(ballroom music) (DJ yells) - [Male Narrator] This is ballroom.
No, not the classical dances like waltz and tango.
This is an underground scene that's been a safe space of expression for gay and trans people of color for decades.
(DJ yells) It's kinda like a mix between a dance floor and a cat walk.
(strong bass music) And this scene has created a whole new form of music.
- Yeah, I'm usually like super afraid of cameras.
- [Female Narrator] MikeQ is a touring DJ who has been producing ballroom tracks for more than a decade and is the founder of the record label Qween Beat.
- I kinda feel like I'm talking to Diddy.
(MikeQ laughs) Like, created the first record label in ballroom music.
So we're here in New York to meet the dancers and musicians of the ballroom scene.
And this week is special because it marks the 50th anniversary for the stonewall riots.
- [Female Narrator] Which was a 1969 uprising of gay and trans people that that took the fight for LGBTQ rights to the mainstream.
- [Male Narrator] Since before stonewall, the ballroom scene has provided a place for the most marginalized people in American society could feel a sense of community and explore performances of gender and sexuality.
Black and Latino, gay and trans people gather to walk or compete at balls.
Contestants strut down makeshift runways wearing glamorous fashions.
Voguing with its angular model inspired dance moves became a part of these runway walks in the 80's.
Participants vie for titles like most real, best schoolgirl look, best military look.
And sometimes they are part of a house or a family, like House of Ninja, House of LaBeija, or House of Xtravaganza.
- [Female Narrator] For many, a house provides a surrogate family when their real one has disowned them.
Each house has a mother and father who provide mentorship for their children.
- To be part of a house, to be part of Xtravaganza, was family and looking out for each other.
Looking out for our own.
Defending our own.
I am honored to even be here today to call myself a father of such a beautiful organization.
Jose Xtravaganza is the father of the House of Xtravaganza.
He's been a part of the ballroom scene since the 1980's.
- I was 16 years old when first heard about the ballroom scene and waltzed down here, as a matter of fact.
And so a whole, like, utopia of world.
But see, as fathers when the voguing comes to play, I go back to where it's from.
Voguing is a feeling, it's an attitude.
It's self expression as individuals.
- [Female Narrator] Vogue is just one part of walking, but it might be the most well known.
Named after the fashion magazine, voguing was introduced to the mainstream in 1990 when Madonna released her track "Vogue".
It was the dance style that inspired the song, not the other way around.
And when Madonna needed a vogue expert she turned to Jose Xtravaganza who choreographed and appeared in the music video for the song.
- [Jose Xtravaganza] It was a dance that was created on hope and dreams for the community, you know?
It was a dance that, you know, no technique was necessary.
You didn't have to study it at a school like other art forms of dance, you know?
- [Female Narrator] At first, voguing was all about locking the body into perfectly straight lines and awkward but visually stunning positions.
Kind of like the models in Vogue magazine.
Back then, this was done to disco or house music.
So as a classical musician and just a music appreciator in general, I can, after hearing some ballroom tracks, I can recognize the similarity.
The kinda vibe, the culture behind it.
But I can't quite put my finger on what exactly are the musical ingredients that go into creating a ballroom track.
- [Male Narrator] A ballroom track.
- Could you break it down and in your own words, what is essential?
- The music started out with just house music that was adapted into ballroom before we got our own music.
- [Female Narrator] The most famous vogue track of the 1980s was "Love Is The Message" by MFSB.
But in the 1990s, "The Ha Dance" by Masters at Work emerged as a quintessential vogue track and it's had the ultimate sting power.
- That track itself is just important.
Like I said, it's just music that was regular house music that was brought into ballroom.
- [Female Narrator] MikeQ has said that 90% of the tracks he's produced have been Ha-ly mixes.
It's still considered the voguing song.
- This came out in what 1991?
- The Ha dance includes a few things that make it so iconic, vogue worthy, and representative of the genre.
Minimal lyrics that allow the commentator to preside over all ball's proceedings.
Calling out categories and pumping up the crowd.
(commentator yelling) A cymbal crash on every fourth beat that tells dancers when to dip to the floor.
And of course, the samples.
- They were able to catch that fourth beat, that sound, which we call the Ha Crash.
- Okay.
- Can you explain that further?
(Ha music playing) - So, you hear it?
One, two, three, four, one, two, three, four.
- [Male Narrator] That sample you hear throughout the Ha Dance that iconic Ha comes from "Trading Places".
A 1983 movie starring Eddy Murphy and Dan Aykroyd.
(singing along to Ha music) The film doesn't hold up under modern scrutiny.
Aykroyd is in black face in this scene, but the song immortalized and transformed that moment into something for gay and trans people of color.
- Though a lot of people think, oh you know sample the Ha, and there's just a Ha crash in there and there's ballroom.
But that's not it, there's still that feeling that it has to embody and I think you can only get that from visiting a ball and being, you know, immersed in the culture and seeing how it is and feeling it.
(car engine sound) - [Female Narrator] MikeQ invited us to his monthly party House of Vogue, so that we could experience the ballroom scene ourselves.
We wanted to learn how ballroom music has evolved from the early disco tracks and when we got there, they were pretty excited to have PBS in the building.
(ballroom music playing) - PBS kids, got art?
PBS kids, got art?
Ladies and gentlemen, PBS is in the mother building.
(audience cheers) Got art?
PBS kids, got art?
I'm being interviewed by the legendary iconic PBS.
(laughing) (bass heavy music) - If you'd to pinpoint the hallmark sounds of ballroom music, what would that be?
- The hallmark sounds in ballroom music.
I would have to say the number one is the crash.
- It's not like a regular drum crash.
They like warp them, amplify them.
It's like (makes crashing noise).
You're like, whoa!
- It's extra.
- It sound like the matrix.
- Wait, wait, wait, wait.
(loud bass beating) Are you the sample?
This is cool!
- And wait till the crash come in.
(singing along to song) That's that Jersey club I'm all about.
(ballroom music) - [Male Narrator] Today's ballroom tracks are a mixture of disco, funk, hip hop, house, R&B, and electronic music.
- [MikeQ] DJ Vjuan Allur, he came up and started making remixes, like actual remixes.
So he would take from all those older house tracks and what not, and put into his remixes.
So that's kinda where the formula started.
- [Male Narrator] The repetitive bass beats and the cymbal crashes tell dancers when to strike a pose or hit the floor.
(ballroom music) - [Male Narrator] There's something special about the collaboration with you and MikeQ, can you talk about that?
- He's a genius, like honestly this has not been in ballroom, like there's not too many DJs that can connect with a performer.
Like, you can put anything hot out there.
You can vogue to it, but if the beat don't connect to what you're giving, you're not gonna get that cool story.
- [Male Narrator] I was gonna ask you if you could like show us where you get your sounds from.
Your favorite 808's, this and then other.
I only ask this so I can steal your techniques so.
(repetitive sounds) - So what I do first is, because I have a long process the way that I do stuff.
So I will create loops at first, and fruity loops here.
- [Male Narrator] Okay, so you plug in.
Okay, okay.
- [MikeQ] Yeah, I get my samples and I plug them in.
Just this way.
- [Male Narrator] So they're in increments, it's like 16th notes.
One and a two and a three, across the top.
You know what I'm saying, like in groups of four?
One and a two and a three and a four.
So each of these instruments is triggered at different 16th.
- Oh.
- You see what I'm saying?
- I've never seen something like this.
- After that, just start adding.
You know, I'll just add little elements whatever I hear, like in my head, I'll picture people voguing a lot.
- [Male Narrator] Work, yeah, yeah.
- Or just like through the art of voguing or being at a ball, that's what I'm thinking about when I'm making tracks.
(ballroom music) - One word that we kinda agreed on in the car is ballroom music has an unmatched attitude.
If there was a big word, I would just say attitude.
- [MikeQ] Okay, I like that.
- [Male Narrator] I would say attitude.
- [Female Narrator] Attitude, very catchy, very fun, and relaxed but intense.
- Ballroom tracks are meant to inspire competition.
They're meant to make you feel fierce when you hear them.
Like you're about to do a battle on the dance floor.
That's because voguing started as a way to work out differences between rivals.
In "Paris Is Burning" Willi Ninja, known as the godfather of voguing, says that when two or more people are voguing on the dance floor, whoever had the best moves was throwing the best shade.
- Sometimes people throw shade just by voguing, like say you're at LSS if I call out LA that LA come out and show who he is and you just pop up like, oh!
(laughs) - Okay!
- Like, bye!
That's throwing shade.
- That's shade!
- [Female Narrator] And when you throw shade is that always a negative thing or is that kind of a sign?
- [Ash B] You know what I had to learn in the ballroom I had to grow tough skin because I'm from the hood, so people throwing shade to me kinda feel like, yo you coming at me?
It's like, yo why you coming at me?
But I realized it's really like sportsmanship.
It's like playing basketball and somebody smack you on the butt, like it comes with the territory.
- The tracks are also meant to encourage and celebrate trans femininity.
Some of the most classic ballroom tracks include samples that have phrases and words in them that might be offensive to the average listener, but at a ball it's high praise.
Music is a reminder of the enduring length between the dance form and the performance of femininity.
- I want you to explain the word (meowing).
- You, you look masculine as hell.
But if you go to vogue and you so soft and elegant with it, it's like who she's feeling (meowing).
You know, it's like she is.
It's because you're feeling your femininity.
- So usually when I say (meowing) it's usually just pertaining to the vogue.
Or, oh I'm feeling like, use it as a, you know, kinda like a feeling.
- Oh she's (meowing) that means... - You're Michael Jordan.
- Yo, no it don't even mean, it means yeah you could say Michael Jordan.
But no, we're gonna say you're like RuPaul and Dennis Rodman.
- Wooh!
(ballroom music) - [Male Narrator] Ballroom may still be an underground, underappreciated subculture, but we see it's influence everywhere.
In fashion, to movies, to TV.
Even the way we talk.
- Yas, queen!
Yas, queen!
- The shade, the shade!
- [Female Narrator] What about some things that you could think of that people commonly misunderstand or, yeah, just misunderstand about ballroom?
- Okay, so the number one thing, the thing that popped in my head, is like everyone they like to call the dip they call that the death drop.
The death drop or the shablam, which I don't know where they got that from.
Yeah that's like one big thing that we have a problem with.
- So it's no shablam?
Okay, so it's called the dip.
- It's called the dip.
- Not the death drop, okay?
You heard it from MikeQ here first.
Let's get it.
- It's not called the death drop it's called the dip.
(ballroom music) - [Male Narrator] While the scene becomes part of pop culture, these artists are making sure ballroom stays true to it's origins.
A celebration of gay and trans people of color by creating music that is distinctively their own.
- [MikeQ] I just don't want to be exploited in such a way where everyone's like so into it all at one time and then next year no one cares.
- [Male Narrator] Right, like a trend or fad or something?
- [MikeQ] Yeah, but it's not that because it's like so many people put their like lives into this and you know, it's like everything for some people including myself.
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