This workshop is an introduction to one of today’s most well-known ballroom categories, performance, the dance form also known as Vogue. Vogue is a stylized freestyle dance born from the New York underground ballroom scene, a by-for community founded by Black and Latinx LGBTQI+ people. It is a camp style of dance that presents gender as a performance where dancers embody the spirit of extravagance in a way that is purposefully exaggerated and artificial. From applying makeup/"beating the face", to styling hair, donning extravagant clothing, and throwing shade through physical movement, not only does Vogue transform into a physical and emotional way to express stories and fantasies but it becomes a tool in learning to embody ones best self. During our workshop, we will be discussing the history, playing with poses, and the elements of Vogue.

Danah Rosales (She/Her/Siya), known as 'New Legend Mother Maldita Siriano' in the Kiki Canadian Ballroom Scene, is a Tkaronto based queer millennial; second-generation Canadian-Filipinx; a daughter; a dawta; a sister; a sis; a cis; a mother of two little humans; a motha of a kiki house; and an artist in which her work encompasses teaching, collaborative and interdisciplinary choreography and performance. As an active community leader in the kiki scene, she contributes as a house mutha, choreographer, and teacher in pursuit of increasing the awareness of the ballroom scene and its history, major contributions, importance and presence within today's time. She continues to develop herself as a ballroom artist for the mainstream scene, developing, training, working with and supporting her Kiki house and work within the Toronto Kiki Ballroom Alliance.

Photo by Simone Chnarakis @wurld2000k

*This workshop is free for participants thanks to the support of Arts in the Parks Toronto.