'When we danced, everyone was watching us, we had our moment'
Liverpool’s “legendary” Vogue Ball is returning to the city this month. The Invisible Wind Factory will be taken over on Saturday, October 19, by The House of Suarez - the organisers of the event - and members of the region’s LGBTQ+ community.
In usual fashion, the event will treat attendees to “a high-energy, fast-paced rollercoaster of fashion, dance, comedy, and a celebration of inclusivity pulled together like a corset.” However, this year, guests will be treated to a battle of good and evil, as the theme is heroes and villains.
Ballroom culture dates back to the 1920s and is dedicated to marginalised groups, the ball's organisers say. They say ballroom hailed from Black and Latina trans women and with the likes of mainstream TV shows, such as Pose, it continues to flourish.
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Originating in New York City, houses competed in balls for their chance of securing a grand prize. Be it voguing, drag, body and more, competitors would go head-to-head in an effort to make their mark, and Liverpool's upcoming event will be no different.
Darren's 'house mother' Dean Murphy, a dancer from Kirkby who died last year, has been well-documented for helping bring the highly stylised modern house dance to the city. He previously told the ECHO how he first discovered the dance in 1989. After living in London for over a year, he decided to move back home, and his friend, Paul Lovell, followed suit a few weeks later.
Within the short space of time Paul remained in London, he learned about a new dance craze which would soon be performed by Madonna. Bringing the dance up north, it wasn’t until the two friends spent the night in the Curzon Club that Dean noticed Paul was moving his arms in a way he had never seen before.
The DJ told the ECHO: “Paul had watched a video on MTV when he was in London, but in those days, no one had MTV; everyone was skint at that stage and on the dole because of Margaret Thatcher. So when someone did have MTV, you would go back to theirs and sit for hours watching it.”
The video in question was the music video to Malcolm McLaren’s Deep in Vogue, which shows three dancers moving to the music to imitate the characteristic poses struck by a model on a catwalk.
Dean added: “Before the dance, it was all about hip-hop, so when this dance came along, it was just fabulous and allowed gay people to have their moment. Initially, it was boys who were doing it first, but when girls saw it, they were made up and wanted to learn.
"Whenever we went to the likes of Garlands, they were just blown away by it because we took it dead seriously. It was something new for the community, and when it was discovered, it was latched onto. When we danced, everyone was watching us, learning from us, and we used to go around to people’s houses to teach each other. It was just like a family with everyone who loved doing it.”
Hosting this year’s event, Ricki Beadle-Blair will direct guests through the night as artists perform routines that “marvel at the power of the heroes we love and the nasty girls we love to hate”. Tickets for the event can be bought online.