Introduction
-tavia nyong'o
"If the wish to be in on the secret is part of what keeps the cool hunters forever sniffing around the ball scene [...] the public performance and dramatic display of the openness of the secret is what keeps them clueless and forever guessing."
In the wake of the 1990 documentary film Paris is Burning and the subsequent mainstream "awareness" of the queer of color ballroom culture, we ask ourselves, what has now become of the once-alternative scene that has since been taken up by performers from Madonna to RuPaul? [YOU HAVE REGISTERED TIME TWICE HERE (AFTER-NOW-SINCE); CONDENSE] Once positing as the queer space for community, a facilitating space for what Foucault would call a 'new way of life', a new way of sociality where dominant hegemonic practices may be made illegible [ILLEGIBLE?] for a few ephemeral moments - what has become of it now? [SIMPLIFY, REFRAME IN SIMPLE STATEMENTS ABOUT WHAT IT WAS PRESUMED TO BE -- BUT ALSO, FOR WHOM? STARTS IN 70S BUT BECOMES POPULARIZED IN 1990S. ARE YOU ASKING IF ITS SPACE AS COUNTER PUBLIC OR SUBCULTURE HAS SURVIVED THIS APPROPRIATION AND NOTORIETY?]
We interrogate this question by engaging in an archival relationship with REACH LA, a Los Angeles area community organization that has served queer youth of color at risk of HIV/AIDS since the 90's. to document a specific ball event they sponsor each year called 'Ovahness Ball'. [NEW SENTENCE]. With many of the organizers of this annual event being former participants in the L.A. ball scene, the Ovahness Ball occupies a very unique position. Is it a nostalgic thing, signaling the days of the past? Is it a continuance of this subculture in L.A.? How does the house-ball scene's intimate relationship to a non-profit organization complicate its status as a subcultural, alternative phenomenon? Or perhaps, does it signal a new hope for queer community, as a sort of post-ballroom scene that does not merely 'resurrect' or continue the subculture of Paris is Burning, but in fact serve to bring out a new type of queer engagement? [DO YOU IN FACT GET CLOSE TO ANSWERING THESE QUESTIONS?] And lastly, what would an archival engagement with this organization and scene look like with the aid of new technologies like born-digital video footages and Scalar itself?
We seek to entertain these questions through our archive in this chapter. This archive is composed of an interesting mix of various sorts of ephemera, from video footages of some of the performances to old flyers detailing performance categories. Through archiving this queer assemblage of materials, we take seriously Alexander Weheliye's declaration that new social possibilities for minorities are already being re-imagined - the point is not merely to pay closer attention, but "to pay different kinds of attention to perceive them more clearly." [I AM NOT GOING TO CORRECT YOUR QUOTATION MARKS THROUGH OUT -- LEARN IT; DO IT]