A Brief History of Ball Culture

If you have watched Netflix's TV Series Pose, you might be familiar with the underground ball culture. Although the original ball culture started in 1920 with white men who were dressing in drag and putting on a drag show, it wasn't inclusive as it didn't welcome people of color. Black people could participate in the shows but they were expected to whiten their faces. Queens of color were fed up with the existent racist and toxic ball culture and decided to create their own ball culture. Crystal LaBeija and Lottie LaBeija decided to take the matter into their hands and shape the inclusive ball culture and a system that was called the house system. This house system welcomed LGBTQ people who were either kicked out of their houses or didn't have a house, to begin with. As the house system got popular, many queens decided to be a mother to the unfortunate young people and trained them to perform and compete in ballroom competitions. In these ballroom competitions, queens would sing, walk, dance according to the category of the night and compete with other queens from other houses.

It is also claimed that Madonna's famous dance in Vogue, which was released in 1990, originated in these ballrooms in the 1980s. Although ball culture isn't popular as it used to be, nowadays shows like RuPaul's Drag Race still pays tribute to this magnificent culture that shaped the LGBTQ community. You can watch Pose on Netflix to learn more about the history of the ballroom culture and also partially experience the dazzling and fabulous competitions from a screen.