Native American Voguing

Native American Voguing

By P. Dante Cuauhtémoc, M.F.A.

Critical Dance Studies Doctoral Program at the University of California at Riverside

My research focuses on how Native Americans of the Western Hemisphere have deployed the dance form of vogue (voguing) as a method of decolonization, anti-colonialism, and resilience. Though the dance form of vogue was founded and stewarded by Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Queer (LGBTQ) Black and Latinx communities, I have observed Native Americans using the form to create their own kinships, as well as form political-artistic alliances with other queer peoples of color.

My project will be to examine how queer Indigenous peoples, often self-called Two-Spirit (2S, 2spirit) people, have created their own families, kinship networks, and ceremonies (often due to being ostracized from their tribal communities, because of their sexual orientation or identity). Though in the past, some tribes revered 2spirit people, the project of British and Spanish imperial colonialism’s “heteronormative patriarchy” destroyed this cultural value for some tribes –which in turn has led to the extreme general mistreatment of LGBTQ2S peoples. Seeking family, and ways to offer their love, talents, and life, some Two-Spirit peoples have entered the spheres of “Imperial Drag Councils” (private societies in charge of drag balls and gay neighborhood cultural affairs), created “Two-Spirit Powwows”, and participated in “The Ballroom Scene” (where voguing is stewarded).

Today, throughout the Western Hemisphere, Native American 2spirit people vogue to celebrate and openly proclaim both their queerness and the indigenous ancestry, while simultaneously protesting imperial heteronormative patriarchy. This work is significant, because, to date, there are less than fifteen academic works that address voguing, and there are less than two articles that look at this culture and its ideologies from the lens of Indigenous studies. Little work on Indigenous dance directly address its efforts and struggle of queer coalition of color community building. Thus, this project’s contribution is to the expansion of the work of these fields of Native American Studies, Queer/Trans/LGBTQ+ Studies, and Dance Studies, by challenging, though synthesis, the borders of these fields of study that have been previously been established as discrete. In this unique way, I build on the generous and growing trend to recognize and remember the work of 2spirit people in sustaining the resilience of both their Indigenous communities, and the broader LGBTQ2S communities.