A large, echoing room with a cement floor and beams overhead. A cheering crowd lining the space on three sides, a panel of austere-looking judges on the fourth. The center of the room — clear, except for a single competitor, dancing and thrashing their hair, flinging themselves to the floor with a flourish while the whole room hollers. No matter the country, language, or decade: this is ballroom.
Defining Queer Spaces
As has become popularized in documentaries like Paris is Burning (1990), television dramas like Pose (2018), and reality competitions like Legendary (2020), house-ballroom culture is best defined as a queer subculture and series of micro-communities centered on Black and Latinx transgender women and other queer identities, together with allied cishet women.
The roots of modern-day ballroom lie in drag and cross-dressing balls and pageants of the nineteenth century through mid-twentieth century. From the 1800s countries including Germany, the United Kingdom, and the United States among others saw the growing popularity of parties where gay men and women could cross-dress, transgender men and women could present themselves openly, and where queer couples could socialize and dance together without reservation. These were highly underground and resisted laws at the time criminalizing such activities. The truest ancestor to today’s ballroom, as well as the first known self-identified “drag queen,” was William Dorsey Swann, a formerly enslaved Black American who began hosting ‘drags’ (masquerade balls) in the late 1880s and who was later arrested and imprisoned for his parties.
By the mid-1900s most (though not all) of these drag balls had become integrated, but were still fraught with racism and power imbalances, with pageant judges being predominantly white, and Black participants being held to white aesthetic standards. In 1967, in a moment famously captured on film in the documentary The Queen (1968), Black trans woman Crystal LaBeija rebelled against the anti-blackness of one of these beauty contests and walked off stage. In 1972 in Harlem, New York, together with her friend and ballroom sister Lottie LaBeija, Crystal would launch her own competition: the first installment of modern day ballroom, a queer community founded on anti-racism and dignity for Black and Latinx trans women.
The Thriving Art and Queer Connections of Ballroom
From the 1970s to late 1990s, house-ballroom thrived and cemented many of its values, structures, and tenements seen today. Within the competition platforms of the balls, participants present themselves and battle one another before a panel of judges in various categories such as Realness (the ability of a trans person to pass as cisgender, or the ability of a gay man to pass as a straight man, in a celebration of survival strategy), fashion, runway walks, physique, facial beauty, and dance. The dance styles created within the world of ballroom have become particularly celebrated around the world today: Old Way (‘pop, dip, and spin,’ pioneered in the 1970s), New Way (focusing on grace and contortionism, developed from Old Way between the 1980s and 1990s), and most famously Vogue Femme (evoking the soft, feminine performance of the trans women, created around 1992).
Outside of the venue walls, ballroom existed as an important system of found-family for the LGBTQ youths of New York, many of whom were homeless and turning to sex-work to survive after being rejected from their biological families. Besides its dance styles, ballroom is best known for its system of “houses,” often formed around a parental figure called the mother or father who would take in and nurture these un-homed children, providing them with support in life, resources in the face of the HIV/AIDS epidemic, and guidance throughout their ballroom careers. The older of these houses include LaBeija, Allure, Infinity, and Xtravaganza, while more recent houses include House of Comme des Garçons, Oricci, and Gorgeous Gucci (among many, many others).
Ballroom Goes Global
Given the richness of ballroom as a micro-culture, it is no surprise that by the 1990s, the marginalized community was seeing some mainstream attention: first in Madonna’s 1990 single and music video, Vogue, inspired by the titular dance, and a few months later in Jennie Livingston’s controversial documentary Paris is Burning. Ballroom has steadily gained popularity among other queer and allied groups in the decades since, moving westward across the United States and eastward to France and the rest of Europe by the late 2000s.
Ballroom’s movement into East Asia and specifically Japan came in fits and starts, and must be understood separately as the introduction of voguing versus the introduction of ballroom as a holistic culture. Voguing first became popular in Japan following Madonna’s release, and was practiced and taught by dancers and teams like Fumi Xtravaganza, Electro Musique Fusion, and ASIENCE. Notably, this interest pertained solely to the dance, and many of its students knew little to nothing about the history, queer culture, and anti-racist values of true ballroom.
2011 signaled the meaningful (if slow) introduction of ballroom culture to Japan, as individuals like trailblazing Icon Koppi Mizrahi and later collaborators Showta Oricci, Legend Chise Ninja, Monica Mizrahi, and Kinshasa Basquiat began holding and teaching at balls and sessions in the Kanto and Kansai areas. Though these functions were mainly peopled by cishet dancers, Japan’s leaders made efforts to teach their audiences about the queer community and its struggles, as well as the proper format and etiquette of balls.
A tremendous breakthrough for Japan ballroom came in 2022, when a rising leader, Hiha Babylon, began holding his monthly Tokyo Kiki Lounge events in or near Shinjuku Ni-chome, the largest historic queer neighborhood of Japan. The number of LGBTQ participants in ballroom exponentially rose with each month that passed, and many of these newcomers signed up for voguing classes and casual practices, even joining houses. As of 2025, Japan ballroom has changed radically into a closer replica of the original ballroom scene of the United States, though it is still in its early stages. Of the growth of Japan’s ballroom, Showta Oricci says:
“The kiki (casual-level) scene is thriving, and I feel a positive trend emerging in the mainstream scene with an increase in house events! As more organizers emerge, it’s important for them to ensure their events align with their vision… whether they want to replicate the New York vibe, host events to nurture the next generation, or create a more competitive atmosphere.”
Comparing his early Tokyo experiences with the present, Kinshasa Basquiat, originally from Texas, agrees that the community has evolved tremendously. “I’ve had the pleasure of seeing it grow from a modest beginning… It’s still surreal for me to this day. I feel there is more excitement, participation, and enthusiasm now than in the past, with a lot of new faces joining and making significant contributions.”
Given how insular and tight-knit the original New York community of ballroom was, the spread and popularization of the culture has been viewed with caution and suspicion by many of the older generation pioneers—concerns that, as with Madonna and Livingston, ballroom could become the subject of voyeurism or purely commercial profit- and fame-mongering. With ballroom’s introduction to far-flung countries such as Brazil, Japan, Philippines, and beyond, it has further been navigating obstacles such as how the culture can localize to its new regions (“What does Realness look like in Korea?” “What are the fashion standards in France?” “How is gender understood in Pacific Island cultures?”) while still remaining true to its core principles. Similarly, there are ongoing conversations about how ballroom can adapt to the different needs of queer communities around the globe.
As these discussions continue, the shape of ballroom will likely change with each passing year.
The Importance of Ballroom in Japan
The queering of Japan ballroom over the past decade and a half has meant that participants of today’s scene get to experience an alternative safe space for queer celebration, in addition to pre-existing spaces in the bars and clubs of Shinjuku Ni-chome. At its core, ballroom is one of the few spaces to explicitly champion transgender women of color—something that both outlines the importance of Japan’s scene, and also assigns it further homework.
As one Filipina trans woman participant, Essence 007 says: “Being one of the first so-called femme queens (trans women) here comes with unique challenges. It’s a constant balancing act between embracing evolving gender ideologies, engaging with new political perspectives, growing the scene to be more inclusive, and at the same time protecting myself and preserving the history and tradition of ballroom.”
Essence 007 praises the scene for growing to center on “the people it was originally intended for,” but also expresses her hope that more trans women of color will join, and that the community must work harder to reach the values and lived experiences of local trans people.
“Personally, as someone who was kicked out by my own biological family and has no remaining connection with them, ballroom has given me a chosen family,” Essence 007 continues with feeling. “Some of these people have been my protectors ever since. For the queer community at large, ballroom offers a platform for expression, validation, and survival—it can be life-changing.”
Edgar Revlon, a young and rising talent from New York who has been connecting Tokyo ballroom with queer circles on the United States military base, echoes Essence 007’s recognition of Japan’s growth and the need for the scene to continue to strengthen its ties with the New York community’s values, particularly anti-racism and support for Black individuals.
“My experience of helping the scene grow… has been so many things, from humbling, to hurtful and lonely, to beautiful. It’s a journey I’ll forever be grateful for,” Revlon says. “I found that though I tend to shy away from confrontation, in ballroom I had to stand up for education around Black culture and history and ballroom as queer space. But ballroom here has become so much more community-oriented, queer, and woke, which makes me happy.”
He reflects that ballroom has been a tool to connect him with his own identity, as well as to find new friends and family across many countries in Asia since his deployment. Ballroom can be a complicated world, he notes, just like real life, but “if you can navigate it correctly, it provides all the tools needed to succeed. It can be unfiltered free expression and joy.”
Basquiat encapsulates it: “Ballroom in Japan has always been a space for me to feel accepted and ‘seen,’ whereas it’s easy to feel overlooked or like an outsider… That’s why I think ballroom continues to be as relevant today as it was at its inception.”
For people planning to try out the ballroom scene by attending a ball, casual function, or kiki session, expect a welcome and joyful atmosphere–but make sure to tread with respect. People of all genders and sexualities can visit and experience ballroom, but newcomers (and especially cishet men) should understand what privileges they carry before entering these marginalized spaces, and play active listeners and learners to the people who call it home.
Further Exploration
Global ballroom and its roots are best captured in the following documentaries:
The Queen (1968), Paris is Burning (1990), How Do I Look? (2006), Ballroom 2.0 The Enchanted Ball (2008), Strike a Pose (2016), Kiki (2016), Walk! (2016), My House (2018), Pier Kids (2019), LEGENDARY: 30 Years of Philly Ballroom (2019), Deep in Vogue (2020), This is Ballroom (2024)
Ballroom can also be studied in numerous YouTube clips and archives.
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