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transstudiesarchive · 4 years

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A collaboration between filmmaker Sara Jordenö and Kiki scene icon Twiggy Pucci Garçon, Kiki (2016) is a documentary that follows individuals involved in the Kiki scene, a younger subsection of the ballroom scene, in New York City in the early to mid-2010s. Lauded as the sequel to Jennie Livingston’s 1991 film Paris Is Burning, Kiki gives audiences a look into the modern-day ballroom scene and the current issues that members face such as homophobia, transphobia, racism, poverty, and HIV/AIDS. The Kiki scene is predominantly made up of young Black and brown LGBTQ identifying individuals. The draw of the ballroom scene is a sense of belonging – the freedom to self-express and self-actualize as LGBTQ individuals as well as the opportunity for individuals who lack the social infrastructure to choose their family. The documentary follows several different members over the course of four years whose involvement range from newly minted members to house mother/father. Two of the members they follow are Gia Marie Love and Izana “Zariya Mizrahi” Vidal who discuss the daily discrimination and injustice they face as Black transwomen. They talk about the range of acceptance they received from their families, sex work, and the role that the Kiki scene has played in forming their chosen families. The entire cast posits the Kiki scene as integral to their livelihoods and self-actualization. The intersections of the members’ identities are incredibly important when critically engaging with ideas of community, race, class, and LGBTQ identity.

Gia Marie Love continues to work in the ballroom community as the Queen Mother of the House of Juicy. Gia is an activist, serving the community through HIV and STI-prevention among at-risk LGBTQ youth. Gia is involved with Black Trans Femmes in the Arts Collective (BFTA) which serves to connect and build power among Black trans women and non-binary femmes in the arts. Izana “Zariya Mizrahi” Vidal continues to be involved in the ballroom community. Vidal studied fashion merchandising in hopes of becoming involved in the fashion industry. Her goal is to be a trans-rights activist and an international fashion model. Through these endeavors, she hopes to break barriers and increase visibility of Black trans women. Twiggy Pucci Garçon, the film’s co-writer and one its subjects, is currently the Senior Program Officer at the True Colors Fund, a national nonprofit organization focused on ending LGBT Youth Homelessness co-founded by Cyndi Lauper. Twiggy also is the runway choreographer for FX’s drama television series Pose.

Kiki is available to stream on Hulu.

http://www.kikimovie.com/

– Sara L.

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himluv · 7 years

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The Princesa and the Smuggler

Day One of MEHalloween, “Halloween Throwback”

@joufancyhuh @vorchagirl and @joz-stankovich because an art piece of hers may have inspired this. Hope you don’t mind ;)

Reyes stared at the invitation , at once confused and intrigued.

To: Reyes Vidal From: Sara Ryder

If you could be anyone or anything for one night, who/what would you be? 10/31/2821

Attached were coordinates for a club on Meridian. He read the message half a dozen times in quick succession, trying to guess what his girlfriend was up to. They’d arrived back in Heleus only three weeks ago, but they’d been apart almost the entire time. Sara had Initiative bureaucracy to contend with, and Reyes had his leak in the Collective. Interrogating Meritus had proved exhausting and highly unpleasant. Reyes could use a distraction. He was familiar with the Halloween tradition, although his devout family had never celebrated the holiday. After they died, his two years with a mercenary gang, and another six years with the Alliance hadn’t really offered many opportunities to play dress up. But, this was only Meridian’s second Halloween, and now that the majority of the human colonists called it home, it was bound to be a night to remember. He reclined into his sofa in the room on the upper level of Tartarus and pulled up his omnitool. He needed to do some research on the club and its planned festivities. “Throwback Halloween,” he read aloud. The club was hosting a costume party, and the theme was th Century earth.

To: Sara Ryder From: Reyes Vidal

And who would you be? I’d like to coordinate.

Her reply was almost instantaneous. It was just like her to be so excited about something like this, and the thought of her messaging him, a grin on her face, made his chest tighten with longing. After so many months together, these past weeks without her had been hard.

To: Reyes Vidal From: Sara Ryder

This is your only hint: “Someone has to save our skins! Into the garbage chute, fly boy!”

Reyes grinned. He’d have to do some research; the party was only two weeks away, but he could work with that.

The music thundered through the bar, bass thumping in some electronic dance song he didn’t recognize. The amount of bodies, all in strange, archaic costumes actually gave him pause. He hadn’t been in a bar that crowded since the night before the Nexus had left the Milky Way. Out of nervous habit his hand dropped to the pistol holstered at his hip. He took comfort in its familiar weight, and took a deep, settling breath. He waded through the crowd, his old habits taking over as he let the undulating bodies direct him to where he wanted to be. As he moved he searched the crowd for his Princesa. There were a lot of variations o their costumes, and though he saw a number of rebel princesses in flowing white robes, none of them wore it was well as he was sure his Sarita did. He approached the crowded bar and noticed Scott first. The younger Ryder twin wore a pale beige tunic with a thick leather belt. His pants were only slightly darker than his shirt, and his tall, knee high boots were a deep tan color. The hilt of a plastic lightsaber hung from his hip. Beside him stood someone in all black, a long cape flowing from his shoulders and a blocky black helmet on his head. Reyes sidled up to the pair, resting his elbows on the bar. “Haven’t seen your twin around lately, have you Luke?” Scott turned and grinned as he took in Reyes’ costume. “Sara is gonna flip,” he shouted over the music. “Oh! That’s just perfect,” Darth Vader said. Though the mask deepened his voice and added the trademark respirator sound, Reyes could tell it was Gil underneath the helmet. He grinned at them both before turning his attention back to the bar to flag down the bartender. He ordered a glass of their best whiskey and only once it was safely in hand did he turn to face the dance floor, leaning casually with his elbows on the bar-top. “So, where’s he princess?” Scott shrugged. “Last I saw she was dancing with Peebee.” “Please tell me she’s a twi’lek!” Gil leaned over Scott’s shoulder to yell, “her and Jaal both!” Reyes let out a full belly laugh before knocking back his drink. He clapped Scott on the shoulder. “I’m off to find Leia.” “Good luck,” her twin shouted as Reyes moved off toward the dance floor. He waded through the crowd once more, feeling more at ease thanks to the whiskey. But, one glass of fine whiskey wasn’t nearly enough to keep him from reaching for his gun when a hand gripped his shoulder. “Han!” Liam shouted over the din. Reyes spun to look at the man, and burst out laughing. Liam wore the flat blue uniform and cape of Lando Calrissian. Because, of course he would want to be Lando. “Lookin’ for Leia?” Reyes nodded. “Look for the Wookie,” he said. “Did she get everyone to participate?” “Pretty much!” Liam grinned. “Even Suvi and Kallo are the droids!” Reyes shook his head in awe of his girlfriend’s power of persuasion, and moved further into the crowd as Liam attached himself to a new dance partner. As the crowd jostled him, ebbing and flowing with the music like an angry sea, Reyes kept his eyes at the top of the crowd. Sure enough, after a few moments of drifting, he saw a furry brown head standing about a foot above the rest of the dancers. He made his way slowly, not forcing his way through even though the urge to lay eyes on Sara was nearly overwhelming him. Three weeks was too long, even after months together after a year apart, three weeks was a painfully long time to go without hearing her laugh, or seeing the way her blue eyes sparkled brighter green when they were on him. The crowd parted as the Wookie’s dance moves got a little wilder, and at the center of it all was Peebee, Jaal, and Sara, laughing as they danced in a circle. Reyes kept back, prowling through the crowd to keep Sara in view as he enjoyed the sight of her. She wore the expected flowing white robes, her long pale brown hair pulled up into the iconic buns and braid. Her cheeks were flushed, whether from the heat of dancing, the force of her laughter, or alcohol, he couldn’t be sure. Probably a mixture of all three. Her outfit was modest, much more so than the other Leias in the club, but hers was much more accurate. Besides, Reyes didn’t need to see her skin to know what perfection lay in wait underneath the robes. The song reached a crescendo, paused, and then dropped into an even more intense beat. Sara whooped and let the music move through her, her arms above her head as she twirled, the robes flaring out, revealing tall white boots and soft skin. Her head bounced back and forth before falling back. Reyes caught a glimpse of her face, and saw her pull at her lip with her teeth. With her eyes closed, moving to the relentless beat of the music, he knew he couldn’t stay away from her any longer. He wove through the crowd, ducked behind the Wookie, who he had a sneaking suspicion was Vetra, and pressed himself flush to Sara’s back, his hands on her hips and his lips at her ear. “Waiting for someone?” he said. She stilled against him, and then spun his arms, launching herself at him. He caught her with a huff, and when one leg clung to his hip he obliged her by lifting her up to wrap her legs around him. Her mouth was on his, and he knew now that alcohol had a least a little to do with her demeanor; he tasted the sugary sweetness of the mixed drinks, which she preferred at social gatherings, on her tongue. But, that didn’t matter just then, all that mattered was that she was there, in his arms once more, and that she had obviously missed him as much as he had missed her. “Get a room!” Peebee shouted. Sara untangled one arm from around Reyes’ neck to give the asari her middle finger, but never took her mouth from his. Finally, he broke the kiss, and once his panting breaths had settled, he chuckled against her lips. “Miss me?” She groaned, and her legs tightened around his waist. “You have no idea.” He caught her bottom lip in his teeth, and his fingers dug into her shoulder blades. “I have some idea,” he promised. The song changed and Sara perked up. “I love this song!” She wriggled against him, and it took Reyes a moment to realize she was trying to get down. He released her, and she immediately started dancing, even more fervently than before. Reyes grinned and joined her; it wasn’t often they had the liberty of drinking and dancing the night away. After the track ended she turned to him and gave him a critical glance. Black pants, white shirt, those had been easy to find. Even the old-school hip holster had been relatively easy to come by. But the tall black boots and the vest? Those had been a bitch, which meant they’d been expensive. “You look amazing,” she said. “I was worried my hint wasn’t clear enough.” He shook his head. “It was perfect!” He looked around the club, spotting Kallo as C-3PO, Suvi in a cute dress that looked like R2D2, and even Lexi in an Obi Wan Kenobi costume. The three were lounging in a large booth, probably reserved for the Pathfinder and her entourage. His suspicions were confirmed a moment later when Scott and Gil arrived, joining the less energetic members of their group. Another dance song started and the Wookie reappeared from a short jaunt through the roiling crowd, pausing to dance with a quarian in a black hooded robe. Then the pair moved off to join the others in the booth. Sure enough, Vetra appeared from under the large, furry mask looking more than a bit tipsy herself. Scott said something to her, and the whole booth laughed. He looked back to Sara to find her grinning up at him. “Wanna get out of here?” She called over the song. His smile took on something predatory as he nodded. Keema had promised him his apartment had been maintained in his absence, and it was only a few minutes walk from the club. He took her hand and led the way out of the bar, not missing the cheers and jeers from their friends. Sara giggled as they met with fresh, cool air once they were outside. She pulled up her white hood, then linked her arm through his. She had to hurry to keep up with his brisk pace, her boots clicking on the metal walkways. She paused slightly as he punched in the code to unlock his door. “This is your place?” She asked. He nodded. “On Meridian, at least.” He pulled her into the flat after him, and wasted no time pinning her to the door. His mouth couldn’t get enough of her, he couldn’t seem to sate his tongue’s desire to taste her skin, no matter how much of it he peppered in feathery kisses or long swathes of wet heat. She gasped and her fingers coiled in his hair. Then she pulled his face up to look at hers. Her skin was flushed, more from his attentions now than any effect of the alcohol, and her eyes were bright and clear. “I love you, Reyes,” she whispered. He blinked at her for a moment, absorbing the words. Though she’d said them before, they still seemed so unreal to him. Then he smirked at her. “I know.”

#MEHalloween #Santa Sarita #f!reyder #me:a #star wars #meridian knows how to partaaay #why did this get so long #i have a problem

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foodselfiesandstuffblog · 7 years

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Fader: What It’s Really Like Inside N.Y.C.’s Vibrant Young Vogue Scene

The Sara Jordenö-directed documentary Kiki provides an intimate look into the contemporary black and Latinx gay ballroom scene.

Sitting on the Christopher Street Pier a few summers ago, I saw a young black queer kid wearing headphones and dancing. It was the middle of the day, and he jumped into the air and landed on his back, one leg beneath him, in a death drop. “Yasssssss,” a black gay man encouragingly shouted. “She can vogue,” he said to no one in particular. The dancer then broke into duck walking before falling onto the grass. “I’m practicing for a Kiki ball,” the youth later told the older black queen.

Kiki, a new feature-length documentary directed by Sara Jordenö and co-written by Twiggy Pucci Garçon, introduces audience-goers to this vibrant community and culture in its modern-day form. The film takes place three decades after the release of Paris Is Burning, the 1990 documentary that chronicled N.Y.C.’s black and Latinx gay ballroom scene during the 1980s. (Garçon’s co-writing credit seems to allow for the subjects to control the way their narratives unfold on screen. A long overdue nod to the subjects of Paris Is Burning, who felt its director Jennie Livingston had taken advantage of them.) Unlike Paris Is Burning, which is rife with scenes of founding house mothers and fathers, Kiki follows the lives of its progeny — Garçon, his best friend Chi Chi Mizrahi, Divo Pink Lady, and two young black trans women, Gia Marie Love and Izana “Zaryia Mizrahi” Vidal — all legendary and all up-and-coming. Like the generations before them, they are figuring out a way to collectively survive their “transitions,” as Gia Love puts it in one of the film’s opening shots. It doesn’t take long to realize: these ballroom-scene youth want to turn their perseverance into an emblem of triumph; they want their stories to be a victory of the QTPOC imagination over AIDS and an America that has done its very best to shut them out.

By stylizing survival, N.Y.C.’s black and Latinx queer community in the late ‘70s and ‘80s were forced to create safe spaces on the Christopher Street Pier and in clubs around Manhattan — ports of peace and belonging that were given the title “Paris.” These spaces established a culture of QTPOC fantasy, dreamed up by a hamstrung generation who lived entirely on the borders of society. Pepper LaBeija, Dorian Corey, Angie Xtravaganza, and Willi Ninja, all icons of Paris, held drag balls inspired by the ones hosted in Harlem at Rockland Palace in the ‘20s. There, they fashioned new identities, invented vogue, created new music — the ballroom scene’s DJ Mikeq and his music collective Qween Beats soundtracks Kiki with vogue beats — and lived out denied desires that ended in death for many of them and their friends.

The kiki scene, a youthful offshoot of the traditional ballroom scene, unearthed for the mainstream in Paris Is Burning, has fully emerged in the past decade. Kiki depicts a dynamic community that uses vogue and ball competitions to foster youth development for queer kids of color. In one scene, shot at the Seward Park Extension, the House of Pink Lady convenes. Divo Pink Lady, who grows more comfortable expressing his sexuality as the film progresses, spins into the air and vogues across the floor. The house chants and claps, while in another section of the rec room Omari Mizrahi holds a group circle, providing a lesson on realness. “In ballroom we can be whatever we want to be,” he says. “You know what I’m saying? I can choose to be masculine or feminine. In this house, I don’t want us to have labels, simply this: you walk realness, doesn’t matter what realness it is, but you know because it’s you.” Omari then holds a class where the kids model the self confidence he instills in them. “Yeah,” he says, eyeing a butch queen, “I am looking for you to sell it.”

But the film’s moments of true empowerment are hindered by realities filled with abandonment, sexual exploitation, health problems, and discrimination: Garçon loses his apartment in one true-to-life scene, temporarily becoming homeless after his landlord evicts him without warning; after deciding to transition upon joining the kiki community, Zaryia Mizrahi’s own family disowns her; there’s also the moment at which the community fully comes together to eulogize Travis, one of their own who passed away from HIV-related afflictions. “Our community is on very intimate terms with death; that comes from complications with HIV, it comes from police brutality, it comes from all sorts of health issues, it comes from suicide, it comes from hate crimes, it comes from a lot of things,” Garçon said during the candlelight vigil honoring Travis’s life. Later, standing on an uptown street corner, Divo Pink Lady considers all that he’s gone through: “I don’t like to let my situation run my life, because there’s always something out there worse than yours.”

That may be true, but his reality — as well as the reality of those in the scene — is a harsh reminder that new cultures are often born of people who have been ostracized from outdated iterations. These are people demanding to be seen for all of who they are, no matter the cost. And so: again and again the film’s characters gather to kiki, forced to build a space of their own in a society that still refuses to make room for the black and brown queer existence.

In one of the film’s more charged exchanges, Gia Love walks down the street as a young black boy yells, “Fagggooot.” Resilient as ever, she responds, “Your mother’s a faggot!” From behind the camera, the director inquires about her state — Is she okay? What is she feeling in the moment? “No, I’m triggered,” Love explains, looking utterly powerless for the first time in the entire film. The street scene cuts to Love asking herself, “Who was I before ballroom?” An image of Love before her transition flashes across the screen. “I was a person who was lost,” Love says. “I was a person who wasn’t confident in my ability to do and because I found a community that appreciates me — all of me — I’m able to be myself.” (Sitting on their living room couch surrounded by Love’s siblings, Love’s biological mother offers one of the most memorable expressions of black love in the film: “She called me three years ago and said, ‘Ma, I made a decision to live my life as a woman,’” her mother recalls. “I said, ‘What?’ Then I thought about it while she was on the phone and I said, ‘Whatever your decision is I’m with you.’ I accept it.” She pauses, “I think she’s sexy. Like me, feel me?”)

The unevenness of their intersectional experiences come to light near the end, when the Supreme Court ruling on marriage equality is announced. Without a flicker of emotion, Garçon reads President Obama’s statement on the court’s decision. “We still have to fight for our equality in the workplace, we still have to fight for LGBTQ homeless, we still have to fight for trans rights. There’s so much left,” Garçon says. And it’s here, even amid celebration, where the heaviness of the realities that they must still endure on a daily basis bears down on them with great force.

Kiki is a film about progress, but there are no clear victories in the stories told. Every gain is a result of a traumatic circumstance tied squarely to the subject’s race and sexuality. And yet, in the kiki scene, where these young voguers can do more than just survive, they have found another Paris, burning red hot.

This article was originally published on Fader.com and written by Antwaun Sargent

#Fader #Kiki #Vogue Scene #Sara Jordeno #Twiggy Pucci Garcon #Gia Marie Love

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