Key Frames: Kiki

This African Heritage Month, Key Frames presents KIKI, a 2016 documentary film that explores the lives of LGBTQ+ youth-of-colour in New York City’s underground Ballroom scene. Following seven youths over four years, the film explores how challenges can be overcome through artistic exploration, producing a community scene that validates lived experiences and gender expressions.  

“In New York City, LGBTQ youth-of-colour gather out on the Christopher Street Pier, practicing a performance-based artform, Ballroom, which was made famous in the early 1990s by Madonna’s music video “Vogue” and the documentary “Paris Is Burning.” Twenty-five years after these cultural touchstones, a new and very different generation of LGBTQ youth have formed an artistic activist subculture, named the Kiki Scene.” — http://www.kikimovie.com/synopsis  

In anticipation of Séamus Gallagher’s solo exhibition and in celebration of African Heritage Month, this film celebrates the histories and present experiences of Black Queer communities, whose legacies continue to echo in contemporary artistic practices.  

Featured youth: Chi Chi Mizrahi, Gia Marie Love, Divo Pink Lady, Twiggy Pucci Garcon, Izana “Zaryia Mizrahi” Vidal, Christopher Waldorf, Kenneth “Symba McQueen” Soler-Rios  
Director: Sara Jordenö  
Produced by: IFC Films  
Official website: http://www.kikimovie.com/about 

About the Program

Key Frames screens films by Indigenous, Black, and artists-of-colour which seek to offer further readings of artworks on display at the AGNS.