London is Gurning (walk for your life)

Once upon a time, in a golden bygone age (back in the 80s) far, far away (New York) a Vogue Ball was an edgy and exclusive underground subcultural event whereby drag 'houses' (gangs of gays) competed with each other in high-energy dance-offs, characterized by the angular dance moves made famous by Madonna, and immortalized by the film Paris is Burning.

Now experiencing a major revival in London, the Vogue Ball has crept into the capital's alternative queer subculture over the past few years and been reinterpreted as more avant-garde visually expressive performance-art/fashion experiences. They have recently evolved further into increasingly regular pageants of creative celebration.

Last Wednesday night's Trannyshack Vogue Ball at the Soho Revue Bar was a fine example of how the contemporary London scene has appropriated the idea in supporting and encouraging creativity to flourish in a safe space whilst having a whole lot of fun. These events may not possess the rage, urgency and bite that so deeply informed the New York drag balls of the 80s, fired as they were by the rampant fear of Aids (before combination therapy, when people just upped and died), but they do peg the peculiarization of a new generation of polysexual club kids.

The next, and most significant, date for the Drag Ball diary - aside from the one Auntie Madge is throwing in her front room after elevenses a week on Thursday - will be the Bistrotheque Drag Ball in the summer. Any drag queen worth her salty knickers will be vying for a place in one of the houses, and those who miss out when it comes to firming up a place on the hottest runway of the year, like those who weren't invited to Truman Capote's black-and-white dance, will probably have to skip town to save face (expect suspicious announcements of unlikely lucrative last-minute bookings for lip-synching shows in Sitges).

But, if you can't wait for that, and you fancy a warm-up between now and then, get yer glad rags together, sort out your strut and register for the annual CRUSAID drag ball (sort of) on 1st June. According to GMFA, around 1 in 8 gay men in London are walking around with HIV in their blood (a third of these don't even know it). No amount of clicking our heels can wish this away. And maybe we can't just walk it off, either. But we can take a step in the right direction.

Trannyshack is at Soho Revue Bar every Wednesday, hosted by the Very Miss Dusty 'O'

Image of the Bistrotheque Annual Drag Ball 2007 courtesy of Darrell Berry.

See pics from last week's Trannyshack Vogue Ball here.