To Learn the
Kids:
Dipping into
the Genealogy of Voguing’s Pedagogies
Abstract
Voguing, a primarily improvisational form, requires the
dancer to perform in kinesthetic discourse with a Master of Ceremonies (MC) and
the surrounding audience at the Ball. Participatory in nature, all people
present to voguing (in the Ball) have actions to do in anticipation or reaction
to the dancer’s improvisation. This paper investigates how new codifications of
voguing techniques are born or regulated, as voguing leaves that Ball space,
and is abstracted from its forming community. As non-ball participants learn to
dance and teach voguing, fears of an inauthentic practice percolates up for the
traditionally Black and Latino queer and transgender dancer-practitioners. The
“5 Elements of Voguing”, which mandates a dancer show their skills, at minimum,
in doing “Hand Performance, Duckwalk, Catwalk, Spins, and Dips”, provides a
code of technique that enacts a level of protection for voguing from its
dilution. This required display maintains some sort grounding and control of
the combined techniques for improvisation, or new choreographies, that form
voguing. This paper finds that though older legendary dancers of voguing teach
the children (novice dancers) how to vogue, in turn, the children are the
creative force who expand voguing by 1) creating new sub-categories (version of
voguing), or by 2) modifying the previous technique formats. If authentic
voguing is tied to a technique, which is constantly in evolution, then we must
look to the genealogy voguers as a living authenticity. As new generations of
queer Black and Latino youth and non-ball dancers vogue, there are new
techniques of voguing born.
No comments:
Post a Comment