A look back at Remous vol. 3: “BREAK THE INTERNET KIKI BALL”

Dancing, prizes, shouting, clapping, twirling. But above all, a whole lot of fun. Two months ago, TUX teams celebrated Fierté Montréal with a Kiki Ball, and it was 🔥. Here are the details.

Kiki Balls (or Balls) were born with the Ballroom culture that emerged in Harlem in the 1920s, during Prohibition. In response to the discrimination and violence directed towards 2SLGBTQIA+ communities, resistance took the form of dance performances, activism, and community support. For example, performing at the Balls were “houses”, families chosen by members of the ballroom culture, of whom many have experienced rejection from their biological families due to their sexual orientation and/or gender identity. This culture has survived the conservatism of the early 20^th century, evolving with time and continuing to influence popular culture. Think of the film Paris Is Burning and Madonna’s iconic song Vogue, both released in 1990. More recently, the culture has reached mainstream audiences through the success of the TV show Pose and the dance competition series Legendary.

Through music, dance and community, ballroom culture offers marginalized identities a breath of fresh air and joy, blending safety, freedom and community support—essential for surviving reactionary threats (racism, homophobia, transphobia) and health threats (the HIV crisis).

OK, but what does TUX have to do with the Kiki Ball? We’re getting to that.

TUX is the third child of Dominic and Ludwig, co-founders of TUX, as well as spouses and parents to Joseph and Elia. Convinced that diversity must be lived rather than proclaimed, Dom and Lud have chosen to foster a corporate culture that encourages connections between minority and majority groups.

This commitment has resulted in initiatives initially reserved for the internal team (story time with Barbada and a book club with the feminist bookstore L’Euguélionne around Alison Bechdel’s Fun Home). Later, it evolved into special editions of the Remous events, a series designed to break down isolation, encourage new encounters, and spark conversations that challenge and shift mindsets. But now, everyone’s invited!

For the past two years, TUX’s Justice, Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (JEDI) Committee has been opening the doors of Remous to the public during Pride Week.

After Remous Vol. 2: Pride & Pixel, which honoured Pride 2023 with an evening of festivities, video games, and awareness-raising, TUX’s team wanted to take this year’s celebration even further.

What better way to celebrate identities whose safety remains precarious as we write these lines than through dance, celebration, and joy?

That’s exactly what client partner Tomy, lead creative Marie-Laurence, and 2D animator David had in mind when they took the helm of Remous Vol. 3: “Break the Internet Kiki Ball”. With the help of one of David’s good friends, Georgie Gagné, a member of the Royal Haus of Poseida and a driving force behind the Montreal and Toronto ballroom scenes, TUX and its buvette, Brouillon, became for one special night the venue for a breathtaking artistic competition. To make it even more exciting, 10 prizes worth a total of $ 5,000 were up for grabs—more than enough to boost the motivation of the sixty or so performers and raise the temperature on the dancefloor.

People danced, laughed… It was beautiful. It was so touching to see the 2SLGBTQIA+ community respond to the call with such enthusiasm. I think it was obvious that the team behind Remous was part of the community too. It felt sincere. People sensed it, personally, it made me very happy and very proud.

Raising awareness among dominant groups about the realities of marginalized communities can also be, quite simply, about spending time together.

While raising awareness often involves academic content and training, Tomy, Marie-Laurence, David, and Georgie were keen to show that inclusion is, first and foremost, something that is lived. Perhaps that’s where companies, especially creative agencies, have a (humble) role to play: bringing people together, building genuine solidarity, and contributing to a world where everyone has the space to flourish, regardless of their gender identity or “erotic truth”, to use Alison Bechdel’s words.