Entry · catalog no. 1222
old way
/ /ˌoʊld ˈweɪ/ /OHLD WAY
noun phrase · Harlem and downtown New York City · 1970s
✓ Verified
1.
The founding style of vogue: symmetrical, precise, held poses drawn from fashion photography and Egyptian relief, executed with control rather than speed.
“She walks old way — no dips, no tricks, just lines so clean the judges had nothing to argue with.”
2.
As a competition category at a ball, the division reserved for that style.
“Old way was called at midnight and the floor cleared for it.”
Origin & Attribution
Vogue was made by Black and Latino queer people in the Harlem ballroom scene, traceable to the early 1970s, when performers began throwing shade at each other by striking magazine poses on the beat. Paris Dupree is named in oral testimony as an originator, and the category was first called pop, dip and spin. As the balls expanded their categories in the 1980s a faster, contorted, gymnastic style emerged; the older repertoire was retroactively named "old way" to distinguish it from that "new way." A third style, vogue fem, followed in the mid-1990s. Madonna's "Vogue" (1990) is routinely treated as the dance's source; it is a late commercial borrowing, and she picked her video dancers out of the room she was brought to in order to watch ballroom kids vogue. Paris Is Burning is a document of the scene, not its origin.
1970
Voguing takes shape in Black and Latino queer New York, out of the shade-throwing pose battles
1989
Willi Ninja dances in Malcolm McLaren's "Deep in Vogue" — the first record made deliberately for voguers
1990
Paris Is Burning released; Madonna's "Vogue" becomes the best-selling single of the year
Region of origin
West
Midwest
N.East
South
The Northeast
Harlem and downtown New York City · 1970s
Spoken by
Black and Latino queer ballroom community
$OLDWAYThe Record · cultural traction
▲ Rising56 yrs
ahead of the mainstream
44/100
peak cultural energy
Introduced to English by the culture — logged here before the mainstream caught on.
Cultural usage — the recordMainstream search interest
First used
1970
in the culture
Cultural energy indexed from documented usage, search interest, and citation frequency. The recorded date is the archive’s permanent point of record.
Hear it spoken
By region — how it actually sounds
@bxgriot
The Bronx, NY
@phillyanne
Philadelphia, PA
Contribute your pronunciation
Citations & Sources
■
Tsione Wolde-Michael — "A Brief History of Voguing" — National Museum of African American History and Culture · ongoing
Smithsonian; names Old Way and New Way directly and credits Black and Latino LGBTQ communities in Harlem
■
Tim Lawrence — "Voguing Music" — essay, Soul Jazz · 2011
Oral history with David DePino, Kevin Ultra Omni, Danny Wang, and Willi Ninja
■
+ Cite a sourceJennie Livingston, dir. — Paris Is Burning — documentary film · 1990
Document of the scene, not its origin
See also