Leiomy Maldonado

**Leiomy Maldonado** is an actress, choreographer, dancer, who appears as a judge on the the HBO Max series Legendary. She is a prominent member of the ballroom community, and is known for her unique "Dramatics" style of vogue. She has also appeared on the FX series "Pose" as an actress, ballroom consultant, and choreographer.

In season one of Legendary, Maldonado is the only judge on the main panel that comes from the world of ballroom. Thus, throughout the show she teaches the others and the audience about the world of ballroom and what they should be looking for criteria-wise when the contestants compete in episodic balls.

## Biography

### Early Ballroom Life

Maldonado resided in the Bronx, New York, for much of her childhood and frequently moved to different parts of the Bronx at the behest of her parents. She learned about ballroom in 2002 when she was fifteen years old. She attended Kips Bay Boys & Girls Club in the Bronx, where she met her first mentor, Maya. Maya lent Maladonado a tape of a ball that displayed transgender women voguing. From this tape, Maldonado was drawn to ballroom icons Alloura Jourdan Zion and Yolanda Jordan, who later became her role models. Soon after, she learned of a place called "The Village", which was an area in the Bronx where ballroom members would come together and practice vogue. At the village, she met fellow judge and close friend Dashaun Wesley. Maldonado would continually visit the Village with her high school queer friends to get a taste of ballroom culture.

Initially, Maldonado joined the ballroom House of Dolce. The House of Dolce was known for being a weaker house in terms of categorical performance, and many from the ballroom scene did not consider House of Dolce members as serious competition. While Maldonado's time in Dolce did help her learn some of the basics of vogue, she decided to relocate to the House of Angel. There she learned her foundation of vogue and consistently became better while developing her own unique style. Maldonado was serious about her craft, as she would stretch for two hours and practice vogue for four hours each day. She also attributes her ability to execute dips to her friend Tiana. Tiana would use Maldonado as her "daredevil", as she would ask her to do dips off of lunch tables and other elevated surfaces. Maldonado would always go through with Tiana's requests because she genuinely loved to vogue and had an immense amount of fun doing it.

While Maldonado enjoyed her time in the House of Angel, her dream house was the House of Blahnik. She achieved this dream by joining the house, but her time there wasn't enjoyable. The other members looked down upon her and did not treat her as a true family member. Maldonado briefly joined the House of Khan. Shortly after she decided to leave the house and joined the House of Mizrahi, which became her flagship house for her first few years in ballroom. During Maldonado's first couple of years of walking in balls, iconic emcees Jack Mizrahi and Selvin would read her for her unique and reckless style of voguing. At the time, no one vogued like Maldonado, as she had her own style of dramatics and created her own moves, such as the 360-dip during her battle with icon Meeka Prodigy.

### America's Best Dance Crew

Over time, Maldonado made a name for herself in the scene by winning in femme queen performance categories, but some ballroom members never truly took her seriously until she was cast on season four of MTV's reality dance competition series "America's Best Dance Crew" in 2009. Her dance crew was called "Vogue Evolution", and consisted of Dashaun Wesley, Devon "Pony" Webster, Malechi Williams, and Jorel Rios. Maldonado felt team leader Pony never accepted her, as he would not allow her to have a prominent role in the performances even though she was the only girl in the group, and only gave her attention when it came to stunts. Furthermore, MTV tried to paint Maldonado as an angry individual and careless member of the group. Also, without Maldonado's knowledge, the other members secretly recorded confessionals where they lied to MTV and asserted that working with Maldonado was like "walking on eggshells".

During practice for the team's last performance, Maldonado walked off set after having a disagreement with the show's stylists during the first dress rehearsal. Her role in the performance was that she would initially be trapped in a cage and then be freed. However, the staff forced her to wear rubber rain boots, which severely hurt her ankles and made them numb when she stood up after being released from the cage. This led Maldonado to ask for a different set of shoes, but the stylists said she had to wear the rubber rain boots and to work with what they gave her. This frustrated Maldonado, as she couldn't properly dance in the boots, and thus she walked off set.

MTV used this moment to falsify a narrative to the audience where Maldonado was innately an angry individual and that she continually walked off set during rehearsals. Moreover, when she was backstage right before Vogue Evolution was to perform, she saw her teammate's interviews for the first time where they painted a negative picture of of lies about her. After the performance, Lil' Mama singled out Maldonado for the alleged backstage issues, and called her out in front of everyone.

 **―Lil' Mama**

In this moment, Maldonado describes the feeling of wanting to run towards Lil' Mama and jump over the judges table to get to her. After Vogue Evolution left the stage, Lil' Mama approached Maldonado and expressed that the producers told her that she was upset, and asked her to apologize to Maldonado. Maldonado found this apology insincere, and proceeded to read Lil' Mama. Later that night, Vogue Evolution was eliminated.

### ABDC Aftermath

Maldonado suffered mentally as a result of this portrayal on the show. She thought people would see her as an angry individual, even though most of the narratives created on the show were falsified. However, Vogue Evolution still remained as a group amidst clear tension between Maldonado and Pony. Pony wouldn't tell Maldonado about performances Vogue Evolution booked, and would then lie to the venue organizers saying that Maldonado did not want to perform. This came to a boiling point when Vogue Evolution booked a performance in a lesbian club, and Pony replaced Maldonado with another performer to the fill the "female" role of the group. That night, Missy Elliot, who was a friend of Maldonado, decided to visit the club to see her perform. However, when Vogue Evolution came onstage, the audience audibly booed as they noticed Maldonado was not present, and Missy Elliot called her to let her know what happened.

Later, when Vogue Evolution booked a gig in Canada, Pony called Maldonado to tell her the venue cancelled the gig. A few days later however, Maldonado went on Twitter and saw co-member Dashaun Wesley post a picture showing him heading to airport to leave for Canada. After seeing the picture, she realized Pony had lied to her. and then called Dashaun. Dashaun told her that Pony had lied to the group and said she did not want to take part in the performance.

The final straw for the group was when Maldonado turned down a Vogue Evolution gig because Pony said the venue would only pay the five members $150 each. After telling her team she did not want to participate, Maldonado called the venue privately and explained to them she wasn't going to be there because her rate was higher than what she was being paid. However, the lady on the phone from the venue explained to Maldonado that an initial deposit of $2500 was made to Pony, and another $2500 was to be made after the performance. Essentially, each member was to be paid $1000 each, but Pony had lied and said every member would only receive $150. Learning this information, Maldonado notified her other teammates, and started calling previous venues. These calls revealed that Pony had been stealing money from the members for all of the previous gigs, which ultimately caused the members to disband. After this, Maldonado says that she never had respect for Pony ever again, even though he issued an apology to her over ten years later.

### Return to Ballroom

Maldonado returned to ballroom, where she solidified her place as a prominent member of the House of Mizrahi. She and the overall father Andre Mizrahi were essentially the house's leaders, and they controlled who joined the house. However, she slowly decided that she did not like the path the House of Mizrahi was going down, and had arguments with Andre over the future of house. Eventually, Maldonado left the House of Mizrahi and joined the House of McQueen briefly. Shortly after, she joined the House of Couture with her mother, Kelly Mizrahi Gorgeous-Gucci. After realizing these houses weren't the perfect fit for her, Maldonado joined the Iconic House of Prodigy as a regional mother.

 During this same time, people from different parts of the world were starting to learn more about vogue and thus moved to the United States to pursue their dreams of joining a house. However, the top ballroom houses at the time would prey on these new international newcomers, and exploit their talents to win awards and prizes. These members would come to Maldonado, as she was the face of ballroom, and reveal to her that ballroom was not what they expected, because their house members did not care to get to know them well or treat them as family. After hearing one too many of these stories, Maldonado decided to create her own house, the House of Amazon, where everyone would be accepted and have a true family.

Maldonado also created the House of Amazon because she was receiving negativity from other members of the ballroom scene. They couldn't respect that she was a public figure outside of ballroom and wanted to bring attention and new people to this underground community. Soon after creating the House of Amazon, Maldonado learned that not every one of its member's had good intentions. In 2019, she had to remove many of the house's members due the realization that they did not truly care about the ballroom culture nor did they want to partake in it, and instead wanted to exploit Maldonado and her dance classes for their own personal gain and notoriety. This was a defining moment for Maldonado, as she learned being a house mother and caring for its members is a difficult task. As of now, the House of Amazon is closed.

### FX Series "Pose"

In 2018, Maldonado made a cameo in the FX series "Pose" in the second episode of its first season, and choreographed ballroom scenes during the season. After the completion of the first season, show-runner Ryan Murphy contacted Maldonado and revealed to her that her character would appear again in season two, and now had an official name. Along with this new role, Maldonado still maintained her job as a Pose choreographer. Due to the show being set in the 1980s and 1990s, she had to study ballroom culture and it's original vogue dance styles, most notably Old-Way Vogue.

Maldonado also came to several realizations while on-set of Pose. During the first season, Maldonado worked with Danielle "Ninja" Polanco as a choreographer. Polanco started and participated in ballroom around the same time as Maldonado. However, Maldonado describes Polanco's on-set behavior as unprofessional, as she would berate the dancers and call them "stupid" for not learning the choreography correctly. Later on, Pose staff hired well-known dancer Brian Friedman to choreograph the promo for the second season, while Maldonado would oversee his efforts. When she saw Friedman's final product, she severely disliked the choreography and described it as a white-washed version of voguing, so she scrapped his efforts.

However, after working on Pose, Friedman decided to create an idea for a reality-dancing competition show, which overall appropriated ballroom culture. The contestants would earn "10s", and they would have to display the five elements of "dance" (as opposed to the five elements of vogue) to the judges. Maldonado decided to call Friedman out on his cultural appropriation publicly on Instagram. He responded with a video, however, Danielle Polanco was also in the video, and insulted Maldonado by making back-handed comments about her and her choreography. This made Maldonado realize that Polanco never truly cared about ballroom culture, and instead exploited and profited off of it so that she would be catapulted into stardom as a mainstream dancer.

### Legendary

As a result of her life experiences, Maldonado finally found a place to be herself when she was a cast as a judge on Legendary. This was the first space she felt comfortable in, as no one would shade her and instead revered her as a ballroom icon and continually looked to her for guidance. After being shaded for years in the ballroom community out of jealousy, and being falsely painted as an angry woman on America's Best Dance Crew, Maldonado felt her hard work paid off as now she's in an environment where people truly respect her for all she has done for the ballroom and queer community.

## Legendary Looks

### Season 1

Welcome to My HouseOnce Upon a TimeCircus BezerkusWild Wild WestRemember the TimesIntergalacticCapes & Tights
### Season 2

Promo LookIndividual Promo and Grand March Part 1 LookGrand March Part 2 LookTinseltown Look
## Ballroom Videos 2003-2009

This section showcases videos of Leiomy Maldonado walking categories in ballroom between 2003 and 2009. Please note that within ballroom culture, people move around to different houses of their own volition, and thus have different last names throughout their career.

Amazon Leiomy (Mizrahi) Vs Meeka ProdigyLeiomy (Mizrahi) Prodigy Vs Keith EvisuAmazon Leiomy (Angel) 10's - Leiomy Vs NakiaAmazon Leiomy (Mizrahi) 10'sLeiomy (Mizrahi) Prodigy 10'sAlloura Vs Leiomy (R.I.P.)LEIOMY MIZRAHI VS MAKAYLA MIZRAHIAmazon Leiomy (Mizrahi) Vs Dawn (St Clair) EbonyAmazon Leiomy (Mizrahi) Vs Tia (St Clair) EbonyAmazon Leiomy (Mizrahi) Vs Chantae EvisuLeiomy Mizrahi Vs Keith EvisuErica Lacroix Vs. Leiomy Mizrahi (10-3-09)Leiomy (Mizrahi) Prodigy Vs Roxy (Prodigy) EvisuMizrahi Production
## References

1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 Exclusive Interview: HBO Max’s Legendary judge the Wonder Woman of Vogue Leiomy Maldonado “the balls started with trans women”
2. ↑ Lil Mama Apologizes For Negative Comments To Leiomy
3. ↑ Voguing Legend Leiomy Maldonado Is Bringing Ballroom to the Masses