GRAND PRIZE #1

A vs European vs GNC•  3 Trophies 1 GRAND PRIZE $5000

CATEGORY IS: THE COVER OF VANITY FAIR — HARLEM NEVER ENDED.

It is today, but the Harlem Renaissance never ended. You have been selected for the cover of Vanity Fair celebrating a century of Black fashion, art, queerness, nightlife, literature, and cultural brilliance.

Create the cover look. You may arrive as a diva, dandy, socialite, futurist, intellectual, queer icon, artist, provocateur, or fashion fantasy. We want couture. Silhouette. Drama. Editorial storytelling. Walk like the photograph becomes history.

Houses/Teams • 1 Trophy • 1 Cash Prize $3,000

In 1926, a group of young Black artists created FIRE!!: A Quarterly Devoted to the Younger Negro Artists. Writers, poets, visual artists and queer voices came together to create a publication that refused respectability and gave young Black artists space to tell the truth about Black life. Only one issue was published. Tonight, your Haus creates Issue No. 2. Bring a full Haus production imagining what FIRE!! would look, sound, move and feel like if your Haus were its next generation of editors and artists. Your production may incorporate Vogue, runway, fashion, spoken word, theater, commentary, visual art, music, burlesque, storytelling or any other talent living within your Haus. Create an original FIRE!! magazine cover representing your Haus and incorporate it into your production. We should understand what your issue is burning down—and what your generation is building in its place. 3–5 minutes. Minimum 3 performers. Judged on concept, storytelling, historical interpretation, originality, cohesiveness, fashion/effects, performance and overall production. One issue started the FIRE. One hundred years later, Ballroom gets the next issue. 

Productions are due by January 31st NO EXCEPTIONS. Please send all productions to email haus@moulinnoir.org and moulinnoirkc@gmail.com . Please includ

1 Trophy  •  1 Cash Prize $2000

Choose a Harlem Renaissance-era Black sculptor and embody one of their sculptures or sculptural works through Bizarre. Your effect should transform the artist's form, texture, movement, material, or subject into wearable art. This is not simply recreating a sculpture — it is bringing that sculpture to life through Ballroom imagination. Bring documentation of your chosen artist and work.

Artists could include Augusta Savage, Richmond Barthé, Meta Vaux Warrick Fuller, or Sargent Claude Johnson.

LEGENDS /ICON ONLY  Old way vs new way vs vogue femme 3 Trophies  •  1 Cash Prize $1500

The club is packed because your name is on the marquee. You have already earned your place in Ballroom history. Tonight we want to know why. Bring a Harlem Renaissance headliner-inspired effect and VOGUE with the mastery, musicality, battle intelligence, storytelling, and presence expected from Legendary Performance. We don't want nostalgia. We want proof.

MF vs FF vs GNC  •  3 Trophies  •  1 Cash Prize $1000

Imagine the great photographers and portrait artists of Harlem fighting for the opportunity to capture you.

Frame your Face with Renaissance-era-inspired luxury: jewels, hats, veils, flowers, gloves, collars, headpieces, shawls, etc.

BQ • FQ • Women • Drags  •  5 Trophies  •  1 GRAND PRIZE $1000

Harlem understood dressing as declaration. Take the glamour, decadence, tailoring, nightlife, art, and excess of the Renaissance and translate it into European Runway fashion fantasy. We want silhouette. Detail. Drama. Movement. Garment. Give us a look worthy of an editorial spread while maintaining the poise, technique, and femininity European Runway demands. Don't come dressed for Harlem. Come dressed like Harlem became a fashion house.

Trans Man Realness — The Gentleman

Bring the masculine presence of a Harlem Renaissance gentleman moving through the world with ease. Think Duke Ellington, Paul Robeson or Louis Armstrong.

1 Trophy 1 Cash Prize $100

Stud Realness — Harlem's Handsome Woman

Harlem's queer history included masculine women who lived beyond the gender expectations of their time. Bring it in a top hat in celebration of Gladys Bentley.

1 Trophy 1 Cash Prize $500

FQ Realness — The Lady of Harlem

1 Trophy 1 Cash Prize $500

She enters the room and nobody questions who she is. Give womanhood with ease, confidence, and authenticity.  Bring it in elegant Harlem Renaissance fashion. Think sequins, beads, fringe detailing.

Executive Realness — The Black Professional

FF vs MF •  2 Trophies  •  1 Cash Prize $200

Banker. Attorney. Doctor. Publisher. Entrepreneur. Executive. Give someone whose name belongs on the office door.

Thug vs Banjee Realness

FQ vs BQ  •  2 Trophies  •  1 Cash Prize $200

Ellsworth Raymond “Bumpy” Johnson and Madame Stephanie St. Clair were crime bosses during the Harlem Renaissance. They ran numerous enterprises in the early 20th century. Bring it representing them.

Pretty Boy / Pretty Girl Realness — The Harlem Heartthrobs

PG vs PB BQ  •  2 Trophies  •  1 Cash Prize $100

Pretty Boy Realness

Fresh face, masculine ease, charm, and natural appeal. Give us the handsome young gentleman of Harlem who turns heads simply walking down the avenue. Keep it believable, effortless, and REAL.

Pretty Girl Realness

Soft, beautiful, feminine, and effortlessly believable. Give us the pretty young woman of Harlem whose beauty commands attention without trying. Your effect can reference the elegance of the Renaissance.

Drags Realness — From Swanns Ballroom to Harlem

1 Trophy  •  1 Cash Prize $100

Before the Harlem Renaissance, William Dorsey Swann, a formerly enslaved Black man, was organizing drag gatherings in Washington, D.C. in the late 1800s. Swann called himself the “Queen of Drag,” and his gatherings are among the earliest documented examples of Black queer drag culture in the United States. Decades later, Harlem became home to spectacular drag balls where gender, fashion, performance, and Black queer life filled the ballroom. Tonight, carry that lineage forward. Drags, give us REALNESS. Bring the elegance of a woman stepping into Harlem society during the Renaissance. Your effect should draw inspiration from the women, socialites, performers, and nightlife glamour of the era.

MF vs FF vs GNC • 3 Trophies • 40–49 Only

Some masterpieces become more valuable with time. Bring sophistication, presence, and the kind of beauty that has lived enough life to know exactly what it possesses. Frame your Face in Harlem Renaissance–inspired luxury. Think jewels, dramatic hats, veils, flowers, gloves, collars, headpieces, shawls, feathers, and other details worthy of a living masterpiece.

MF, FF, and GNC will each have a trophy winner. One overall winner from this age division will advance to the final battle.

MF vs FF vs GNC • 3 Trophies • 50+ Only

A true masterpiece doesn’t fade—it becomes more extraordinary with time. Bring the confidence, refinement, presence, and beauty that can only come from knowing exactly who you are. Frame your Face in Harlem Renaissance–inspired luxury. Think jewels, dramatic hats, veils, flowers, gloves, collars, headpieces, shawls, feathers, and other elevated adornments.

MF, FF, and GNC will each have a trophy winner. One overall winner from this age division will advance to the final battle.

THE MASTERPIECE BATTLE

Face Over 40 vs. Face Over 50 • 1 Grand Trophy • $300 Cash Prize

Two generations. Two masterpieces. One final frame.

The overall winner from Face Over 40 will battle the overall winner from Face Over 50 for $500 and the Grand Masterpiece Trophy.

MF vs FF vs GNC  •  3 Trophies  •  1 Cash Prize $300

MF: BQ • Trans Man     FF: Femme Queen • Drag Queen • Women     GNC: Nonbinary • Agender

Harlem Renaissance artists made the Black body worthy of portraiture, sculpture, movement, and celebration in a world determined to distort it. Tonight, your body is the art.

Bring an elevated effect inspired by Black portraiture and sculpture that celebrates your form without hiding what the judges came to see. Styling should complement the BODY.

MF vs FF vs GNC  •  3 Trophies  •  1 Cash Prize $300

The speakeasy is closed to the public, the jazz is playing, the room is filled with smoke and everybody just turned toward you. Give Harlem nightlife seduction through elevated fashion and Sex Siren presentation. Silk, satin, lingerie-inspired tailoring, robes, stockings, smoking jackets, feathers, jewels whatever your fantasy requires.

1 Trophy  •  1 Cash Prize $500

Harlem was a runway long before anybody called it one. The dandies, divas, artists, socialites, musicians, and nightlife legends understood that getting dressed was an art form. Bring a head-to-toe look inspired by the elegance, extravagance, and cultural brilliance of the Harlem Renaissance—reimagined through today’s fashion. Vintage reference or modern couture. Masculine, feminine, androgynous, or beyond. We want impeccable styling, intentional details, and a complete fashion story. Don't wear a costume. Give us FASHION. Harlem is watching.

1 Trophy  •  1 Cash Prize $200

Josephine Baker understood that seduction could be theater, comedy, fashion, movement, and complete command of an audience. Bring a burlesque performance inspired by her audacity and showmanship without impersonating her. Give reveal, storytelling, sensuality, theatricality, and STAR POWER.

1 Trophy  •  1 Cash Prize $500

Like jazz, Vogue is built through rhythm, improvisation, conversation, technique, individuality, and response. Bring a Harlem Renaissance / jazz-inspired effect and show us all five elements

Jazz was never just music—it was discipline, improvisation, rhythm, rebellion, and conversation. So is Vogue.

Bring a Harlem Renaissance / jazz-inspired effect and translate the music through your movement. Old Way, bring the foundation, precision, lines, poses, and control. New Way, bring the geometry, flexibility, illusion, and innovation.

This is a conversation between generations. Listen. Respond. Improvise. Battle.

When the beat drops, we should be able to see the jazz.

1 Trophy • 1 Cash Prize $200

Before there were words, there were gestures. In Harlem, every hand had something to say—from the musician commanding an instrument to the poet punctuating a verse.

Bring a Harlem Renaissance-inspired effect and tell us a story using nothing but your hands. Give us precision, control, musicality, illusion, articulation, and imagination.

No words necessary. Your hands have the floor.

Other names that fit Smoke & Verse: The Poet’s Hands, Speaking in Hands, The Handwritten Verse, The Manuscript, The Signifying Hands, or The Instrument.

My favorite for the theme is THE HANDWRITTEN VERSE if you want it to feel more poetic and editorial.

1 Trophy  •  1 Cash Prize $100

Enter the floor giving REALNESS. Make us believe it. Give us the person who could move through Harlem by day without a second glance. But when the beat changes, so do you. On the commentator’s call, reveal the twist and transition into Vogue Femme Performance. We want to see the transformation from believable Realness into freedom, femininity, movement, and five-element performance.Your Realness must be convincing. Your transition must be intentional. Harlem by day. Freedom after dark. Show us both.

1 Trophy  •  1 Cash Prize $500

Harlem is watching, baby. Butch Queens, bring it in HEELS. Draw inspiration from the glamour, nightlife, tailoring, and unapologetic expression of the Harlem Renaissance, but make it unmistakably BQUIP.

Give us a high-fashion effect worthy of stepping out of a Harlem speakeasy and straight onto an editorial set. Full couture fantasy — the interpretation is yours. But those PUMPS are mandatory.

1 Trophy  •  1 Cash Prize $200

Before there was a microphone on the Ballroom floor, Black culture already understood the power of the voice. Harlem gave us jazz singers, blues shouters, poets, preachers, emcees, storytellers, and voices capable of commanding an entire room. Tonight, the microphone is your instrument. 45 second 10’s round, 30 second battle. Winner will also get a chance to commentate the Kiki ball on Sunday.

1 Trophy  •  1 Cash Prize $200

Harlem gave us voices that refused silence. Poets turned Black life, love, rage, queerness, resistance, joy, grief, and possibility into language that moved a generation. Tonight, the microphone is your floor. Bring an original spoken word piece, 1 minutes or less, inspired by the spirit of the Harlem Renaissance. Your piece may speak to Black identity, liberation, love, gender, sexuality, resistance, community, or what it means to be free. You will be judged on writing, delivery, storytelling, originality, presence, and your ability to move the room.

BQ • Trans Man • Butch  •  3 Trophies  •  1 Cash Prize $500

The Harlem dandy enters the room. Give immaculate tailoring, masculine fashion authority, and the confidence of someone whose portrait belongs in the archive. Take the elegance of Harlem's sharply dressed figures and push it into modern editorial fashion. No basic suit will survive.

Nonbinary • Agender • Gender Nonconforming •  Androgynous 1 Trophy • 1 Cash Prize $300

Harlem has always held people whose fashion, expression, and existence refused easy definition. Tonight, we celebrate those who make gender itself part of the silhouette.

Bring an elevated runway effect inspired by the Harlem Renaissance while refusing the expectation that your presentation must read strictly masculine or feminine. Dandy. Diva. Both. Neither. Something entirely your own