Every Monday night, Escuelita’s night club on 39th Street and 8th Avenue hosts “VOGUE KNIGHT,” where contestants, complying with a very specific theme, can “walk” (like a fashion model on a runway) and vogue in structured categories like “Thug Realness With A Twist” and “Sexy Boy Realness,” while audience members see compelling visual storytelling. These weekly Monday night events are open to everyone in and out of the ballroom community.

Voguing, a highly stylized dance genre born out of the Harlem ballrooms scene in the 1930s, has been a powerful medium of storytelling since its inception. Participants at “VOGUE KNIGHT” compete at Escuelita’s for a safe space to share their stories of living as “Thug Realness With A Twist” and “Sexy Boy Realness” while drawing upon their own dealings of racism, classism and homophobia.

“We come to the Ballroom because we have nowhere else to go,” said Venus Mizrahi, a founding member of the House of Mizrahi.  A “house” is an intentional surrogate family often comprised of Black and Latino members of the LGBTQI communities whose sexual orientation and/or gender expression make acceptance from biological families very difficult to maintain. The houses also serve as performance teams and they compete at the balls to share their compelling stories of living in a “rich, white world,” Mizrahi said.

The New School has offered two courses in the past titled “Vogue’ology” taught by Robert Sember, which sought to explore the history and future of the ballroom scene. Next semester, Sember will teach “Organizing for Freedom: Community Mobilizing Through Art and Education,” where students will, according the University Course Catalogue,  “collaborate with members of the House/Ballroom scene into dialogue with various social justice groups in order to advance anti-racist, anti-poverty, gender and sexual rights struggles, using collective art practices as a central platform for its mission.”

“You need to see what my sons and daughters can do,” Mizrahi said.  “You want to find the next star? Then you need to come here.”