Pump, Create, Elevate: Ballroom’s International Alliances (Podiumsdiskussion, Hang-Out Space)

In the organizer's words:

Haunani-Kay Trask Hall
In English

Free admission

Presentations and discussions will take place from 18:30 to 22:00.
Videos in English, Spanish, with English subtitles

The final session of the series Pump, Create, Elevate: Ballroom's International Alliances invites and promotes a shared space for exchange and knowledge sharing beyond the European context of Ballroom. As part of a multimedia performance lecture, actors from Tunisia, Mexico and Colombia will share their local experiences through video contributions created especially for the occasion, including interviews and archive material from the respective communities. This will be followed by a panel discussion between members from the three different contexts, in which contributors from their respective locations will also participate online. Overall, the event will focus on site-specific needs, historical and contemporary specificities, and cultural and creative frames of reference, while also addressing the current challenges the communities face and the dreams they wish to realize.

The Pump, Create, Elevate series, jointly conceived by HKW and House of St. Laurent, aims to focus on the global majority within the international Ballroom community and to raise awareness of the realities of life beyond the so-called Global North. Ballroom's International Alliances event provides a starting point for these ambitions and welcomes ideas and contributions on how international exchange and community support can grow and expand in the future.

Before and after the evening's presentations and discussions, a lounge area will be available to relax, interact, move around and be inspired by the various audiovisual, audio and printed materials on the Ballroom theme.

In 2025, the Pump, Create, Elevate series will continue with further public events aimed at the Ballroom community and anyone interested in it. It is hosted by House of St. Laurent and is part of HKW's ongoing Politics of Rhythm program, which promotes dance and musical practices to develop and sustain community knowledge. Pump, Create, Elevate creates a meeting space that contrasts with the dynamics of the actual ball events and welcomes everyone who wants to expand their knowledge, skills or network. As the Ballroom culture was started by trans women of African, Central and South American and Caribbean descent and continues to center the lives and resilience of racialized and sexually diverse (or queer) people, their participation is especially encouraged.

Each session will be led by different guests and will focus on a different facet of ballroom culture - such as the preparation and deepening of different categories, basic knowledge and practice of sensuality-focused categories or the exchange about the worldwide ballroom network and its respective local characteristics.

In addition, a library with further publications on ballroom culture, its history and knowledge will be made available. HKW also provides members of the International Resilient House of Makaveli and local practitioners of the New Way, brought together by Litchi Saint Laurent, with regularly usable rehearsal rooms.

In the self-determination-oriented ballroom culture, the art of (self-) representation has always been a catalyst for empowerment. The ballroom community uses fashion as a means of self-expression and affirmation and has a long history of creativity, style and precision in this regard. In this way, the art of ballroom appropriates spaces, demands recognition and is committed to the ideas of beauty and agency.

From its beginnings at drag balls in Harlem in the 1920s to the consolidation of vogue as an expressive movement practice, ballroom culture has shattered the naturalization of sexuality and gender binary performativities and exposed the multiple and intertwined racial and economic exclusions. Through playful investigation, deconstruction and the transformation of performativities into tools for those who problematize cis-heteronormativity and seek to overcome its segregating mechanisms, such practices have continued to evolve and transcend the passing frame. These include, for example, the emphasis on non-binarity in relation to gender, the consolidation of a bodily vocabulary of expression and a language that allows for the description of less regimented and more plural forms of existence and identities. In today's socio-cultural climate, where far-right and fascist politicians are severely restricting and trying to erase the existence of sexually diverse people, safe spaces, solidarity and support are crucial to continue to develop a plurality of non-patriarchal, gender-euphoric and equal futures.

In this environment and in any connection with HKW, there is no space and no tolerance for hate speech or hate actions of any kind.

Co-production, co-curation: Georgina Philp and Litchi Ly Friedrich

With: Diabla St. Laurent Miu Miu, Kiki House of Alaïa, Kiki House of Miu Miu, Mesa Afro Cali, Plumas, Amin Saint Alaïa