Category is... Halloween!
Image via Unsplash
The third floor of Schine was blessed with the gayest event of the year: Syracuse University’s first-ever HalloQueen Ball. A crowd led by drag queens all in Halloween costumes surrounding a runway for strutting and shaking ass. Heavenly.
Students got the chance to compete for trophies in different categories in a traditional Ball, judged and hosted by members of the local Syracuse Ballroom scene. Students walking received scores from a slaying panel of judges. Those who got 10s from the judges would face off one-on-one until there was a big, gay winner.
The Ball scene started as a black and Latinx LGBTQ+ subculture in Harlem, New York throughout the twentieth century. It became a safe space for queer people of color to express themselves and their art during times of great oppression.
The Ball was made up of classic categories:
Face: which is about highlighting those bones.
Body: showing off that va-va-voom (you already know what Megan song they had blasted).
Sex Siren: getting the judges to want to fuck you.
Runway: think Naiomi Cambell, think Tyra Banks.
OTA (Open to All Realness): is selling yourself honey, broken into three categories of female figure, male figure, and non-binary figure.
Performance: for dancing, voguing, and a best dressed category.
There was even a Vogue workshop the day before in the Ernie Davis Hall gym to learn some basic ballroom and voguing moves. I actually attended. I was strutting my stuff and gave face for all of Delplane to see through those giant ass glass windows. But I lost
my walk-off battle against some girl. Still salty about that but hey, you win some you lose some.
Ballroom’s influence is everywhere in popular culture. Look at shows like Pose, Legendary, and Rupauls Drag Race. Music like Beyonce’s Renaissance and Madonna’s 80’s classic “Vogue.” Now popular phrases like “shade,” “reading,” “serve,” “fierce,” “working it,” and “spilling the tea” all come from ballroom culture.
Drag Queen and judge for the night Yvoni Amor said “Ballroom inspires everything from fashion to dance to music. I’m glad it's touching campuses like this and is reaching out to people who are not intentionally ignorant but ignorant of gay culture. It can be the start of many revelations.”
It’s beautiful to have an event like this here on campus celebrating our queer students and paying tribute to our history. The history of Ballroom is extremely important for queer people’s fight for rights. It celebrates and rewards self-expression and embracing who we truly are.
Drag queen and judge Brown Sugah preached, “You’re in a space where you are automatically accepted by everyone regardless of what you look like. So going to a scene where you can be a little chubbier or a little skinnier and have people loving you for you and what you can bring to the table regardless. It is such a wonderful feeling everyone should have.” Can I get an amen????