“In a ballroom, you can be anything you want,” said Dorian Corey, an inspiring figure in Harlem’s ball culture, in the 1990s doc Paris is Burning, “[there’s a] fantasy of being a star, like on the runway or the Oscars.” When it first emerged in the 1920s, ball culture gave birth to a world of unapologetic self-expression, providing those in the LGBTQIA+ to express themselves freely through voguing. Inspired by Egyptian art, Vogue combines accentuated hand gestures and elegant, exaggerated movements, which allow dancers to play with the notion of gender performance as well as explore their sense of narrative.
Voguing and ballroom culture are both just as alive today, as they were in the 1990s – especially in Berlin. In 2018, we caught up with some of the fierce voguers setting Berlin’s ballroom scene on fire, and since then the voguing community in the capital has continued to burn with energy, defiance and of course, realness. One of Germany’s most diverse up and coming female artists, LAYLA, has released a new single called ‘Pose’, serving us style, beauty and fun. Influenced by soul, jazz and R&B, the half German-half Gambian artist sees no limits for herself in terms of creativity and her latest release certainly evidences this. Working in collaboration with Zalando, the music video for ‘Pose’ sees a diverse range of queens voguing to LAYLA’s catchy, feel-good beat. SLEEK were lucky enough to access a behind the scenes look at the video for ‘Pose’.
All Images Courtesy of Zalando.
Credits
Production: Laura Moser, Terry Ellmer Movement
Director: Fatou Camara
Edit: Kim Vizola
Dancers: Fatou Camara, Maurice Saint Laurent, Aaaliyah Thanisha, Ria Sait Laurent
Hair: Fatima M York & Mugatu
Make Up: Rim Zemuye, Haneen Ajub, Evin
Styling: Suzana Haile & Arsema Haile
Set Photographer: Sebastian Schuster