Bring it like a superhero: London's vogue scene is rising

It's midnight on a cold Valentine's Sunday in February in East London, but the heat is rising from Trapeze Bar's basement dancefloor. The final category of the Twisted Love Affair ball is going down to the wire: London's own divaD Magnifique, clad in red and black, is involved in a nail-bitingly tight battle against Paris’s Karteer Mugler for a place in the second round of Vogue Fem. The four judges are split and the two competitors have to keep battling. The sweat is visible as they stunt, duckwalk, spin and dip into sudden, impossible positions, but no matter how hard they go – twice, three times, four times – the deadlock isn't broken. Breaking with tradition, MC Jay Jay Revlon brings the crowd in as a tiebreaker, but there's still no clear winner. To whoops and cheers, Jay Jay sends both through. Exhausted, the two competitors embrace, then get ready to do it again.

With over 200 attendees and 60 competitors across 10 categories, the Twisted Love Affair ball is the largest in London for at least two years and illustrative of a freshly burgeoning ballroom scene in the capital. Jay Jay is the father of the House of Tea, one of two London-based Kiki houses that have formed in the city. A couple weeks previously, he co-hosted the Inspirational Mini Ball with New York's own Byrell The Great at Hub 16 in Dalston, another basement venue that's become a key gathering place for the sundry fabulous misfits drawn to the aspirations, liberation and, above all, community encapsulated by the culture. It’s also home to the first ever regular club night dedicated to voguing in London, Realness, run by the House of Lady Di. If the Twisted Love Affair provided the spectacle, Realness is where the behind-the-scenes practice happens. Voguers try out their moves, from the angular hand movements, inspired by martial arts and hieroglyph shapes, to the breathtaking "death drops" to the floor, and bond with like-minded souls. "It's a safe space to come as you are and let it all out," smiles Benjamin Milan, the Lady Di house father and choreographer to FKA twigs, after the January edition.

Ballroom as a culture and community has long been a key part of queer history, created by some of the most marginalised groups of 70s New York out of sheer necessity to carve out a space to exist freely. In the past decade or so, that space has also opened up online, so it's unsurprising that the internet was crucial to introducing ballroom to the key players in today's scene. Jay Jay reminisces about stumbling across dance videos on YouTube while at college; later, his need to be involved was such that he would call in sick to work just to go to workshops in the then burgeoning Amsterdam scene. It was a Hercules And Love Affair video (‘You Belong’) that first caught the eye of Harli Khan, the mother of the UK chapter of the House of Khan; both she and divaD used social media and the internet voraciously to research vogue's rich, complex history and to make connections with scenes in the US and Europe.

To many queer kids who had hitherto only known of voguing through its few mainstream representations – Madonna’s 1990 hit ‘Vogue’, for example, and Paris Is Burning, Jennie Livingston’s classic documentary of the same year – discovering that it was alive and well was a revelation. Manchester ballroom guru Cvnt Traxxx went had a personal revelation following a 2009 drag ball in Glasgow and soon discovered the work of DJs such as New Yorker MikeQ, who plays every week at Vogue Nights and is part of the Qween Beat squad, and Houston producer B. Ames. “It was so exciting to find that this culture isn’t dead or just a historical artefact,” he says. He also explains that, for him, the scene is a revitalisation of moribund house music. "In the last decade, I'd felt house was very much removed from its original context - dance music primarily made for queer people, people of colour, marginalised people. I wanted to make music for dancers, not a room of middle class white people nodding their heads. Ballroom is the essence of what house is: it's very inspiring for me as a producer knowing there are specific sounds that trigger specific moves." Its wider appeal, he says, is also an ideological one. "The reality is that society isn't going to give you your dreams if you're a queer POC," he explains. "Voguing is all about aspirations and dreams, especially ones that people in the culture know are denied to them on a daily basis. You enter the world of ballroom and it's this dreamspace where you can live out your secret desires and make them come true."

divaD had been a dance dilettante before she found voguing: “I was one of those dancers that did a bit of everything, not someone with their own style or identity,” she laughs. “Then I was invited to a dance night where people were doing all sorts of styles I had never heard of. Someone did a style they called voguing. I was like, ‘Oh my god, it actually exists?!’”

Harli Khan, meanwhile, had resolved to bring her discoveries offline. "I was like, ‘It has to happen in this country otherwise I will explode,’” she says. Luckily for her state of wholeness, the first seeds were being planted and, in particular, a French connection was crucial.

"Paris has been on since 2012," explains Jay Jay, who was introduced at the Three Agents ball that was held in the city at the same time he joined the House of Revlon. It was a moment he still remembers vividly, a plunge into the deep end of ballroom creativity. "Vinii Revlon, who's my father, said: ‘Bring it like a superhero!’ I said, ‘What do you mean? A Batgirl costume?!’ Vini said, ‘You can cut it, you can change the colour. You can do all white, you can do all burgundy. You can do anything.’" On the journey home from another Parisian trip last December, Jay Jay found himself thinking that "this has to happen in London. I want it, I want it, I want it." He shrugs. "If you keep saying you want it, you have to do it." It took him two weeks to set up the Twisted Love Affair ball with D'relle, the Father of the House of Khan UK. Jay Jay, a freelancer who teaches waacking and voguing fitness classes at Gymbox, funded it themelves, feeling it appropriate to channel that money back into the scene. In keeping with ballroom's community spirit, the international judges - Italy's Dolores Ninja Parisi, Amsterdam's formidable Amber Vineyard, who frequently takes the London competitors to task for failing to adhere to ball themes or etiquette, and Paris' Father Kayzzy LaDurée - all waived their travel and accommodation expenses. In return, Jay Jay travelled to Milan to judge Vogue Knights.

A trip to the Paris Awards Ball as well as a late night conversation with the city's pioneers Stephane Mizrahi and Lasseindra Ninja also inspired divaD and Benjamin Milan to kickstart the House of Lady Di ("We wanted the name to represent London and something iconic. The Queen didn't have the same ring to it"), the Realness nights and the dance classes that would come to form the basis of today's voguing community in the UK capital. It was January 2014 and "the love, the sense of community and family was so real," enthuses divaD. “After leaving Paris we both felt so inspired, driven and affirmed that now is the time to really establish and build a London ballroom scene."

Their energy collided with that of, ironically, a straight white guy from Cardiff. Just as the internet had been the gateway to information and connections for Jay Jay, Harli Khan and divaD, it had also opened the musical floodgates for DJ/producer Rushmore. Already a fan of Baltimore club and UK funky, the first time he heard New York ballroom DJ and producer MikeQ's uncompromising, relentless take on house was a revelation. "My entry point was the raw energy to the music, but second to that was the dedication and skill of the dancers and another thing that resonated was that it's a culture in its own right," he explains. In 2012, he co-founded House of Trax, an East London night focusing on ballroom, Jersey club and footwork. He had no connection to any British voguers, but had been inspired by the 80s Detroit TV programme The New Dance Show and aimed to "cater for people who danced". MikeQ was booked for the launch and slowly but surely voguers found their way to it.

"I had just joined the House of Magnifique, so I was feeling super-hyped to carry and represent my house," remembers divaD. "There were no regular classes, there was no one to train with, so I was going out to as many nights as possible, usually on my own - the club floor was my classroom, playground and second home. And the first time I experienced a Trax night I was so happy and excited. Finally, I'd found a night that would play ballroom beats and old-skool house and a DJ that understood me and what I needed." After four years Rushmore and fellow HoT resident Fools called time on the party, but not before bringing vogue into London’s venerable Institute for Contemporary Arts, with a line-up headed by New York DJ Byrell the Great. “I love how ballroom culture is spreading across the world and giving gay kids a safe haven to be themselves in,” Byrell says. “I got to give mini history lessons and so many people thanked me for giving them a taste of the NYC scene.”

As well as thriving scenes in major European cities, there’s also been recent interest from the mainstream: slang that originated in ballroom culture - working, reading, slaying, dragging, throwing shade - is the default language of pop fandom in the 2010s, with megastars from Britney to Beyoncé weaving it into their biggest singles. FKA Twigs is a keen fan, reliably incorporating vogue moves into videos such as ‘Glass & Patron’ and new single ‘Good To Love’. And there’s an inextricable link to high-end fashion that feels more than a little ironic, given that the original scene’s adoration of that aesthetic was from the vantage point of people shut out by it. Indeed, in February 2013 Dazed & Confused funded a Fashion Week event billed as a vogue ball DJed by the House of Trax team and MikeQ. It wasn’t a full ball, but it wound up bringing together some of the key players in the scene that would develop. D’relle Khan remembers spontaneously taking over MC duties at it: “The mic was put into my hand, I just got carried away and next thing I knew I was talking to will.i.am and Rita Ora,” he laughs. “I don't think [Dazed] knew how big the ball was going to be. They said, hopefully 20-30 people and we had well over 300. We went well past the time we were supposed to be staying in the venue.”

Moreover, many of today’s voguers are aware that their own introduction to the culture came courtesy of mainstream appropriation such as Madonna’s ‘Vogue’, which is the first time divaD witnessed it. “That can put it in the centre where people actually get to see it,” she says. “But the bad thing is when it goes mainstream and it isn't taken seriously, or not looked at or done the way it should be. It's not something you'll find in a class or by learning choreography, it's something you have to find within yourself. Go to a club, connect with the music, connect with the people and let go, let it all out.” D’relle, meanwhile, shades Madonna slightly when, after hemming and hawing, he finally describes her voguing as “slightly rigid”. But he treasures the memory of performing ‘Vogue’ for her in person as a birthday present in 2012. “She’s a lovely and humble person - I thought it was a hoax until literally seeing her,” he says. These days, he sees mainstream interest as an opportunity – as long as mainstream institutions give credit where it’s due. “I hope it opens doors, because there are so many talented dancers, MCs, fashion designers and make-up artists who are, for some weird reason, limited to the ballroom scene,” he says. The signs are good. Of FKA Twigs, D’relle points out that she hasn’t just incorporated dance moves and style into her own work, but “she’s also gone to vogue nights and is learning her craft properly”. Meanwhile, Cvnt Traxx is confident that the essence of the culture will remain its driving force: “The future of ballroom is always going to remain ballroom, because it's part of this wider culture that's not just music, it's social and political. Even if ballroom gets popular, even if a really mainstream artist picks it up and it has 15 minutes in the sun, it's still not going to change the roots of the culture.”

Everyone involved in the London scene is keen to emphasise that while the original vogue scene provided community and surrogate families for the most marginalised people in society coming together through sheer necessity, their own situation isn’t comparable. “In America it was all people had, whereas the UK has its own strong queer history and identity - voguing is coming here already well developed, so you see a broader social spectrum getting involved,” says Cvnt Traxxx, who points out that while Manchester vogue is strongly linked to the drag scene, in Liverpool its slicker aspects are influenced more by the city’s six dance schools.

But that’s not to say it doesn’t serve a similar social purpose, even now. “Being black and gay in this country is… Well, it’s OK sometimes,” sighs Harli. “But sometimes you feel like there’s nothing for you besides r’n’b and hip hop nights. It was amazing to find something I could connect to - being black and gay and not having to worry about anything in that particular moment.” Benjamin Milan speaks about the straight women who attend his classes expressing their sexuality in a way that they hadn’t been able to do outside of voguing, and divaD says that the type of people who end up showing a dedication to the culture beyond showing up at a weekly class tend to be “people who feel left out, who feel segregated, who don’t feel loved or appreciated, who come from a negative area - and who feel a bond with the mother/father/children house culture”.

Hearing Jay Jay Revlon enthuse about his plans to develop a ballroom scene with a British identity, it's clear that making dreams real can extend outside the dancefloor. He's reverent of the history of the culture, but willing to give it a twist: the inclusion of waacking, a dance form related to but technically not part of voguing, caused minor controversy at Twisted Love Affair, but, as he points, out, "The reason I did it is because we have waackers - let them waack! You have to bring them in, you can't keep them out." He's also looking out for ways to add more representation in traditional areas, such as dramatics and serving face, as well as bringing the trans community in. He visualises balls themed around "the Spice Girls, David Bowie, sausages and mash" to add a British twist to traditions. "We're writing history for London," he declares. "The vogue scene here died out and now it's back."

Alex Macpherson is a freelance journalist, follow him on Twitter

Forthcoming vogue events in Europe in April and May: Opulence Ball in Bologne, The Héros World Mini Ball in Paris, Tit Bit Ball in Berlin, Spicy Sweet Ball in Madrid, The Honey Bee Ball in Paris, Italian Spring Ball in Milan, WorldWideNation Ball in Paris

Special thanks to Jay Jay Revlon, David Morrison and Samantha at Hub 16

All images taken at the Inspiration Mini Ball at Hub 16. Hub 16 is a DIY space in Dalston that hosts a range of events and workshops lead by the local community. Click here to make a donation