page_title: Ball culture
section_title: Competition
hierarchical_section_title: Ball culture / Competition
caption_attribution_description: English: Voguing ball as part of "Give me life" voguing festival in Berlin, November 2018
context_page_description: Ball culture, drag ball culture, the house-ballroom community, the ballroom scene or ballroom culture and similar terms describe a young African-American and Latin American underground LGBTQ+ subculture that originated in New York City, in which people "walk" for trophies, prizes, and glory at events known as balls. Ball culture consists of events that mix performance, dance, lip-syncing, and modeling. Events are divided into various categories, and participants "walk" for prizes and trophies. As a countercultural phenomenon, ball culture is rooted in necessity and defiance. Beginning in the late nineteenth century, members of the underground LGBTQ+ community in large cities began to organize masquerade balls known as "drags" in defiance of laws which banned individuals from wearing clothes associated with the opposite gender.
  Participants were and are mainly young African-American and Latin American members of the LGBTQ community. Although some balls were integrated, the judges were always white, and African-American participants were often excluded from prizes or judged unfairly. In the early 20th century, African Americans and Latinos started their own balls.
context_section_description: To compete against each other, Houses "walk" in "balls" judged on vogue skills, costumes, appearance, and attitude. Participants dress according to the category in which they are competing, and are expected to display appropriate "realness". Balls are influenced by hip hop fashion and music. The largest balls last as long as ten hours, with dozens of categories in a single evening. With fewer spectators, nearly everyone comes to compete; some trophies are 12 feet (3.7 m) tall, and a grand-prize winner can earn $1,000 or more. Although some competitive walks involve crossdressing, in other cases the goal is to accentuate a male participant's masculinity or a female participant's femininity as a parody of heterosexuality.  Voguing consists of five elements: duckwalk, catwalk, hands, floorwork, and spins and dips.
caption: Contestant walking towards the judges at a ball in Berlin in 2018
exif: {"Image ImageWidth": "3456", "Image ImageLength": "4608", "Image BitsPerSample": "[8, 8, 8]", "Image ImageDescription": "dav", "Image Make": "HUAWEI", "Image Model": "ANE-LX1", "Image Orientation": "0", "Image XResolution": "72", "Image YResolution": "72", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "ANE-LX1 8.0.0.162(C432)", "Image DateTime": "2018:11:16 00:08:01", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Centered", "Image ExifOffset": "288", "GPS GPSVersionID": "[2, 2, 0, 0]", "GPS GPSLatitudeRef": "N", "GPS GPSLatitude": "[52, 32, 8553771/1000000]", "GPS GPSLongitudeRef": "E", "GPS GPSLongitude": "[13, 27, 1470623/125000]", "GPS GPSAltitudeRef": "0", "GPS GPSAltitude": "2553/25", "GPS GPSTimeStamp": "[23, 8, 0]", "GPS GPSProcessingMethod": "GPS", "GPS GPSDate": "2018:11:15", "Image GPSInfo": "8462", "Image DeviceSettingDescription": "[105, 112, 112, 0]", "Thumbnail ImageWidth": "384", "Thumbnail ImageLength": "512", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail Orientation": "0", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "8810", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "22448", "EXIF DocumentName": "[]", "EXIF ExposureTime": "41667/1000000", "EXIF FNumber": "11/5", "EXIF ExposureProgram": "Program Normal", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "500", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0210", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2018:11:16 00:08:01", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2018:11:16 00:08:01", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF ShutterSpeedValue": "298973/10000", "EXIF ApertureValue": "227/100", "EXIF BrightnessValue": "0", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF MeteringMode": "Pattern", "EXIF LightSource": "Daylight", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire, auto mode", "EXIF FocalLength": "381/100", "EXIF SubSecTime": "162908", "EXIF SubSecTimeOriginal": "162908", "EXIF SubSecTimeDigitized": "162908", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "3456", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "4608", "Interoperability InteroperabilityIndex": "R98", "Interoperability InteroperabilityVersion": "[48, 49, 48, 48]", "EXIF InteroperabilityOffset": "8432", "EXIF SensingMethod": "One-chip color area", "EXIF FileSource": "Digital Camera", "EXIF SceneType": "Directly Photographed", "EXIF CustomRendered": "Custom", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Auto Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Auto", "EXIF DigitalZoomRatio": "1", "EXIF FocalLengthIn35mmFilm": "26", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Standard", "EXIF GainControl": "None", "EXIF Contrast": "Normal", "EXIF Saturation": "Normal", "EXIF Sharpness": "Normal", "EXIF SubjectDistanceRange": "0"}