The Associated Press: Tandi Iman Dupree makes the "greatest" entrance of all time

This year, the fabulous Tandi Iman Dupree attracted the attention of an entertainment reporter, Jake Coyle, who works for the Associated Press.

In a round-up of interesting Web sites that gained notoriety in 2007, Mr. Coyle wrote about the dangerous stunt that was Miss Dupree's stage entrance at the 2001 Miss Black America drag pageant. In his article, Mr. Coyle described Miss Dupree's performance as among the most interesting items on the Internet, which "deserve notice."

Watch Miss Dupree's acrobatic entrance and performance at the Miss Black America pageant. Set to the tune of Bonnie Tyler's Holding Out for a Hero, Miss Dupree delivers an entrance -- and performance -- of a lifetime.

Look for the dips (dance move) by Miss Dupree (the first at 3:02) and by her dancing partner (at 4:33), which are highly characteristic of the dips in "Ball" dancing. Also notice Miss Dupree's use of the runway.

A little bit about Tandi Iman Dupree

UPDATE: Please read this entry on Lady Bunny's blog, where Lady Bunny shares some sad news about Miss Dupree.

Since I posted this message about Tandi Iman Dupree, I've received a few comments asking about biographical information about Miss Dupree. I was able to reach out and get some information about Miss Dupree's life. A friendly member of the Carrie Fairfield community provided me with the following information, which I'm summarizing here:

I haven't been able to confirm any between Miss Dupree and the Ballroom scene. As far as my source knows, Miss Dupree was always a pageant girl. She actually started her dance career in high school, being the co-captain of her high school majorette squad until graduation. She started competing at N-Cognito night club in Memphis, TN, where she created original talents and routines with other dancers in the area. Word of her talent soon got out.

Miss Dupree was dedicated to becoming Miss Black America. She traveled from drag mecca to drag mecca: such as Texas, Florida, DC, Atlanta to promote her self and her dream of becoming Miss Black America. Unfortunately, she passed away before she could realize her dream.

According to my source, Miss Dupree's father is Shun Monro Dupree, and she was the grandchild of Niesha Dupree (a legend in Atlanta) with connections to Tamisha Iman (former Miss Gay USofA), Tanisha Cassidine (former Miss Black America, Miss Black USofA) and has numerous children sisters and brothers.

SIDEBAR: As I try to collect more information about Miss Dupree's life, I promise to keep you updated.

The 'How Do I Look Ball' in Chicago

I found some videos on YouTube, showing the How Do I Look Ball that took place in Chicago with the star Mo'Nique in attendance. In this pair of videos, you can catch a glimpse of the filmmaker Wolfgang Busch shooting his own video footage.

Renaldo Blahnik vs. Raven Mizrahi (dancing) at the How Do I Look Ball.

Legendary Mother Milan MB doin' her "thang" (dancing) at the How Do I Look Ball.

I promise to collect and add more information about the How Do I Look Ball on this post.

Dance and Fashion Show at the Red Ball on World AIDS Day

On World AIDS Day 2007, dancers from the "Ball" community were invited to perform at the Red Ball fundraiser and awards event of the Fifth Annual New York AIDS Film Festival. Before the guests were seated for dinner, Wolfgang Busch (director of the documentary How Do I Look) posed for a picture with two dancers from the House of Ninja.

As some of the personalities arrived, photographers were given an opportunity to snap pics. Here Busch stood next to celebrity designer Richie Rich, of the fashion design house Heatherette.

At another opportunity, the celebrity fashion designer Marc Bouwer joined Busch for a photo-op.

Save to del.icio.us

Pop culture references to the "Ball" community

On a forum that was pointed out to me, I saw an interesting post by Mizz Nicky LaLa, in which Mizz Nicky wrote that there are references to the "Ball" community (or "Ball" culture) in some of the songs performed by RuPaul.

Another intresting fact is the inspiration for RuPaul's "Supermodel of the World" album was a statement that Legendary Mother Octavia Laurent (Manolo-Blahnik) made in which she wanted to be the "supermodel of the world."

Mizz Nicky claims to have another source, which is based on the "Ball" community, for another one of RuPaul's songs.

RuPaul also cut a track called "Superbitch" for the South Park movie soundtrack a while back, in which she "summoned" the spirit of Venus Xtravaganza (who was featured in Paris is Burning) by reciting her midnight pier shadyness: "Touch this soft skin honey, Touch all of this skin dahhhhhling."

Classic... I love that if you scratch beneath the surface just a little bit, you find all these great historic moments of ballroom roots.

I will promise to continue my search for more references to the "Ball" community in our pop culture.

Dance on the Runway on Technorati

Over on Technorati, you can now read the Dance on the Runway blog. Inspired by the film How Do I Look, this blog will focus on the cultural trends created by the "Ball" community in dance, fashion, music, and runway.

You can learn more about me by reading my Technorati Profile.

Willi Ninja: Grandfather of Vogue

Although it wasn't a line that was used in my favorite movie, "Desk Set," I immediately thought to myself, "When in doubt, check The New York Times." I looked up the obituary published by the NYTimes following the passing of Willi Ninja. Willi was a star in the "Ball" community. In fact, The New York Times referred to Willi as the "Grandfather of Vogue" . Here is some more information from that same obituary:

Vogueing had been around for years, but Willi Ninja brought it to a level of visibility and perfection in performance that no one had ever reached before, said Sally Sommer, a professor of dance at Florida State University (See NYTimes obituary tribute for Willi Ninja).

From what I know about Willi from the documentary How Do I Look, I know that he was an inspiration to a lot of people. And it was no doubt through connecting with so many people (including celebrities and personalities) that Willi helped popularize "Vogue" as a dance form. I promise to keep looking for more references to how "Vogue" was popularized.

Some quick Wikipedia information about "Vogue" dancing

I did a quicky search on Wikipedia (27-Nov-2007), and I saw that there was a music video for the song "Deep In Vogue" by Malcolm McLaren, and on a page dedicated to dancing fads, here is what I read:

Vogue (dance), a popular style in New York gay discos in the late '80s, evolved from a much earlier style known as "performance". In this flowing freestyle mode, dancers punctuate their movements with an improvised series of static poses which, as the name implies, are meant to evoke the poses seen in classic fashion photos in publications like Vogue magazine. This style was first popularised/exploited internationally by entrepreneur Malcolm McLaren, whose single and music video for the song "Deep In Vogue" was the first to namecheck the style in the mass market. Vogue enjoyed its widest recognition in 1990 with the hugely successful single and music video "Vogue" by Madonna (See Novelty and fad dances).

The interesting thing for me was that when I then looked up the singer, Malcolm McLaren, I found no reference to his vogue dance hit on his personal Wikipedia page:

In 1989, he returned with the album Waltz Darling, a funk/disco/vogueing inspired album. Waltz Darling incorporated elements of his former albums, ie spoken verses, string arrangements and eclectic mix of genres but featured such prominent musicians like Bootsy Collins or Jeff Beck with a glitzy, LA-style production aimed at the US market. The singles, "Waltz Darling," "Something's Jumpin' in Your Shirt" became top-20 radio hits in Europe. While for once McLaren's instincts failed him (there was no sudden interest in waltz music) it still helped to spread the news about the previously underground practice of vogueing (See the Wikipedia page on Malcolm McLaren).

How odd. I guess Lady Bunny is right when she wrote that there is some confusion about who popularized "Vogue" as a dance form. I promise to keep doing some more research.