I Am Walking
A FILM BY Sze-Wei Chan
PRODUCTION GRANT - SPRING 2020
In the underground ballroom scenes of Bangkok, Kuala Lumpur and Manila, there are three dancers in for whom voguing is life. It is the one place for them to truly be their gender-queer, sexy, fabulous selves. We follow Sun, Teddy, and Ian as they walk the journey of their lives, from being queens of their local scenes in Southeast Asia, to being virgin voguers on the biggest runway in the world: the Latex Ball in New York City.
In voguing, to “walk” is to participate, to represent, to express oneself. This dance documentary feature brings together references of the iconic queer history of “Paris is Burning” with the idiom of choreographic filmmaking, tracking the shifting space of social norms and gender identity in Southeast Asia. We follow the first wave of voguers in Thailand, the Philippines, and Malaysia as they create new families, spaces of expression, challenge social norms, and establish a network of transnational families among LGBTQ dancers, drag artists and cisgender-heterosexual women for whom vogue is a way to reclaim a fierce feminine sexuality.
The ultimate test of that constructed safe space comes when the voguers make their way to New York City. At the biggest ball in the world, Sun, Teddy and Ian find themselves in a minority among black and latinx dancers. Will they be the next of the many outsiders to be “chopped” in the first stage of the competition? Will they find recognition for themselves and their communities in the international vogue scene?