Greenwich Village has long been a host to queer history, specifically the underground subculture known as “ballroom” by Black and Latine transgender individuals. The “houses” of queer ballroom culture were all pioneered in New York City, and starting last year, NYU has witnessed the rise of its very own house — the Haus of Violets.

The Haus is a new club at NYU focused on providing a space for LGBTQ+ students to learn about and participate in ballroom culture and its various styles, including but not limited to voguing, drag and runway. Club founder and CAS junior Neo Ng said they began envisioning the club in their first year, inspired by their mother’s own work in helping establish the first LGBTQ+ center in their hometown after realizing the lack of support available to her child.  

“My mom taught me indirectly that if you love something, you want to support it and help it grow,” Ng said. “While NYU does have a lot of resources for queer individuals to find their place in activism and advocacy, there’s very few places that are for queer youth — not 21-plus — that can foster a sense of community with just queer joy.”

Despite the resources that now exist for LGBTQ+ students at NYU, such as the establishment of the LGBTQ+ Center in 1996, NYU has not always been inclusive of its queer students. Sept. 25, 1970 marked the beginning of the five-day occupation of Weinstein Hall by LGBTQ+ activists, including gay rights pioneers Marsha P. Johnson and Sylvia Rivera, protesting NYU’s refusal to allow queer dances in the dormitory’s basement. Ng said their focus on ballroom culture in particular came out of a desire to honor the historical presence of the LGBTQ+ community within Greenwich Village, as well as acknowledge the ways in which NYU itself has tried to erase that. 

“Stonewall is five minutes from my apartment,” Ng said. “How can I live here and not pay homage to all the Black, trans, queer women? How can I live in this place and not realize that all the people who came before me were in the ballroom and drag community before it was popularized by Madonna with her song ‘Vogue?’ They were the people doing grassroots activism [and] fundraising healthcare during the AIDS crisis.” 

Although the standard positions of an e-board exist in the Haus, such as president and vice president, the club’s leaders uniquely refer to themselves as “mothers” and the general members as their “children.” In ballroom culture, each house consists of an appointed “mother” and her “children.” The mother is usually older and more experienced in the ballroom scene, helping guide her children not only through competitions but also the ever-present challenges of racism, transphobia and estrangement outside the ballroom. Vice president and CAS junior Daniela Salazar Vega said the use of these labels was an intentional means of translating ballroom language directly into the club’s structure and its main purpose of fostering a family around acceptance. 

“We want to create safety,” Vega said. “The overarching theme of a mother is ‘we’re here to help you.’ We’re here to make sure you are comfortable in expressing yourself and having the best time that you can have.”

The club has been in the works since Ng was a first-year student, but it was only able to host its first event, referred to as the “Haus Party,” in the spring semester of last year. Featuring an intense vogue-off to Todrick Hall and an energy-packed runway competition, complete with an emcee and prize baskets of e.l.f. Cosmetics, Vega said the Haus wanted to start strong, and despite the smaller turnout, the enthusiasm everyone brought that night filled the room with a sense of community. 

Public Relations Manager and Tisch sophomore Nyasia Cooper said they found the Haus during their first year after struggling to find any connection with the other queer organizations at NYU, mainly due to their lack of racial diversity. After learning about ballroom culture and its extensive presence of people of color through Hulu’s “Pose” ––  a TV drama focused on the New York City ballroom scene in the ‘80s-’90s –– Cooper said they fell in love with ballroom culture immediately and knew they wanted to join the Haus upon seeing it. 

“I am someone who is hesitant to enter spaces where I don’t see other people who look like me or share certain identities,” Cooper said. “I am a very intersectional person, like I am Black and I am queer. I didn’t want to have to choose, and in this space, I don’t have to.”

To help with their first full year as an organization, Vega said the club has been in contact with Vogue, having received makeup, skincare and hair product donations over the summer. The numerous events the Haus is organizing for this upcoming semester, Ng said, include vogue classes, queer trivia nights, RuPaul’s Drag Race watch parties and “DIY drag” days actually taught by local drag queens. Incorporating local LGBTQ+ artists and performers into their platform, Ng said, was and is an important part of the club and its goal to spotlight and give back to the queer community here, even if its main focus is not on advocacy. 

Looking toward the future, Vega said her goal is to eventually leave a legacy at this school, one that demonstrates the necessity of places where queer people can go in a world that has historically excluded and marginalized their existence. 

“If we can just be a sector of the school that is safe for anybody, then I think we’ve done our job, no matter how big we are,” Vega said. “If we’ve done our job in making people feel like they have a home, then that’s good enough for us.”

The Haus of Violets meets biweekly on Fridays from 4-6 p.m. in the lounge of room 804 in the Kimmel Center for University Life.

Contact Julia Kim at [email protected].