Zindzi Zwietering: What was it that first drew you to New York?

Chantal Regnault: I'm a child of '68, and I grew up in a time where we believed in protest, in change. And New York was a city full of life, where everything was happening, that's what drew me there. Once I was there, it was photography that drew me outside. Photography is a good reason to go outside.

ZZ: And outside, you found Pride?

CR: Yes. I felt very close to the people, not only physically, but psychologically. And talking of safe space – the March itself was a safe space. I felt free to express not only what I was fighting for, my rights, but denouncing the oppression, the stigma, the violence, and also singing together, being together. Kissing your partner, holding hands, it was also a way of saying – we're here! To be visible.

Samira Damato: And this is the same feeling you had entering the Ballroom scene?

CR: Yes. Absolutely.

SD: How was that, back then – getting into that world?

CR: The culture had stayed underground in Harlem for almost twenty years. The first real House, this alternative family, with a Mother figure and her children, was created around '72. But it was underground, in a special place called the Elks Lodge¹. There weren't so many balls. When they lost the Elks Lodge, they lost the space. The balls would start at eleven at night, because the queens didn't like to take transportation in the daylight, they were afraid. They'd go until eight in the morning, all night long. They started looking at venues in Midtown, Downtown, Brooklyn, New Jersey, depending on how much money they had, because you had to rent the space every time. They started renting clubs like Sound Factory, Better Days, Tracks², those clubs were closed on Sunday nights, so the ball would happen on a Sunday, their closed night. They'd rent the entire space to produce a ball.

SD: How did you discover it in the first place?

CR: There was this fantastic weekly newspaper called the ‘Village Voice,’ every New Yorker bought it. They were very friendly to the scene. One week they came out with a cover of a beautiful queen, Carmen Xtravaganza, and the title was ‘Venus Envy’. I said, “wow, beautiful, I want to go!” It wasn't so easy, it wasn't really advertised. But I managed to go to the first ball. And once you got to a ball, you got into what they call “the circuit.” They'd give you the word for when the next ball would be, which House would throw it.

ZZ: Were you already photographing the first one?

CR: Yes, though as an outsider, I was wondering how they'd take it, especially because I was a woman, I was white, and maybe being French made it a bit easier. There were all these myths about French people. "You want to be photographed, we have a French photographer here," that's basically how people read you. If you go there simply, as yourself, they read you, and they read me, and said, okay, she's okay.

ZZ: Was there anyone you got especially close to?

CR: I developed a friendship with the famous Fem Queen Moldavia LaBeija³. But I never photographed that part of our relationship, she'd come and relax at my place with friends, we'd have drinks, and to me, that was it. It was very good for me, because I learned more about what life actually was, after the ball. There was very little opportunity to make money except sex work, like the peep shows in Times Square, and down the West Side. But I never wanted to photograph that side. I only wanted to photograph them as they wanted to be – glamorous.

SD: Was there a point where you realised the historical value of these images?

CR: Not so much, really, not for a long time. I mean, I knew I was looking at something underground, a still very underground culture, the stigmatisation of being Black, being gay, being trans. I was aware of that. But I didn't go into it thinking "I'm going to do a subject on trans women.” I was in the middle of a ball, and I found it extraordinary, fascinating – the music, almost a trance-like experience, house music pounding all night long, the MC heating up the girls, the jury and the trophy.

ZZ: And after New York?

CR: When I arrived in France 12 years ago, I started getting phone calls. people telling me there was a scene in Paris now too. The culture crossed the ocean. In the ‘90s it had already been branching out to other cities in the States; Chicago, Atlanta, Detroit… By the 2000s it crossed the ocean. The first Ballroom scene was in Paris, and now it's all over Europe, Russia, Tokyo, and a lot in South America.

SD: When you heard about those new scenes, did you want to go photograph them too?

CR: No, no. I was done. I just wanted to enjoy it. I'd go visit without a camera. Now everybody has a smartphone anyway, it's very different. I didn't feel like I had to take a picture. I could just enjoy it fully.

¹ The Elks Lodge (also known as Harlem’s Imperial Lodge of Elks), was built for a Black fraternal organisation in 1922-24, and opened with a dance hall. Various clubs and spaces in Harlem hosted drag balls from as early as the 1920s and ‘30s, during the Harlem Renaissance. This period was marked by an intellectual, cultural and artistic movement of African-American makers, artists, writers, dancers, and political thinkers centered in Harlem, New York. The Elks Lodge was prominently portrayed in the award-winning documentary Paris is Burning (1990).

² In downtown New York, the Chelsea club Tracks saw the move of Ballroom out of Harlem and Brooklyn in 1986. Voguers from the Ballroom community brought their competitive artistry to Tracks into downtown dance culture. Tracks became a launch pad for many voguers who would later make Sound Factory their home in the early ’90s.

³ Moldavia LaBeija, also known as Moldayvia, Modavia and Mo’Dayvia, was a prominent figure in New York City's Ballroom scene in the ‘80s and ‘90s, celebrated for her elegance and poise, particularly excelling in categories like Femme Queen Realness. She was a prominent member of the House of LaBeija, and her performances set a standard within the Ballroom community, inspiring many who followed.

CHANTAL REGNAULT is a French photographer whose work has documented queer subculture and protest, from the New York Pride marches of the late 1970s and 80s through to the Harlem and downtown Ballroom scene of the late 1980s and early 1990s. Drawn to New York for the life and possibility of the city, she spent three years photographing the Houses and balls of the era, building close relationships within the community while consciously choosing to picture its members as they wished to be seen. Her photographs helped carry the story of Ballroom culture across the Atlantic, and she continues to work from her archive today.

PRIDE PHOTO is a platform for international queer photography stories, dedicated to showing the work of photographers worldwide through exhibitions in public space and beyond.

The exhibition Queer Radiance, In Common Light, is currently on view outside Amsterdam's De Hallen at Tollensstraat 57–45, 1053 RS Amsterdam. The exhibition opened on 7 July and will remain on view until 4 September 2026.