O’Shea Sibley was killed while sketching voguing moves with his friends. Hundreds of anonymous, but also Beyoncé, paid tribute to him. Giving political life back to this anti-racist queer dance born in the 60s.
Rally to protest the murder of O’Shea Sibley, in Brooklyn, New York, August 4, 2023. Photo Maansi Srivastava/The New York Times-REDUX-REA
Published on August 11, 2023 at 12:20 p.m.
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It is pitch black on Saturday, July 29, when O’Shae Sibley, a young black and gay man, and his friends stop at a gas station in Brooklyn, after a festive day on the beach at Jersey Shore, a seaside resort in New Jersey, south of New York. A few minutes are enough to refuel, just enough time to improvise a afterparty among the gas pumps. A song from Beyoncé’s latest album, Renaissance, resounds in the background. The team sketches the first dance steps. O’Shae Sibley connects frantic arm movements, repeated mechanically between two pirouettes. Choreographer, this 28-year-old pro of voguing – a dance inspired by the poses of models, born in New York in the 1970s within the Afro and Latin American LGBT community – regularly gives public performances and exhibits , without much fear, with contemptuous looks.
A group of men then approach, ordering the dancers to end the show, but the latter refuse to bend their knees. The tension rises, the racist and homophobic insults fuse, then the argument turns into a brawl. A knife wound pierces the chest of O’Shae Sibley, who dies a few hours later from his wound. Stabbed for a few dance moves.
Between anger and scenes of joy
Black and queer, O’Shae Sibley embodies everything conservative America has abhorred for centuries. A man outside shackles and proud of it. Killed in the free expression of his identity, a right enshrined in the first amendment, a pillar of the American Constitution, yet so often overused. “To be openly queer is to choose happiness over safety,” notes transgender and non-binary author Da’Shaun Harrison in his 2021 book Belly of the Beast : The Politics of Anti-Fatness as Anti-Blackness. The murder of the choreographer has caused a national stir, at the forefront of which is the gay community.
On Thursday August 3, dozens of people gathered at the Stonewall Inn bar, the cradle of the fight for LGBT rights since the 1969 riots against police repression. The next day, the crime scene is transformed into an open-air sanctuary… and a dance floor. This time, amidst candles and flowers, hundreds of anonymous activists, dancers, friends chanted O’Shae Sibley’s name, brandishing placards and T-shirts crossed out with these words: « Vogue as an act of resistance » (“to sail as an act of resistance”).
A loud echoing rallying cry. Beyoncé, whose latest musical project is nothing more than an ode to the queer community, puts up the epitaph « Rest in Power O’Shae Sibley on its official website, white letters on a black background. Quickly, the following days, the pain spreads from the East Coast to the West Coast. Spontaneous gatherings take place, in gas stations, on the sidewalk, in the metro…
On TikTok, the hashtag #oshaesibley – nearly four million views on the counter – testifies to the magnitude of the movement. The community has heard the call. She films herself, sailing ferociously to the applause and frenetic beats escaping from the ballrooms. The videos would almost resemble scenes of joy. As a snub to the attackers – the alleged murderer, a 17-year-old New Yorker was charged on Saturday August 5 after surrendering.
“The vogue is a dance of resistance created by us and for us”, explain to New York Times Otis Pena, friend of the victim present during the murder. It all started in the 1960s. Discriminated against in drag queen contests, black and Latino performers created the first inclusive balls. Crystal and Lottie LaBeija, the most famous of the time, are now elevated to the rank of original “mothers”. In 1972, they launched the House of Labeija ball in Harlem, intended to valorize trans women and the drags who look like them. The first of its kind, this event laid the foundations for a vibrant and artistic New York subculture. On the same model, Houses will thus emerge over the years: House of Dupree, House of Ninja or House of Xtravaganza. During the balls, the members of these Houses thus compete in “categories”, beauty, fashion or dance competitions – including voguing.
Willi Ninja (left), LGBT icon and godfather of voguing, in 1988 in New York. Photo Catherine McGann/Getty Images
Catapulted into mainstream culture with the music video for Vogue, of Madonna, this dance is no less political, under the glamor and the sequins. A way to get out of the straitjacket of class, gender, beauty and sexuality norms. In particular, the realness (“realism”), a subcategory of voguing, is nothing but a satire of this schema: the illusion of blending into heteronormative gender stereotypes. For example, a transgender woman who adopts the behavior of a cisgender woman on stage, or a homosexual who takes on the dress codes and the clichéd attitude of a heterosexual. This genre, more militant and assertive than the others, has a symbolic importance for the community, because “passing” for a heterosexual in the dominant society was and remains a guarantee of survival. The murder of O’Shae Sibley is the most salient example.
2023-08-11 10:20:27
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