House, Vogue & Club Dance

These styles come out of Black and Latino—and substantially Black and Latino LGBTQ—American club and ballroom culture. Waacking (also 'punking'/'whacking') developed in Los Angeles gay clubs in the disco era of the early-to-mid 1970s. Vogue grew out of the Harlem ballroom scene, where houses competed in balls; its three principal forms are Old Way, New Way, and Vogue Fem. House dance developed in the house-music clubs of Chicago and New York from the late 1970s into the 1980s. These scenes provided chosen family and competitive expression for marginalized communities.

Ballroom culture (vogue, waacking) is a living Black and Latino LGBTQ tradition with its own houses, mothers, fathers, and balls—its history must not be sanitized or detached from the queer communities of color that created it. House dance carries the inclusive, spiritual ethos of house-music club culture. These forms reached the mainstream (e.g. through Paris Is Burning and pop music) but the credit belongs to their originating communities.

House dance rides four-on-the-floor house music (roughly 120–130 BPM) with jacking, footwork, and lofting; vogue is performed to ballroom/house beats with dramatic breaks; waacking is danced to 1970s disco with sharp arm work phrased to the music.

Fast intricate footwork and a grounded, weighted 'jack' (house); fluid, rapid rotational arm movements, posing, and performance (waacking); and the elements of vogue—hands/arm control, catwalk, duckwalk, spins/dips, and floor performance—judged in battle. Performance, attitude, and 'realness' are core.

Practiced in clubs, ballroom balls, studios, and battles worldwide; vogue and waacking are staple commercial and concert-stage vocabularies, and house dance is a pillar of international street-dance battles.