Summer Dance Camp 2019 – Vogue
You’ve seen it in fashion shows, you’ve seen it in the classic Madonna song, you might have seen some of it in RuPaul’s Drag Race or in the seminal documentary Paris Is Burning. But what is Vogue? And how did it came to Jakarta? This was the intensive that set the runway ablaze.
Vogue started from the ballrooms of Harlem, New York, as a means of expression for the African-American members of the LGBT community. Gaining traction in the 1960s, communities and societies started to form around a specific form of “performance” where people posed on beat with the house music. Named after Vogue magazine that inspired the poses, Voguing became a form of solidarity as well as a dance genre, connecting oppressed queer people under a comforting, non-discriminative form of physical expression. Now, Voguing has spread worldwide and became a popular part of LGBT expression, though it is not limited in that community.
Sun, a member of the House of Amazon, was invited to hold an intensive in this year’s Summer Dance Camp 2019. A trained dancer in classical ballet and contemporary on his own part, Sun became part of the House of Amazon two years ago and started teaching Voguing in Thailand. Sun has often taken part in Gigi Art of Dance events, especially in creating contemporary pieces such as the one in E-Motions 2014: Daun Terakhir. However, even though he is a familiar name in the Gigi Art of Dance community, Voguing is still relatively new to the Jakarta dance scene and the intensive was an interesting new genre to be explored.
The Vogue Intensive was an exciting and challenging course. Sun’s humor and confidence is infectious, which he transferred to all his students and kept the environment light and welcoming in his class. His training also translated to his teaching as well, where he properly taught all the students the history of the dance, explaining the difference between the three distinctive styles of Voguing, and showing proper technique in enacting the styles. Going far deeper than the pop culture influence it has, Voguing is a proper genre with its own techniques and steps before reaching the level of dramatic tricks, spins, and drops that can be seen in videos. Participants to his Intensive found their own preference in the styles, learned how to do it correctly, and gained a lot more confidence in themselves. As with the spirit of Voguing being open for all and pushing for self-love against the hatred towards the LGBT community that sparked the need for a creative outlet in the first place, the Vogue Intensive became a safe space for the participants to push themselves and try out an interesting new genre of dancing.
Love is a powerful energy, and the greatest love of all is loving yourself, so the Vogue Intensive has created an incredibly powerful performance for the Summer Dance Camp 2019 Showcase. The audience went wild with excitement, and so should you! Don’t miss out on future classes in Voguing and stay tuned to Gigi Art of Dance for more info!
Watch the intensive performance here, and the solo performance from Amazon Sun here.
This is a part of the coverage on Summer Dance Camp 2019! Read more on other genres covered in SDC 2019:
|| Introduction || Contemporary || Urban || Hip Hop || Vogue ||
|| Traditional Contemporary || Broadway || Collabonation || Showcase ||
