics so present in ballroom and what do you make of these phrases appearing in reference to pop icons that often aren't a part of the LGBTQ community, much less the ballroom community?

Michael Roberson: Yes, it's a very sort of wrestling with some things at this moment. Let me back into that a couple ways. One is that, this notion of kinship structure, ballroom didn't necessarily create it, but in many ways expanded it and actualizing it in a particular kind of way. In ballroom, there are two kinds of constructions. There's family in terms of house structures, so house mother, house father and house children, but there's also gay mother, gay father, and children as well. They could be one and the same. They cannot be-- In fact, you could be in a house and your house mother is mother of the house, but your gay mother doesn't necessarily have to be in ballroom.

The family structure is largely also both in Black and Latinx LGBTQ communities as well. But since we're talking about ballroom, it's been absolutely important, particularly if we look historically when communities, when folks have been ostracized out of families of origin and/or ballroom being ostracized out of Black and Latinx communities. They've been important. They have saved lives.

I think though, it would be remiss to look at ballroom through Paris is Burning and today think it's the absolute same because it'd be pathology. It's absolutely true that that still exists. It's absolutely true there are large numbers of, particularly in New York City, of younger folk who are living in SROs or who have been kicked out of families. That is absolutely true. It is also absolutely true there are a lot of folk who joined ballroom even though they had great families. Even though they're still connected to their cultural institutions, but they joined for different reasons.

One, because they want to be more politically astute. Two, because they want an extended family. Three, in many ways, have a-- one of my children named in Twiggy Pucci Garcon, who's a blended family. Her biological mother calls me her father even though I'm not her biological father, so that happens. Four people join ballroom today particularly because with this relations relationship with entertainment and so people, to your point around people get in for that reasons. I wouldn’t necessarily say the word mother comes from ballroom. The word mother exists, period.

It is absolutely true though the way that it is used and utilized historically and in a contemporaneous way, it's very different. I do think that you have a lot of particularly cis stars or entertainers who are using it that way. I like the fact that in some ways that Beyoncé is doing the Renaissance and her old-- She thinks the house music, whether it's really the dance music, I think she made the mistake in calling Madonna queen mother. She may not have known, but the fact of the matter is tension between large numbers of ballroom community and Madonna, given the fact here's a white woman who stole the cultural abduction of vogue and still has never really given credit to the community.

Brian Lehrer: Interesting. One of my producers just pointed out to me a little bit of what you might call rainbow capitalism. Back last Friday, the Google doodle, the little graphic that goes with the front Google page was of Willi Ninja, and they wrote, “An iconic dancer and choreographer known as the Godfather of Voguing. An acclaimed performer, Willi paved a path for Black LGBTQ+ representation and acceptance in the 1980s and ‘90s. The community he created, the Iconic House of Ninja lives on to this day. I don't know. You could say, “Well, it's identity washing,” or you could say, “Hey, pretty cool that shows up as the Google doodle one day.”

Michael Roberson: It could be both and. This is a beautiful thing about ballroom not necessarily interested in reconciling, but wrestling with these things and allowing both of these things. It's just at the same time in the same space and debating them. The fact of the matter is Google did what the Google did, but Google did it also with the wonderful help of two icons in the ballroom community. Icon Sean Coleman, who is a Black trans man who runs the only Indigenous ballroom organization in the US called Destination Tomorrow in the Bronx, and an icon, Caesar who does ballroom throwbacks. It's a virtual space and he initially took old ballroom videos and digitized them, and his space has grown and grown and grown. They called out to community also to be in relationship with Google, so it could be both and so yes.

Brian Lehrer: Let me ask you to end by taking a step back or a dive down, because you have a background in womanist theology that you use as a lens to interpret ballroom history. We've been hearing some of that. Your first tenet of ballroom is Black trans womanist theological discourse. If you can do the 60-second version of Black Trans Womanist Theology 101, what would it be? One piece of curiosity that I have is since part of the whole redefining of gender as not necessarily a binary, considering that context, you still come up with one of the binaries for that title, Black trans womanist.

Michael Roberson: It is absolutely that because again, you think about the Harlem renaissance and there was a three-decade campaign from the Black church to get rid of Black queers in Harlem. There are three ways we congregated at beauty salons and rent party and then the creation of drag balls. Of course, we didn't use the language trans then, so the word drag ball meant drag queen because that's what we used and it was a predominantly African Americans. Here is Black folk living in a new space of freedom and leaving the South, Harlem but Black queer folk can't be free in this new space and in contestation to the Black church, these Black trans women created a new theological space called ballroom. That's why I call it a Black trans womanist theological discourse.

Brian Lehrer: There we leave it with Michael Roberson, adjunct professor at The New School’s Eugene Lang College and Union Theological Seminary. Folks, if you want to see the talk that he gave at The Greene Space last night, that is available online. You can go to thegreenspace.org and you'll see the event called Ballroom Has Something To Say. Michael, thank you for saying some of it here.

Michael Roberson: Thank you so very much for having me.

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