Paris Is 'Still' Burning

It's the thrilling defiance some queens display that may enable them to compete in the real ballroom scene someday (and maybe even to survive real life). Through giving face and refusing to flinch, they embody that timeless, unspoken command of ballroom walkers throughout history, expressed by those who've been ignored everywhere else but on the runway: 

Photos by Kevin Amato

"This is a shade-free zone!" cries out Pony, a dance instructor who has the look, energy, and moves to pull off the name.

Photos by Kevin Amato

'How many of you have ever walked a ball?' he asks the 15 or so drop-ins. Only three -- including an alluring, confident girl named Jenovia -- raise their hands. 'How many have ever walked a kiki ball?' The same three hands go up.

Photos by Kevin Amato

Once the walking starts, the show is definitely not 'a shade-free zone.' The ruthlessness with which these girls give face -- not just to each other, but to the judges -- makes the balls in Paris look like as quaint and outdated a portrayal of black urban life as The Cosby Show.

One of the few people straddling both the real and kiki ballroom scenes is a runway model named Twiggy, who walks 'butch queen European runway' for the House of Garcon. She works at the Bronx Pride Center (officially under given name Ryan White) as an HIV peer health educator. Twiggy/Ryan fuses the two in teaching the center's runway class and producing their kiki balls.

With every spin and dip, the audience screams 'Aww!' and leans in so close to the falling, flailing dancer, it's amazing no one loses an eye. The young Biggie Smalls from Pony's class seems unconscious of everything except the joy he feels on his virgin walk. 

La familia extends even to straight guys. 'When they recruited me, I told them I wasn't gay, and they said, 'That's cool, we just want you to hang with us,'" says Jungi Xtravaganza, a buff dancer who was performing when he was propositioned. He's only walked once -- 'sex siren, so I could say I had done it' -- but he's proudly Xtravagant.

About 100 spectators are squeezed into the hall, huddled tightly around the makeshift runway. The ball starts with a 'hotwear footwear' shoe modeling competition, followed by 'schoolboy realness.' When a nerdy-yet-thuggy kid whips out his student ID card and shoves it at the judges' table, it brings down the house.

'Seeing that movie [Paris is Burning] was like, oh my God!' says Trace Mizrahi, a transgender woman who walks balls in the 'realness,' 'femme queen face,' and 'sex siren' categories. She describes seeing the film (as a boy who'd do drag in Ohio) and feeling 'like a seed had been planted. There were girls, beautiful girls, who'd been born boys.'

Photos by Kevin Amato