Collections
The Peabody Ballroom Experience advances original research and public humanities scholarship by connecting faculty, students, and ballroom artists to the Sheridan Libraries & University Museums’ special collections of rare books, manuscripts, and archives.
These collections span 5,000 years of rare and unique objects and texts, from ancient cuneiform tablets and Egyptian papyri to 20th-century African American photography, U.S. suffrage movement records, and, through our efforts, Baltimore ballroom history.
Our annual ball competition categories are co-curated by a ballroom advisory board and JHU curators. Library curators begin by presenting JHU’s special collections of books, manuscripts, and archives at workshops and informal gatherings. Ballroom artists then interpret those collections through ballroom performance traditions. The team ultimately co-produces the runway, vogue, and realness performance categories that make up our ball competitions. Read more about our co-curation in this blog post and this Radical History Review post.
TAKE A CLOSER LOOK:
CO-CURATING CATEGORIES
TAKE A CLOSER LOOK:
CO-CURATING CATEGORIES
BOOM ST. LAURENT: “A lot of balls, they just give us the same thing, like, “Come as your favorite character. Wear a different color. Do this, do that.” This is the kind of ball that you had to do research for. You had to look it up. You had to find out what this is because we didn’t know this [library] was in our city. So you had to research just to find out what [category] you’re walking and educate yourself.”
Left: Peabody Library curator Paul Espinosa presents materials to ballroom artists
BOOM ST. LAURENT: “A lot of balls, they just give us the same thing, like, “Come as your favorite character. Wear a different color. Do this, do that.” This is the kind of ball that you had to do research for. You had to look it up. You had to find out what this is because we didn’t know this [library] was in our city. So you had to research just to find out what [category] you’re walking and educate yourself.”
Left: Peabody Library curator Paul Espinosa presents materials to ballroom artists
Above: Peabody Library curator Paul Espinosa presents materials to ballroom artists
BOOM ST. LAURENT: “A lot of balls, they just give us the same thing, like, “Come as your favorite character. Wear a different color. Do this, do that.” This is the kind of ball that you had to do research for. You had to look it up. You had to find out what this is because we didn’t know this [library] was in our city. So you had to research just to find out what [category] you’re walking and educate yourself.”
ENRIQUE ST. LAURENT: “What I like about the ball is, in the categories where it’s [based] off books, people have to do research [to prepare their costumes and performances]. So, when you’re researching, you’re reading the book…When you’re reading, you’re learning—but by accident, so to speak….It gives you guys an understanding of us, it gives us an understanding of you guys, and we can grow together.”
Left: Dr. Joseph Plaster and advisory board members Marco West and Sebastian Escada research Library collections and brainstorm ballroom categories.
ENRIQUE ST. LAURENT: “What I like about the ball is, in the categories where it’s [based] off books, people have to do research [to prepare their costumes and performances]. So, when you’re researching, you’re reading the book…When you’re reading, you’re learning—but by accident, so to speak….It gives you guys an understanding of us, it gives us an understanding of you guys, and we can grow together.”
Left: Dr. Joseph Plaster and advisory board members Marco West and Sebastian Escada research Library collections and brainstorm ballroom categories.
Above: Dr. Joseph Plaster and advisory board members Marco West and Sebastian Escada research Library collections and brainstorm ballroom categories.
ENRIQUE ST. LAURENT: “What I like about the ball is, in the categories where it’s [based] off books, people have to do research [to prepare their costumes and performances]. So, when you’re researching, you’re reading the book…When you’re reading, you’re learning—but by accident, so to speak….It gives you guys an understanding of us, it gives us an understanding of you guys, and we can grow together.”
This video was recorded and shared with the ballroom community in March 2019 to help performers prepare for the inaugural ball.
