Vogue is a dance style created in the late 1970's, early 80's, resulting from performance, a dance style that originated in Harlem in New York City in the 1930s. It is a dance style that imitates various poses of models that usually adorn the cover of the magazine Vogue, and so named it for this dance.
Striking on this dance are the geometric and stylized movements of arms and legs, and it is fragmentary about an imaginary catwalk. Also, extreme, yoga-like attitudes are used. The elegant way of changing a pose generates the illusion of a fluid body.
Practitioners of this dance are often members of a house, such as The House Of Dupri. These houses came together in clubs or ballrooms to meet the dance struggle. On these battles, one competed with other houses to impress and challenge each other. A jury determines the winner by means of points. This resulted in spectacular and complicated dance routines and costumes on evenings called "extravaganzas". Participants and audiences are mostly homosexual and afro-american or latin american.
The music being danced is instrumental disco or house with a typically smooth "Vogue" sound, something that can be heard in the songs Deep In Vogue of Malcolm McLaren and Vogue of Madonna.
Vogue is still practiced in the United States and is especially popular in the gay club scene of New York, Atlanta and other major cities.
In 1990 a documentary was made about the vogue subculture, called Paris is Burning. This film includes the famous vogue dancer Willi Ninja (1961-2006).
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