Striking a political pose
A dance style from the 1990s is being revived in Paris by young people looking for a way to express their dissatisfaction with life.
IN garish makeup and dangerously high heels, a black male dancer’s outstretched arms aggressively slice the air in time to the Paris nightclub music until, suddenly, he drops “dead” on the floor.
Vogue, the 1980s dance movement Madonna popularised in her hit 1990 song of the same name, is experiencing a revival in France. It’s not just a flamboyant pastime. For many minority French communities who feel alienated by tensions arising from divisive protests by the anti-immigration National Front, it’s a statement of defiance.
Many immigrant youths – especially those from Paris’ less affluent and religiously conservative suburbs – see vogue dance events as safe places in which their racial identities can be fully expressed without fear of reprisals.
“Not many people realise but voguing, it’s political. When they were lining the streets in France with angry signs, others were expressing themselves with dance on the vogue runway,” says dancer Marion Tiger Melody.
“The increased popularity of the (far-right) National Front (party) must also have had an impact,” she adds.
France is now the world’s biggest voguing hub outside of New York City. Talented young dancers and drag queens in outlandish costumes face off in competitions, showing off moves inspired by the poses of fashion models in the pages of Vogue magazine.
The dance first hit the mainstream with Madonna’s 1990 song and video Vogue, in which the singer lists a roll call of all-white Hollywood icons – Marilyn Monroe, James Dean, Grace Kelly, and Bette Davis – while calling on people to “strike a pose”.
But the original movement was neither white nor mainstream and always closely linked with bold identity politics. Madonna was criticised for her lyrics, which some said appropriated the movement for the white population (even though black dancers feature in the video).
The moves were first popularised in 1980s New York during exuberant Vogue Balls that served as a refuge for the black and Latino communities. At a time when the HIV/ AIDS epidemic in the city fuelled homophobia and racism was rife, many found an accepting community in the contests.
One of the movement’s founders, Willi Ninja, who starred in the award-winning 1990 documentary about New York voguing, Paris Is Burning, had wanted to bring the dance to the French capital before he died in 2006 of an AIDS-related illness.
The movement pirouetted to Paris in 2012, the year tens of thousands of people protested across France against plans to legalise same-sex marriage and there was an uptick in homophobic behaviour. The rise of the National Front, Marine Le Pen’s right-wing anti-immigrant party that won a third of the votes in France’s presidential runoff last year, aggravated many young black voguers who already felt ostracised.
France-born black drag queen Lasseindre Ninja, who had lived in New York before founding the French vogue scene, feels that the perfect storm contributing to the dance’s emergence in 1980s New York – myriad minority groups, racism, homophobia – is present in today’s Paris.
“Racism is still here ... Of course, it’s even harder in the (French) black community as everyone’s religious and everyone takes the Bible by the book,” says Ninja, who sports a sparkling gown.
Stephie Mizrahi – a dancer in the 1980s at Le Palace France’s answer to Broadway’s famed Studio 54 of the 1970s – says he’s delighted to see the voguing scene in Paris flourish. It’s “a safe-haven for people to express themselves and the harshness of daily life”, he says.
Filming access to the voguing events is strictly limited for fear of reprisals.
Harshness and aggression are running themes in the vogue lexireportedly con. There’s the “death drop”, a move that sees the dancer collapse on the floor before quickly bouncing up again. And the jerky, slicing style of vogue arm movements were inspired by Bruce Lee’s kung fu films.
Fashion and celebrity are also touchstones.
The vogue community is divided into global fashion-themed houses, or teams, that dance off against each other, such as the House of Gaultier, House of Chanel, and the House of Lanvin.
And for proof that its popular appeal lives on, look no further than Beyonce, Rihanna, Azealia Banks and Willow Smith, who have all been influenced by the vogue style of dance.
Designer Jean Paul Gaultier, who has dressed Madonna, was invited as a guest jury member at one Paris vogue contest.
He reminisces about going voguNew ing with the star in York in 1990.
“To have been there at that moment, I’m really proud ... it was a small family in Brooklyn and New York and then it became global,” Gaultier says. “I’m excited to see this revival that’s modernised and evolved.”
With his trademark humour, Gaultier muses about the rise of French nationalism.
“I think they should give voguing lessons to Marine Le Pen,” he says. “That would be a good solution,
no?” – AP