New York City dance culture is second to none in the world. Numerous styles have either emerged from the city or been refined to the uppermost echelons of the art form with thousands of dancers pouring into this town to hone their craft and choreograph their next masterpiece.

One particularly unique dance form has been ballroom style voguing. The genre is an expressive, stylized dance form that originated in the Black and Latinx LGBTQ+ underground ballroom scene in Harlem, New York, during the 1960s through the 1980s.

While the dance form has flourished, it has recently made its presence known in the mainstream through competitions, televised and digitized performances, as well as the main creative thrust behind Cats: The Jellicle Ball.

I've been to several of these dance-offs and I can tell you the energy is palpable. There's so much attitude, sass and flair, shaken up in a Molotov cocktail and exploding onto the stage/runway with unapologetic confidence. It's quite an experience and may you be fortunate to be invited to witness one of these gatherings.

Artistic Statement

This is a photo that was taken on January 16th, 2016 in the afternoon at the House of Vans, during the pre-show event for DJ Hisham Akira Bharoocha.

This photo is from a set I shot for an indie music magazine. The images capture the gritty, hipster spirit of old New York City, and they remind me of the hip-hop dance parties that once filled the Bronx. This time, though, the dance was voguing.

I had never seen voguing in person before, so Qween Beat gave me the full tour. The dancers spin, twirl, and drop all the way to the floor. What made the night special was that the crowd joined in. A young woman in sky-high heels owned the floor, and a young man brought old-school popping and locking with a bit of krumping mixed in.

It was a throwback to the days when New York DJs set the beat and the crowd came to dance.

For more incredible photos, please follow Kwame Anyane-Yeboa HERE.

If you have any amazing photos you’ve taken or that you’ve come across, that you think are simply incredible representations of community and culture in NYC, please send them my way [email protected] (when sending, please include photo credit as well as the location in NYC where this was taken and when as well as a brief description no more than a paragraph long of what’s happening in the photo and why it inspires you.)

Brooklyn Fishing Club

For a city surrounded by water, it can be surprisingly easy to forget just how much adventure awaits beyond New York’s shoreline.

Brooklyn Fishing Club (BFL) is helping change that. 

Founded in 2014 by lifelong angler and sixth-grade science teacher Victor Lucia, BFL grew from his love of fishing and his desire to share it with other New Yorkers.

Since then, BFL has helped more than 1,000 people catch their first fish, while building a community where complete beginners can comfortably fish alongside experienced anglers.

Through group trips, meetups, and educational seminars, members can find themselves catching striped bass with the Statue of Liberty in the background one weekend and heading offshore in search of tuna the next.

And the adventures don’t end when temperatures drop, the club fishes year-round, including winter ice-fishing trips upstate.

That welcoming approach has also helped broaden perceptions of who belongs in this time-honored past time.

BFL has been featured by The New York Times, New York Post, Brooklyn Magazine, and Outside, with the Times specifically highlighting the club’s role in introducing more women to offshore fishing.

For Lucia, education has remained an important part of the equation and to that effect he has launched a podcast of the same monitor that has surpassed 150,000 downloads across 95 episodes, featuring everyone from fishing legends Bill Dance and Mike Iaconelli to hip-hop artist Masta Ace.

And while community may be at the heart of BFC, don’t mistake that friendliness for a lack of competitive chops.

In December 2020, Lucia led a four-person BFL team into the Guatemala Billfish Invitational, the first fishing tournament any of them had ever entered…and WON.

Competing against a field that included internationally recognized professional anglers, the New York crew finished with an extraordinary 63 sailfish over three days, winning by 13 fish and securing the first billfish tournament victory for a New York City based club.

The mission has also expanded beyond the club itself. Lucia founded the nonprofit Maritime Youth Alliance to give underserved young people opportunities to experience fishing, learn about conservation, and discover potential careers connected to the maritime world.

It’s a natural extension of what BFL has always done particularly well, using fishing as the entry point, then allow education, mentorship, adventure, and relationships to grow around it.

And after more than a year without accepting new members, there’s a rare opportunity to join that crew. Brooklyn Fishing Club will open membership to just 20 new members for 2027.

Whether you've been fishing your entire life or have never held a rod, the invitation is the same:

Come.

Learn.

Explore.

Experience.

Certainly seems like an opportunity worth catching if you catch my drift…

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Thank you for taking the time to read to the end!

I hope you found something inspiring and meaningful in my content and until next time, explore the possibilities of NYC.

-Sugary

🍰🍭🍩🍦🍫🍪🍨🧁

PS. Don’t be shy and hit reply and tell me how you’re doing!