Performance as Intravention: Ballroom Culture and the Politics of HIV/AIDS in Detroit

Abstract

After twenty-six years of the HIV/AIDS pandemic, the disease's impact on people of African descent throughout the world has been devastating. This essay draws from performance ethnographic research on Ballroom culture and HIV/AIDS in Detroit, Michigan. Ballroom culture is a Black and Latina/o queer community in North America. In this examination, I delineate how Black queer members of the Ballroom community create and engage in HIV/AIDS prevention strategies through performance. I argue that Ballroom community members deploy forms of intravention, strategies for HIV/AIDS prevention that are created by and emerge from within the Ballroom community, a so-called “high risk community.”