Paris Is Burning: How Ballroom Became a Sanctuary

an article by Cathy Hu

Against the backdrop of pulsing synths and flashing lights, bodies of all shapes, sizes, and colors shimmer in feathers, sequins, and beads. They strut, strike poses, and dance without care for the future. For many queer people in 1980s New York—living through the devastation of the AIDS crisis—there might not be a future. But at the Drag Ball, they escape the outside world and live their fantasies without apology.

Jennie Livingston’s 1990 documentary Paris Is Burning pulls back the curtain on NYC’s underground ballroom scene, offering an intimate portrait of legendary performers like Pepper LaBeija, Dorian Corey, and Venus Xtravaganza. The film brought mainstream attention to a subculture that had thrived in the shadows for decades. Livingston first encountered ballroom after spotting two gay men voguing in Washington Square Park—their movements sharp, theatrical, and unmistakably fierce, like models in a fashion spread. Captivated, she attended her first ball with a camera in hand, later recalling the overwhelming sense of liberation she witnessed: total freedom of identity, unfiltered joy.

As a white lesbian and AIDS activist, Livingston recognized how starkly the ballroom world contrasted with the predominantly white, downtown queer scene (think ACT UP protests and Keith Haring’s pop-art galleries). While both were fighting for survival, ballroom was something else entirely—a space where Black and Latino queer and trans people crafted their own rules, hierarchies, and definitions of glamour.

“Whatever you want to be, you be,” Pepper LaBeija declares in the film. “At a ball, you have a chance to display your elegance, your seduction, your wits, your charm. I came, I saw, I conquered. That is ball.”

The scene’s roots stretch back to secret gatherings in the 1800s, where gay men—many of them former slaves—found fleeting freedom. By the Harlem Renaissance, these events evolved into underground drag competitions. But it wasn’t until 1968, when Black drag queen Crystal LaBeija founded the House of LaBeija in protest of racist pageant judging, that modern ballroom took shape. Houses became sanctuaries—part fashion empire, part chosen family—where marginalized queer people could compete, celebrate, and survive.

In the 1980s, as AIDS ravaged their community and politicians turned a blind eye, ballroom became more than spectacle. It was armor. For those facing homelessness, violence, and abandonment, houses offered shelter, kinship, and a stage to rewrite their narratives. “We gave each other a new meaning of family,” Pepper LaBeija explains after inheriting the House of LaBeija following Crystal’s death.

Decades later, Paris Is Burning remains a testament to queer resilience. Through Livingston’s lens, we see the intersections of race, class, and gender—and the defiant creativity that flourishes in spite of oppression. The film’s legacy burns as bright as ever: a declaration that queer lives, especially those of color, have always mattered.