David ian xtravaganza biography template
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"'Listen, and You Will Hear all the Houses that Walked There Before': A History of Drag Balls, Houses and the Culture of Voguing". London: Soul Jazz,
Introduction to Voguing and the Gay Ballroom Scene of New York City, Photographs by Chantal Regnault.
Bursting into public consciousness between and , the culture of drag balls and voguing can be traced back to the second half of the 19th century. Harlem’s Hamilton Lodge staged its first queer masquerade ball in , and some 20 years later a medical student stumbled into another ball that was taking place in Walhalla Hall on the Lower East Side. He witnessed same-sex male and female couples ‘waltzing sedately to the music of a good band’.1 A rickety old building situated at East 11th Street, Webster Hall played host to further events during the s, and by the end of the decade, masquerade parties were being staged in conspicuous venues such as Madison Square Garden and the Astor Hotel, where they attracted crowds of up to 6, Invited to attend another ball at Hamilton Lodge by the entrepreneur and party host A’Lelia Walker, Harlem Renaissance social activist and writer Langston Hughes proclaimed the drag balls to be the ‘strangest and gaudiest of all Har
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Family Through Fantasy: The House of Xtravaganza
Some families you're given and some you make. In this family portrait, we take a closer look at the House of Xtravaganza, the legendary ball house whose father, Jose, took the Xtravaganza name to the wider world as a dancer and choreographer for Madonna. We sat down with the fam to hear stories from the house's early days, and how they still make time for each other to this day.
Suite —a futuristic, lacquered black-and-white room at The Standard, High Line—takes in views of New York City from the north and east. On a recent Friday night, the sitting room hosted a family: The House of Xtravaganza. Jose Gutierez Xtravaganza, the house father, dressed in black, sits opposite Gisele Alicea, the house mother, wearing a long red dress. Surrounding them are one of Xtravaganza’s children, Chelsea Marie, and house elders Jimmy Wong—resembling a stylish character from The Matrix—and Hector Simone—sporting a fishnet bodice and long gray knee-high boots and a matching beret.
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