Mary J. Blige Is Judging a Historic Voguing Ball — And You're Invited

Now it's time to vogue in this dancery!

This year, Mary J. Blige's Strength of a Woman festival is getting a splash of ballroom with The Purpose Ball: Bridging the Gap!

In collaboration with Pepsi and Live Nation Urban, the event will boast a history-making $20,000 grand prize for fem queen face, as well as special performances by Saucy Santana and even judging by Blige herself. The event, which will award more than $60,000 in cash prizes, is in part the creation of Miss Lawrence who's known largely through roles on productions like Bros, The United States vs. Billie Holiday, Star, and The Real Housewives of Atlanta.

"What I want people to know is we truly are a culture of people and a community of people that welcomes everybody," Miss Lawrence, who is a legend within the ballroom scene and has been the Atlanta mother of the House of Balenciaga since 2016, tells Out. "Even when we weren't always accepted or welcomed by everybody, we were inclusive."

Here, we talk to Miss Lawrence, a lead organizer for The Purpose Ball, about their own trajectory within the ballroom community, what they envision for the event, and how they feel about all of this money flooding into the scene.

You can buy your tickets for The Purpose Ball: Bridging the Gap, which will serve as the closing event of the Strength of a Woman festival on May 14, now.

How did you get into the scene?

I got into the House of Balenciaga in 2008. I was walking balls, unsuccessfully, two years prior after being introduced to the community through my sister, founding mother Raquel Balenciaga. I was helping do her hair one night where she won a ball and I went with her. This was the night she won $5,000 and was the first person to win that much money. I was just so fascinated by the affirmation that took place in that room. Not just in the face category, not just for her, but there was just an indescribable energy and I had never seen that. I was fascinated by that and wanted to try it.

I later learned that they had fashion categories and I thought, "Well, I’m a fashionable bitch." I wear my labels. I’ve been wearing Chanel and Manolo Blahnik since I was in my early 20s, so I thought, "Let me try to walk." So I went and got chopped. I didn’t understand. I was wearing Dior and Dolce and really didn’t understand. I later learned, within those two years prior to me joining the House of Balenciaga, that there’s a difference between ballroom fashion and everyday fashion. The difference is ballroom fashion is very ostentatious. It’s very specific and direct. Every piece needs to stand out on its own. I learned this over time and Raquel would watch my progression. She decided to bring me to an induction meeting and there were a lot of nays, but there were enough yays that I made it in the House of Balenciaga. I came in under Christian Balenciaga at the time, who was the Atlanta mother, and Christian was the ruler of female figure best dressed. That’s the category I’m known for. I just learned by being a kid and watching how this category went. Once I started winning, I just kept winning.

Can you tell me about one of your favorite ballroom moments of yours?

One fun moment was at a House of Escada ball. I don’t remember what year it was, but they had their ball and I won $1,000. It wasn't the first time I had won that much but it felt different because there were a lot of people walking and I ran right through all of them. I had on the Christian Louboutin Antilop boot, Fendi pants with the F all over them, the Fendi antelope coat that was this gray wool, Agent Provocateur eyewear that Beyoncé had worn in one of her videos with all the fringe, an Arturo Rios hat with this sort of feather that shot out the top, and a Christian Dior antelope saddle bag. I really ran through the girls. (Editor's note: the look featured here is a different look.)

That was really part of my ascension. I began to master my category so much that I became known for it. This past weekend they had a big ball in Paris and the female figure best dressed category was "bring it like Miss Lawrence." That lets you know that you did your thing in the scene.

How do you feel the fashion categories in ballroom are treated?

In the mainstream, I don’t think the fashion categories get their just due. When you see shows like Pose and Legendary, there isn’t enough emphasis on the fashion, but ballroom is known for fashion. It’s a known fact that designers have sent their teams to balls to draw inspiration. That’s a known fact within ballroom, but the world doesn’t know that. So I think that it’s important that we show all sides and all aspects of ballroom. That’s when the respect and appreciation for ballroom is going to go even higher. So that’s why I have a $5,000 grand prize for a fashion category at the Purpose Ball.

So how did The Purpose Ball come about?

Last year during the Strength of a Woman Festival hosted a dinner called Plated Purpose. The point was to bridge the gap between the Black queer and the Black straight community. I did it during the festival and I invited Mary J. Blige to the dinner. She came with her team. Slick Rick also came and it was a beautiful moment. I set the tone by asking, "What does community mean to you, what are you doing to add a positive impact to the community, and what do we need to make our community stronger as Black people?" So I had a certain number of Black LGBTQ+ people at a table with Black straight people and we just communed together and shared our life experiences. It was a beautiful evening and when the Strength of a Woman team was planning for this year, they reached out and said they wanted to include the LGBTQ+ community in the festival.

This will be the first time in history that ballroom culture has been invited to a mainstream music festival where the tickets are sold and everything like that. And we will have a performance by Saucy Santana, which I'm excited about.

This is not going to be set up as an exhibition ball, right? It’s going to be like a typical ball?

This is being set up as a real ball. I’m going to tell you what I don’t like about exhibition balls. While I do think they are also necessary, what I find interesting about them is that if we are allowing corporate sponsorships to come into our home and our sanctuary, this thing called ballroom, we’re not going to alter who we are. Ballroom has never been selective about who gets to come and compete. I often compare it to church: it’s a come one, come all, come as you are. Exhibition balls, from what I know, only a certain number of people are able to compete. Personally, for myself, that’s just not what ballroom is. It was important to me that we keep this as authentic and honest to ballroom as possible, because that is what we deserve.

What I’ve noticed that happens during a lot of these exhibition balls and moments is that it aids in separatism in the ballroom community. People feel this house got to go and that house didn’t get to go. I never felt that was fair and that’s the very reason ballroom got started in the first place. If we go all the way back to the origin, it started because when they had drag pageants they would exclude the Black queens from participating. That’s why ballroom got started in the beginning by way of Crystal LaBeija. So although we’ve reached this new point in culture, we’re not going to bring that energy back. That’s not to discredit any exhibition balls, because they are important, but I really emphasized that for this ball.

The night features this history-making $20,000 fem queen face category for grand prize. I would love to hear about the decision to highlight that category and how you feel about these big-dollar grand prizes.

It made sense to do the grand prize category face because so many women in ballroom culture are mothers. Being as this festival takes place on Mother’s Day Weekend and there’s a huge focus on the mothers and the strength of Black women, women in ballroom are no different. They have carried the load of mothership on their bucks for years. They have clothed and fed and housed so many under-served Black LGBTQ+ people in the ballroom community. They’ve inspired so many, and I think it’s a monumental moment to include them in an event and festival called Strength of a Woman. That’s why we made that the biggest category of the night.

But I really love these huge prizes. Once this goes well, I plan to make it even bigger prizes and we’re going to spread it out. The next time it won’t be face that gets the big prize, it’ll be something else. But one of the inspirations for creating Plated Purpose and now The Purpose Ball is that in bridging the gap, we have to acknowledge the equity gap. So, if I have corporate sponsors that want to be a part of this change and give a budget, someone’s life can be changed by a huge grand prize. What happens after that is they will then be able to go and share that. It becomes a domino effect and we can start to really level the playing field.

It’s time for people in ballroom to get their just due.