The ballroom scene has made its way into the mainstream in the past, and sometimes controversially, as with the documentary Paris is Burning and Madonna’s Vogue. Ball culture, also known as ballroom culture or the ball or ballroom scene, is the underground LGBTQ+ subculture in the United States in which primarily Black and Latinx queer people “walk,” or compete, for prizes and glory at competitions known as “balls.” It initially emerged in the 1920s in and around New York City and became a safe haven for LGBTQ+ people of color and Latinx populations in the 1960s (Grinnell College, n.d.).
