By Crystal Puga
Scorecards with a bold “10” sit on seats facing the front of the room at the Owen Arts Center, ready for students, faculty and other attendees to use, as they are vital for Tuesday night’s event. Another requirement is the makeshift runway that divides the room in half.
Carson Cleaver, a freshman, sits on one side. John Holmes, a sophomore, sits on the other. Both are first-timers. In front of them, sits Rico Tisci wearing glasses, a backwards cap and a letterman jacket with his first name spelled out in yellow chenille varsity letters on the back. He epitomizes the schoolboy look. Fashion defines his identity and house, evident across his family members who embody Ballroom culture.
“Learn different people’s cultures and learn how to love other people in their own kind of way,” says Tisci, who is a gay man.
The SMU Fashion Media Program and the Women and LGBT Center presented the fourth annual All About Ballroom panel talk and community ball. This year, the Gulf Coast Chapter of the Haus of Riccardo Tisci, a mainstream Ballroom house, brought face, fashion and voguing to campus to share the art of competition in a culture that welcomes and accepts everyone. Latino, Black and LGBTQ+ people formed this community to become visible without fear during the Harlem Renaissance. The movement offered freedom of expression on sexual orientation and gender identity through dance.
Voguing continues to evolve, but it provides the same liberty through different categories, including Realness, which Tisci participates in, hence the outfit, to show that gay doesn’t look the same way for everyone. This allows the culture to touch and reach everyone, including tonight’s crowd.
To fully appreciate Ballroom, the audience prepares for a taste of what Ballroom looks and feels like. Everyone turns their seats to face the runway and brings out the scorecards–competition and social events make up one of the three pillars of Ballroom. The energy quickly changes with the speaker shouting, “The show is about to start. Places. The show is about to start. You have to show a look, have a look, or give a look.”
Members of the house come out one by one, strutting and posing, inspiring participants, including Cleaver and Holmes, to rise from their chairs and leave the scorecards for the Tisci family to use. Yeezy Tisci, Bibi Tisci, Jinx Tisci, Mamacita Tisci, and Brionna Tisci judge on three categories: best dressed, performance and runway.
“Being here, I really felt connected to the community, and I was really happy to be part of that,” says Cleaver, who won in the best runway category after battling it out with another student and a worker from the Women and LGBT Center.
The event comes to a close after Holmes flips backwards, making it clear that you have to shed inhibitions when on the runway. While SMU and Dallas community members immersed themselves in Ballroom and escaped for an evening, they also learned the importance of understanding the culture without trying to change it. As this once-underground subculture has entered the mainstream through television shows such as “Legendary” and “Pose,” the Tisci family emphasizes the importance of studying and respecting Ballroom’s roots.
