Ballroom

A gorgeous, authoritative, and image-filled celebration of pageantry and community created by ballroom culture for Black and Brown LGBTQIA+ people.

The subculture of Ballroom emerged in Harlem in the ‘60s out of a need for safe and inclusive spaces for Black and Brown queer people, in which family-like “Houses” competed at performative balls, allowing members of this marginalized groups to shine. Thanks to shows like Pose and Legendary, it has grown into a global phenomenon. It offers refuge from the threats and violence against the LGBTQIA+ community while also serving as a testament to the radical nature of queer joy with its pageantry and commitment to chosen family.

Ballroom: A History, A Movement, A Celebration is an exhaustively researched tome honoring where Ballroom began and where it is now. It explores how Ballroom has served the Black and Brown LGBTQIA+ community. Bringing both an authoritative and entertaining sweep to this hugely important and influential cultural sensation, this book is filled with photos, interviews, and stories, presenting a captivating, well-documented narrative about not only how to survive but how to do so fashionably, glamorously, and in the company of one another.

• “Michael Robinson is an encyclopedia of knowledge, giving us access to a subculture that has served—often without being credited—as the inspiration and basis of contemporary art, music, fashion and parlance for decades. In the style of ballroom, his rendering of this history is as fabulous, lively and riveting. This visually decadent, story-rich book is a must have treasure.”
  Silas Howard, director of Pose, By Hook or By Crook, and Darby and the Dead
• “Yes, Ballroom is a fabulous artifact, showcasing our culture’s glitz, glamour, and global impact, but it also does the urgent work of snatching our narrative out of the clunky theoretical clutches of critics like Judith Butler, and back into the warm, theological, ontological embraces of kinship.  How fitting that Michael Roberson, Ball Culture’s preeminent All-Father, be the narrator to our reclamation. This book is a gorgeous and necessary addition to Ballroom’s irrefutable literary canon.”
  Ricky Tucker, author of And the Category Is…: Inside New York’s Vogue, House, and Ballroom Community
• “Michael Roberson brings incredible authenticity, knowledge, and life to this tremendous book. As a theologian, activist, and house father, his writing pulses with his lived experiences and the deep understanding he brings with him as a leader in this community. Michael speaks with a clarity that allows those of us from the outside to see a truthful portrait of joy and strength and allows us to gain a deeper understanding of the LGBTQ+ community from which Michael comes. As a student of Michael’s, I’ve found his teachings to be profound and knowledgeable; weaving together the past and present with grace and wisdom and Ballroom: A History, A Movement, A Celebration is the perfect tome to encapsulate all his wonderful knowledge and wisdom.”
  Damon Cardasis, filmmaker and writer/director of Saturday Church
• “While TV shows like Pose and Legendary have brought the ballroom scene into the limelight of mainstream culture, what has yet to be illuminated is the depth and breadth of the full ballroom culture itself. Michael Roberson’s Ballroom does just that, following the throughline from post-emancipation ‘drag balls,’ to the fervor of the Harlem Renaissance, through the ‘peculiar balls’ of New York's men's societies, to the advent of the pageant-style ballroom fete's we've experienced through our screens. Roberson’s poetic prose dance harmoniously with the facts and revelations to illustrate the societal backdrop that yielded such an invaluable social phenomenon. Ballroom culture has captivated the world and Roberson's book tells us how and why. For those tickled by the dancers in the Vogue music video, or wowed by a death drop on RuPaul’s Drag Race, it is incumbent on them to pick up and read Ballroom.”
  Neil Wade, creative executive, Nickelodeon Animation
• “A dynamic overview of the Ballroom community . . . The volume’s most valuable contribution is its historical timeline: tracing Ballroom back to 19th-century drag balls, Roberson shows how this nightlife community has intersected with political and artistic movements from the Harlem Renaissance to AIDS activism.”
  Publishers Weekly
• “Roberson’s celebratory prose is enhanced by lively photographs of Ballroom celebrities, their runway triumphs, and thrilled audiences. As Aisha Diori, an activist, says, ‘Ballroom isn’t just about competition and extravagant costumes, vogue, and competition; it’s a safe haven, a family’ . . . An exuberant tribute to a vibrant and nurturing dance-club scene.”
  Kirkus Reviews