BOOKS

And The Category Is…:

Inside New York’s Vogue, House, and Ballroom Community

By Ricky Tucker

While television programs, musical artists, and producers have embraced elements of Ballroom of late, mainstream culture has yet to dive deep and give Ballroom the careful consideration and spotlight it deserves. As a space and concept, Ballroom is arts-based and intersectional; it transcends identity and is constantly creative. As author Ricky Tucker points out in the realness chapter of And the Category Is…: Inside New York’s Vogue, House, and Ballroom Community “to call ball culture a ‘scene’ is to knowingly or unwittingly trivialize the lives and work of arguably the largest art collective and most marginalized folks on earth.”

Crafted with love and an insider lens, Tucker’s debut is a socially aware analysis of the Ball universe, its history and community; it is the act of writing as the radical act that the subculture deserves. Each chapter of And the Category Is.. correlates to a Ball category (i.e., Body, Realness, Vogue) and features exclusive interviews with prominent members. These conversations range topically from issues of healthcare, chosen family in and outside of houses, gender norms, and much more. More than a 101 introduction, this work is for and by the community.

With intention, Tucker uplifts the voices of queer Black and Latinx folks in Ballroom and their important contributions and experiences. As an artist, organizer, House of Soulja founder, and executive director of the NYC Center for Black Pride Lee Soulja speaks with Tucker on archiving and preserving vital history, and why it matters beyond the world of Ball. Lee notes, “Our story is not being documented. So, how do I do that? How do I create that space and also inspire other Black Prides across America to realize that this is what Black Pride really is about? It’s about celebrating who we are, our culture. Not a bunch of circuit parties.”

Through his detailed account of the landscape, Tucker emphasizes how trans and nonbinary people have always been part of this space, in leadership, making art, and doing work outside of narratives of survival. And the Category Is… uplifts essential conversations as community members continuously create new spaces and resources and evolve professionally. As Gia Love says in her discussion with Tucker “My objective is to really center our joy and not our pain. A lot of time we have resources out there like GMHC. They give us PrEP but that’s not the whole entirety of my life…I want to provide resources for Black trans artists that address health from a holistic framework and also from a full-body full-person framework. I’m not going to treat your identity; I’m going to treat your personhood.”

In addition to showcasing the legacy of Ball culture, Tucker highlights the ways in which it is often appropriated for mainstream audiences, typically without regard for the training and fortitude required to participate and thrive in it. Marginalized identities have long been sanitized and glamorized in order to be consumed by outsiders. Tucker openly writes an indictment of capitalism’s predilection for doing so. In addressing the question, what is the answer to changing this? Tucker says, “…in American society at large and in Ballroom culture in particular, what’s required of audiences or ‘witnesses’ moving forward is an awareness of the possibly dire implications of being represented by, caught up in, and spat out of the corporate machine.”

And the Category Is…: Inside New York’s Vogue, House, and Ballroom Community showcases how Ballroom is many things at once, from pageantry to liberation, and why on our cultural path to awareness, any direction on how to appreciate and interact with the universe beyond external imitation must come from within the Ball community.

About the Author

Ricky Tucker is a writer, educator, activist, and art critic based in Brooklyn. His work explores the imprints of art and memory on narrative, and the absurdity of most fleeting moments. He has written for the Paris Review, the Tenth Magazine, and Public Seminar, among others, and has performed for reading series including the Moth Grand SLAM, Sister Spit, Born: Free, and Spark London. In 2017, he was chosen as a Lambda Literary Emerging Writer Fellow for creative nonfiction.

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@THEWRITERRICKYTUCKER.COM

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