Paris Is Still Burning

DREA EBONY was clearly feeling it. Who wouldn’t marvel at the way she flipped her hair in a circle and kicked her leg out like a Rockette as she sauntered up and down that runway in her shiny gold pants and white tank top, as cheers from the crowd grew louder and louder.

Time and time again, young kids on the transgender spectrum had graced stages almost identical to this one and been sent packing. But Drea Ebony, 18 and visiting from Pittsburgh, was different. She was a star. And she was going to prove it.
With the lights dimmed and the music blaring, Ms. Ebony flipped back in a handspring-like maneuver that ended with her landing on her back like a breakdancer. She then sprang back up, striking a pose or two or three.
“Ten. Ten. Ten. Ten. Tens across the board,” the M.C. Dashaun Wesley boomed as judges held up their scores.
Moments later, Ms. Ebony had her trophy in hand, the victor in the category of Female Figure Vogue, beating a host of other contestants from houses like LaBeija, Mugler and Evisu. “I’ve never been at an event this big,” Ms. Ebony said. “I think this is definitely the biggest one.”
Back in the 1980s, voguing and drag balls flourished in gay New York, with a brief surge in the early ’90s brought on by Madonna, Malcolm McLaren and the film “Paris Is Burning,” which chronicled the lives of several of the subculture’s most colorful inhabitants. But first came AIDS and then came hedge funds. And so the scene receded to the shadows, returning to smaller venues in Harlem and the South Bronx.
But then last month, e-mail began circulating with the news that the Xtravas (as they are known in drag ball parlance) were bringing the party to XL, a slicker-than-vinyl gay club near Times Square, in an attempt to widen the audience again.
And judging by the turnout last Sunday at the House of Xtravaganza’s 30th anniversary celebration, the effort has worked.
The downtown fashion maven Patricia Field (who was a panel judge) was there in a beige hooded Issey Miyake-esque pleated dress. The drag queen Lady Bunny sat at a table near the stage, decked out in one of her many Pucci-inspired numbers. “I’m here representing the International House of Pancakes,” she said when Mr. Wesley called her up to do a little shimmy and shake.
And the model Joan Smalls, who recently was on the cover of W, was standing on the sidelines with the fashion stylist George Cortina. The two had just finished shooting an editorial for Japanese Vogue, in which members of the House of Xtravaganza will be featured.
“He introduced me,” Ms. Smalls said while pointing to Mr. Cortina, who was wearing a tight T-shirt and jeans. “They’re so uplifting and energetic and there’s such a sense of community among them,” Ms. Smalls said. “They reinforce real family values.”
Many family members were not in attendance. Earlier, a tribute was played for Angie Xtravaganza, the ball fixture who died in 1993 of complications from AIDS. “We lost a lot of creators,” said Jose Xtravaganza, a longtime Xtravaganza and one of Madonna’s dancers during the “Vogue” era.
But this was not an evening for grieving. Instead, for over two hours, dancers competed in a variety of categories like Female Figure Face (“for boys in drag who are so beautiful they make real girls look like a dude,” said Hector Xtravaganza), Female Figure Sex Siren; Butch Queen Twister (“you come out dressed like a thug boy but then you vogue fem, like a girl,” he said) and Trans vs. Butch.
A few hundred people looked on. Occasionally, a contestant would underwhelm the judges, resulting in a dressing down. “You’ve got back,” Mr. Wesley he said to one contestant with an ample posterior but boring costume. “But this is not your category.”
Jose Xtravaganza said that if anything, the judges are too easy on people today.
“There’s all this camaraderie,” he said outside as people smoked cigarettes and caught up with old friends. “If I was battling you back when I was starting out, I didn’t hug you after. Does that make me a sore sport?” No, he said, it was about being “sure of what you’re bringing to the runway.”
His longtime dancing partner, Luis Camacho, concurred. “I have been chopped,” he said. “You live and you learn and you come back and you do it again. I would never change anything that happened. I grew up here.”
Perhaps that’s why Edwin Pabon, a freelance photographer and sometime member of the house, found the night so moving. “It’s a high school reunion,” he said as the evening wrapped up and dancers exited en masse.