The Past Presents: Valentino Valentine

I feel like I first established my creative roots—which is not a story that’s exclusive to me—in the church. I’m from a very religious family. And so every Sunday, you know, it was the Gospel Hour. And I grew up in like a church choir. That’s kind of where I first connected to the arts. Fashion didn’t come until later. My father is Haitian—very old school, very traditional, very conservative, and so growing up I had a very materialistic view of expressing yourself through fashion. I didn’t view it as a form of expression or feeling or messaging. It was just, to me, it seemed materialistic. And then it wasn’t until my later years where it ended up being something that also unlocked and freed me. I specifically remember I was not a kid that paid attention in church—I don’t know if the kids do pay attention in church—but I definitely wasn’t paying attention. I felt removed from the church. I definitely felt different about when it was time to sing or kind of have these more theatrical pieces. I just felt more alive.

Growing up, I wasn’t part of an environment that welcomes my femininity. I wasn’t in an environment that was aware of queer culture or gay identity. And so there was a lot of resistance, and there was a lot of sheltering in place to prevent me from even finding those things out which was hard. Because it’s like, as I’m growing up, I’m acknowledging that there’s something there and there’s something different and I’m being kept away from it. And so as art does, it unlocks you and frees you, and I don’t know, kind of gives you this opportunity to escape and learn more about yourself, that’s what was happening through middle school, through high school, as I was joining choir and joining theater, and then later pursuing theater as my major in college. I began kind of connecting the dots myself. But yeah, that wasn’t with the approval or help of my parents, which, you know, would have been nice. But yeah, it wasn’t until even after college when I really started making moves in self-discovery and my queer identity, and just being affirmed in that way. And I think it’s interesting how I started therapy around the same time that I started my journey with ballroom, and I just feel like since then, it was just an immediate explosion to my true self, which I’m still discovering a lot about. You know, I don’t feel like I’m there at 30 yet. But it definitely helped me heal.

I always say that ballroom has the capacity for healing and transformation. That pairing with therapy was just gorgeous. And they also say therapy is best paired with medication. Some people see a lot of improvement with seeing a therapist, some people would just prefer getting medication, but study shows that paired together is when it’s better. And I feel like paired with ballroom is even better! Ballroom and art have definitely been my medication, to help me unlock those doors and figure out myself.

When I went to pursue acting I definitely knew I wanted to perform, and I definitely knew I wanted to be on stage, I wanted to be on film. But I also knew that I felt like I had to take that route, right? Because of my upbringing and society. The school that I went to—the institution doesn’t hold space for one, Black people, two, queer people. And then if you’re in film, it’s like, you might as well stay home, because it’s like, they’re pushing a very cis, straight agenda onto me on what they think will be castable. So it’s not even like they’re working with who I am as a person to curate and hone in on that craft and then take that to the industry. It’s like, let’s force you to be this like, weird thing for the machine. I’m discovering myself, then having these professors pushing this agenda on me. I don’t know how I went through college without a therapist. Honestly, I don’t know how I did it. But again, it was so refreshing to fall into Ballroom after all of that and have them be like, no, remove all of that, you were always the gift. All that I’ve done so far since college has all come from within who I am, not from being who they wanted me to be.

The only reason why I came to Colorado was to study software engineering. It was funny because I was in Colorado literally in a basement coding and no one knew who I was at the time. And it was so interesting because people here saw me as this tech person, not a creative person at all. And so after I finished the program, it was just job hunting. Normally, I’m someone that like needs to release, I need to dance. I need to do all these things, regardless if it’s for a check or not. So in that break between my first job and school, Passa Flora, the founder and father of the Kiki House of Flora in Portland, hosted a Vogue workshop here.

I’ve always been watching ballroom from like a distance through social media, but I never had a physical participation with it. I remember this silk workshop weekend, I took their class, and I just felt so right. This feeling has only happened one other time in my life. And it just felt so good. It felt so right. I felt so alive. And I didn’t really see myself as a voguer per se, but I was like, I want to learn more about this. I want to unfold this feeling. And I did just that.

It was really cool because I had no money, but I was still making it work. And I think that’s the whole point of Ballroom—this community of people making it work and still presenting themselves in such an exquisite way. That was rejuvenating me and giving me purpose and reason to pop off. It’s such a homogenous city. I’ve experienced so much discrimination, so much. And sometimes not even like a big deal—it can just be a feeling or a look, you know, being eyed or seeing people feel allowed to cause me harm or express their disdain. [Drag] definitely refueled my energy to just even be here and exist and also gave me more reason to establish: I need my space. If I’m going to be here in Denver, I want to need my community. I need my space; I just need that for me to stay sane.

Right before the COVID shutdown, we were on such a high, we just had our first ball that was a huge success. Everybody was doing good. We had some major events already in the works that just got canceled. We were on this really good momentum. Everyone in the house at the time were on their own personal journeys of discovery and identity. And honestly, that’s what ballroom offers you. Then it was like, COVID, go sit down. And this space that you feel so affirmed, where you’re having people look at you and say, “yes, I see you, you’re beautiful, what you’re presenting is beautiful,” you didn’t have that anymore. And so you felt isolated not just by being safe, but your whole discovery, and all of those affirmations— what that community brings to you—was just stripped away... it was hard. Luckily, we had already established our house here. So we had weekly video House meetings where we would just check in, talk, hang out, just kind of see how everyone’s sanity was doing. And it was crazy. Because at first, it was like, what the fuck is going on? There wasn’t a lot of information out. You know, people were wanting to go back home to visit family. And so it was nice—it kind of brought us together because it was like, we can’t communicate in a physical way anymore, but to see the willingness of everyone sticking together to figure it out really brought the house even closer together.

I feel like I’m making it my own thing, I’m diving into creative coding and figuring out how I want to push forward my art with tech. It’s just reigniting my passion for tech and what tech actually can be for me and my community. It’s been this really trippy, unknown space to be in because I don’t know what I’m producing. I don’t know where this is gonna lead, but I am having fun. And it is very much in line with some of those intentions that I went into learning tech. Because when I started the Bootcamp, I was like, I want to find a platform where tech and art can coexist with each other. Yeah, that’s what I want to do. That’s where I fall in love. And I feel like I’m just now touching on that in tech.

I feel like ballroom has taught me how to get what’s mine and get what I’m owed. And so when I step into these very white dominated spaces, I felt like a couple years ago, I wouldn’t have been able to navigate through those spaces because I know, as a black person, being gay, what is being fem, like, I’m not going to always be met with respect. So it’s taught me how to handle that, how to demand it.