Vogue’ology and The New School Gender Studies

2009-2010 Vera List Center fellow Robert Sember and the sound collective Ultra-red facilitate a presentation and discussion between members of New York City’s House/Ballroom community and the New School’s Gender Studies Committee, whose members are invested in organizing cultural activities around issues of gender and sexual rights and redefining gender studies pedagogy.

The House/Ballroom community is an artistic kinship and social movement of primarily transgender and queer African-American and Latino men and women. Vogue’ology refers to the House/Ballroom community’s mimetic performance form, Vogue, originally inspired by poses in Vogue magazine. The New School’s Gender Studies has recently celebrated its return to the university program, dedicating itself to gender scholarship from the last four decades in the United States and the rest of the world.

The session involves processes of organized listening to pre-recorded elements and testimony presented by representatives from both groups. The sound objects and statements articulate the conditions under which both initiatives are unfolding and suggest terms and themes to guide future initiatives. The terms articulated in the course of listening are open for comment and debate by all.