Inspired by Black History Month and the award-winning and critically-acclaimed FX series Pose, the University of Missouri-St. Louis (UMSL) conceived the Inaugural Black Ballroom Expo: Then and Now to celebrate members of the Black queer community and National HIV & AIDS Awareness Week. Several Black queer youth and an UMSL recruiter established “SERVE,” a collaborative…
Strike a Pose: St. Louis has a storied ball scene — and its stars are ready to strut their stuff at Pride
It was 2001 when Mechee Harper took her nineteen-year-old friend Meko Lee Burr to Chicago for his first ball. “We ended up taking over a KFC as our dressing room,” Harper recalls. “And the employees were like, ‘Well, alright!’” The underground, largely black and Latinx LGBTQ ball culture has mostly existed out of mainstream awareness…
For Chuck Pfoutz, New Show at Third Degree Glass Factory Is a Triumph Over the Haters
Blacklisting is an art deeply woven into the culture of St. Louis, a city that produces cold winters, but even colder shoulders. The July and August 2017 efforts of a disgruntled rival to blacklist photographer and producer Chuck Pfoutz, however, completely lacked the hallmarks of our local style. There was no subtlety and intrigue, no…