Entertainment News
2006-09-07
Dancer Willi
Ninja dies
Dancer Willi
Ninja, whose skill in the gender-bending art of
"voguing" influenced Madonna and was immortalized in the
documentary film
Dancer Willi
Ninja, whose skill in the gender-bending art of
"voguing" influenced Madonna and was immortalized in the
documentary film Paris Is Burning, has died,
friends and relatives said Tuesday.
Ninja died
Saturday of AIDS-related illnesses at New York Hospital
Medical Center of Queens, they said. He was 45.
Inspired by Fred
Astaire, Great Performances on PBS, Asian
culture, and Olympic gymnasts, Ninja was a self-taught
performer who stitched together a patchwork career that
extended into the worlds of dance, fashion, and music.
The critically
acclaimed 1990 documentary, directed by Jennie Livingston,
shed light on the exotic gay subculture in which the
cross-dressing participants, many of them black and
Latino, displayed their costumes and styles at
Manhattan balls.
Judges rated
participants on the realness of their drag impersonations;
and on a deeper level, the balls became a colorful
demonstration of serious issues of gender, class, and
race.
In its review of
Paris Is Burning, The New York Times called
Ninja "a lithe, articulate young man who also happens
to be a master in the art of 'voguing,' in which dancers
attempt to top each other by using gymnastics and the
gestures of high-fashion models."
Madonna used the
style in 1990 in her number 1 hit record and video
"Vogue." Speaking through a spokeswoman Tuesday, Madonna
said she was sorry to hear of Ninja's death,
saying, "He was a great cultural influence to me and
hundreds of thousands of other people."
In a 1991
Associated Press interview, Ninja—born William Leake
in 1961—said the drag queen balls began in the
1960s and that over the years new varieties of
performance, including voguing, evolved as more gays
participated.
"I didn't find
out about it until 1980.... I didn't know what this
was about. I began learning from the experts, and I
developed my own style," he said.
His career
boosted by the attention from Paris Is Burning,
Ninja performed with dance companies, worked under noted
choreographers, and instructed models and socialites how to
walk and pose with frisson.
Livingston said
Ninja, a "supremely gifted dancer" who was dedicated
to his craft, was "one of the main reasons" she made
the film.
She recalled
walking through Washington Square Park one summer and
spotting young men voguing beneath a tree. She approached
them to learn about this dance, which was new to her,
and the young men told her to look up Ninja.
"Whenever you
talk about vogue or voguing, Willi's name is there,"
Livingston said in an interview Tuesday. "Willi refined
voguing. He really brought it to an amazing level." (AP)
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