The Ballroom Icon Who Paved a New Way

You might have grown up being told you were doing the most — but on the ballroom floor, that's the point. Posing, strutting, voguing, and flaunting the parts of yourself the world might have shamed are celebrated.

If you've ever been to a ball, you know the night always gets initiated with an L.S.S. (Legends, Statements, and Stars), a cocktail hour dedicated to toasting the members of the scene who are paving the way. The commentator, the grand marshal of the night, starts calling out members according to hierarchy. As the commentator calls out each legend, statement, and star to perform, the crowd claps, tilts their heads to one side, and snaps their fingers as a form of respect when the performer lands a dip — the period at the end of every performance sentence. A “Legend” is a master of their category, a “Statement” is cementing their place in the scene by dominating their category, and a “Star” is causing a buzz in their respective category. And if you’re lucky, you might just bear witness to an icon or pioneer — the OG elders who built ballroom into what it is today, many of whom we lost during the HIV/AIDS epidemic.

If Icon Andre Mizrahi Clark is in attendance, you’re in for a treat. 

The commentator will cue the DJ to pause the music. In anticipation of what's to come, the DJ hits a double beat crash — dun-dun. “When you talk about Ballroom Royalty” — dun-dun. “When you talk about an Icon, a Pioneer” — dun-dun. “When you talk about a Hall of Famer” — dun-dun. The commentator gives us easter eggs, hoping the crowd catches the clues before getting specific … “Seven. Letters.” Dun-dun-dun-dun.

As the music revs back up, we cheer because we know exactly who they’re referring to. The crowd parts like the Red Sea. Amid all of the kitty-kat meow of today’s Vogue Fem performers emerges the stern, calm energy of a lion tipping on its toes that is Icon Andre, founder of the House of Mizrahi.

In a funky hairdo and eclectic ensemble, the Brooklyn native became the first performer to vogue at the historic Apollo Theater in Harlem in 1999 and is still breaking the beat decades later. The kids in the scene all gasp as a performance language they may not be familiar with fills the room — a type of language that could only have come from the struggle the elders dealt with decades prior. This Old Way flare has hints of karate, b-boy, and popping and locking, and derives from a category called “Pose, Pose, Pose,” which, legend has it, originated with the queer kids incarcerated on Rikers Island recreating poses from magazines. And yet it still carries the spirit of New Way, a category Andre first became a Legend for and best describes his performance style. 

I sat down with him at the heart of where it all began: the Christopher Street Pier, a historic playground for New York's queer community. Our conversation has been edited and condensed for clarity.

Hyperallergic: What is your relationship to the piers? 

Icon Andre Clark: My mother had 13 kids and I was the youngest boy.
People always saw femininity in me 'cause I was always running around with all the girls, jumping rope. My best friend from Brooklyn, Sean Coleman [founder of Destination Tomorrow], told me that he was gay.
And I was like, “Okay, cool. That's you or whatever.” I thought he was setting me up to tell my mom I'm gay.

After about a week, I finally said, “Yeah, I think I am.” He took me to the village — where we’re sitting now. It was the place where everybody hung out: gays, trans, drags, butch queens, studs — it was so diverse. I said, “Wow, there is a place for me.” Trust me, it looked nothing like this! It was beat down, dirty, trash everywhere. We used to vogue by the entrance. Nobody would ever be back here unless it was for sex.
In the 2000s, they cleaned everything out. 

• Interview
• Ballroom
• New York