The histories of both Pride month and Juneteenth will be celebrated at the Prismatic Ball in Mechanics’ Hall in downtown Portland on Thursday night.

The event, which was sold out, was created by Portland performance artist Aquarius Funkk, and is intended to honor Black, Indigenous and people of color in the queer, trans and gender non-conforming communities, although Funkk said it will be open to everyone.

“It is not a BIPOC-exclusive event, but it is a space where those experiences are prioritized and uplifted so that people can really see the depth of the work we are doing in this community,” they said.

Equality Community Center and Maine TransNet are partnering in the event, which was inspired by ballroom culture, a movement that first became prominent in the 1970s as a safe space for Black and Latino LGBTQ+ individuals in New York City.

The Prismatic Ball will feature eight competitive categories, including Best Dressed, Drag Face and Vogue, a type of improvisational dance with deep roots in the ballroom scene. There will be multiple DJs and dancing. Funkk said that the audience for the event is as important as the performers themselves.

Funkk, originally from Portland, helped organize the city’s first Vogue Ball at Mechanics’ Hall in 2015.

“The Prismatic Ball marks the 10-year anniversary of Portland is Burning, the city’s first vogue ball,” Katie Page, programs manager at Mechanics’ Hall said. “Its return to the original venue makes this celebration both historic and deeply resonant.”

Funkk spent nine years in the ballroom scene in Mexico City, where they drew inspiration for tonight’s event.

The date of the event, on Juneteenth, is also intentional. The ball also serves as a platform to spotlight social advocacy in Maine’s communities of color.

“This is a fun event and it’s very entertaining,” Funkk said. “But it also is a platform and a portal into all the other work people are doing in the community that might be affiliated with Black, Brown and Indigenous liberation and the work we are doing to get free, change culture and elevate our stories.”

The event will also honor the three-year anniversary of Portland activist Nicole Mokeme’s death. Mokeme was murdered by her ex-boyfriend in Acadia National Park on Juneteenth in 2022. She ran the Rise and Shine Youth Retreat, which offered wellness retreats and other programs for Black youths and adults in Maine.

“She was someone who was doing the work in the community that was really shifting the needle,” Funkk said. “She was incredibly important to the young black and brown folks that she was working with.”

René Goddess, another community activist and close friend of Mokeme, will be at the event, raising money to create a retreat space for survivors of trafficking to heal, connect with nature and participate in sustainable life practices.

THE HISTORY OF BALLROOM

The roots of ballroom culture can be traced to the late 1880s, when a formerly enslaved man named William Dorsey Swann started hosting private balls known as drags. The parties were held in secret in Washington, D.C., and involved folk songs, dances and competitions, as documented by historian Channing Joseph.

Michael Roberson, a public health practitioner, theologian and author of the forthcoming book “Ballroom: A History, A Movement, A Celebration,” said ballroom culture itself came to life during the Harlem Renaissance, when Black queer communities in Harlem felt discriminated against by their churches and community and created alternative spaces for self-expression in drag balls.

“Ballroom is part of the Black struggle for freedom,” Roberson said. “It has something to say about what it means to be human and the fight for freedom in the face of catastrophe.”

The movement evolved again in the late 1960s and early 1970s from drag balls into house balls — which kept the competition element, but incorporated a broader group of participants and involved the creation of “houses,” chosen families of people in the LGBTQ+ community.

Black and Latino gay, trans and queer people in 1970s New York developed a thriving subculture of house balls, where they could express themselves and find acceptance through competitions that served as an alternative to the predominantly white drag pageant scene.

One of the movement’s key organizers was Crystal Labeija, a Black drag queen who challenged racism in mainstream drag competitions and founded the first ballroom house — the House of Labeija — in 1968, Roberson said.

Funkk will debut their own house in Portland at the ball — the Interplanetary House of Funkk. The house will have 11 members — including a “mother” and a “father.” The house structure offers an alternative form of kinship, with LGBTQ+ people choosing families to share guidance, love and resources with.

The 1990s saw another era in ballroom, where vogue dancing became used as a way to organize and spread events across the globe, Roberson said.

Still, the movement is fairly new to Maine. “It is significant that ballroom is coming to your city, Portland, now,” Roberson said.

The Prismatic Ball is intended to be a doorway for attendees to see a cultural story and advocacy work that many have never encountered firsthand, Funkk said.

“This event is an opportunity for people to experience culture that they may not have had the chance to experience,” Funkk said. “It is a way to break down some of the walls between us.”