The House of La Sadé
Article by Jireh Gil Jalipa, Editor in Chief
Facilitated by Mayatu Nova, Culture Editor
Photography by Mayatu Nova
Video courtesy of Janaé La Sadé
“I always say family first before ballroom.”
- Mother Patty La Sadé
The House of La Sadé is the country’s latest ballroom house to debut, comprising 16 house members spanning across three major cities along the East Coast. Last month, ROSARIO Editor in Chief, Jireh Gil Jalipa, sat down with four house members, Founding Mother Patty, Godmother Yasmin, Precious and Loki, over video call to chat about the founding of the house, what being in a ballroom house means to them, their ballroom journeys, and more.
Left to Right: Cobra, Kiyana, Shariah, Precious, Paradise
Founding the House of La Sadé
The formation of the house did not happen overnight. For Patty, founding the House of La Sadé was an idea that started when he was still a member of the House of Alexander, under the guidance of Mother Ella Alexander.
“I'd have multiple talks with my house mother, Ella, about starting a new house. And she's always said that there's no new house coming into Magandjin…so she was like, ‘it looks like one day I would have to get one of my kids to start a new house,’” Patty recounts.
Patty left the House of Alexander in 2023 and found his way meeting future La Sadé godmothers, Huda (Yummy La Sadé) and Victoria (Yasmin La Sadé) at 007 and ballroom events. And from 2024 onwards, the House of La Sadé began to form and for Patty, so did the journey of being a house mother.
“It just snowballed from there. And so here we are with 16 beautiful kids, 16 carriages,” he says.
“It's exciting, it's scary, it's nerve wracking. I think for me personally, coming from the House of Alexander, I feel like a lot of people have high expectations of what I can deliver as a parent. That's always been on my mind…for me, it's just trial and error, allowing the paths to take me wherever it leads me to.”
“And on top of that, going through the trials and tribulations as any other house goes through, especially a new house. There's a lot of kinks to smooth out,” he adds."
Founding Mother Patty
Naming the house
When asked about the meaning behind name of their house, Patty explains, “there are so many reasons and meanings to La Sadé.”
“So, you know that the house is named after the music artist, Sadé. Her full name is Folasade, which is a Yoruba, African feminine name, which translates to ‘honour earns a crown.’”
“I feel like it really encapsulates what I want for my house. I want them to be honorary. I want them to earn everything that they do within their lives inside ballroom and outside ballroom. But [La Sadé] also is like a double entendre with the word ‘shade.’ It's a ballroom saying, shade, Sadé, there's ties into there.”
“And also because my first ever daughter, Ashley (Janaé La Sadé), she's a face girly and it's one of my favourite categories in Ballroom. And coincidentally, they used Sade’s music in the face categories. So, it just all made sense,” he remarks.
Left to Right: Janaé, Godmother Yasmin
Envisioning La Sadé’s Legacy
Patty
“For me, the legacy is when you see us, you see our hearts first. I feel like it's going to be beautiful. It's gonna be messy. It's gonna be rocky. But it's going to be to be magical. And it, it already is.”“I have so much high hopes for our house - no expectations. But I know that we're gonna be great. And whatever we do, win, draw or lose. It's never about the ballroom aspect of it, it's about the family. I always say family first before ballroom.”
Loki
“But are gonna win.”
Yasmin
“No, no, wake that up!”
Patty
“Oh yeah, trust. When we walk, we win.”
Left to Right: Adonis, Takudzwa
A ballroom house and a chosen family
‘Houses’ have been part of ballroom culture since its early days in 1960s Harlem, New York City. Historically, beyond balls and competitions, these houses have acted as chosen families and safe havens for Black and Latinx transgender, queer, and gender-diverse individuals.
We asked the house members how has being a part of the House of La Sadé redefined what ‘family’ and ‘home’ mean to them.
Precious
“We picture what a family is but in our own understanding and we put aside our differences to come together.”
“For my understanding [it’s] to love each other unconditionally and [receive] that love that isn't reciprocated in our own homes. I don't know everyone else's story, but mine, it was hard.”
“When I found Patty, that's when everything changed for me. That was my first ever understanding of what chosen family is and what I mean about reciprocating that love.”
“He was able to show me what really lied beneath precious and he knows that I came to him as a boy and with all the love that he had for me, he was able to help me be it who I am now.”
“Even though I already [knew] who I was. I just needed that unconditional love and support that I never received from my own family…I know deep down that I will always have my biological family, and I'll always have love for them, but I feel like chosen family for me has given me a new understanding of purpose.”
Loki
“I feel like chosen family and like community are words that get thrown around a lot, but when it comes to ballroom, a lot of us already…live together, we eat together. There are actually multiple groups of us who are like living together at the moment because of the house.”
“It's really family in the sense of like bearing yourself to each other emotionally and not just that we all ki, which we do. It's a place that really allows for the full messiness of human emotion and that has love that's big enough for that emotion.”
“I think that's what's key. It's a love that is big enough that we can and feel the whole range of everything and be with each other through that, which I think is really beautiful.”
“And yeah, without my connection to that and access to that, I never would've been able to be confident or brave enough or feel I could actually start my own transition, which did mean leaving home, I couldn't have done that otherwise.”
Patty
“I think for me, ballroom has redefined what a home and a family is. This is the space where like a lot of queers, especially queer POCs come to look for something to fill a void that they haven't had in their lives. A lot of us come into Ballroom broken and we are always looking for an answer of healing, of love, of wanting to be seen.”
“For me as a mother, one of my biggest [acts] is to show my kids that I do see them and I want them to see their full potential, not only in ballroom, but also in real life as well.”
“When I first met Precious, she kept saying that she's a butch queen… and I was like, baby, I see a woman. Maybe she didn't see it for herself then, or she was too scared to see it [but] I was that extra push to be like, ‘it's okay to be who you are’ and that's all I ever want for any of my kids. When I see something in them, I'm gonna ride with them. “
“We as queer people, we all share something mutual, whether it be something that's happened with our immediate families or still discovering ourselves. This is the place to be like, ‘hey, I'm trying this’ or ‘I'm scared to actually say this out loud.’ It's great that myself and all these kids come around, we all circle these individuals, being like ‘we got you.’”
“And that to me is what family is. No judgments. All love. That's how I see it.”
Godmother Yummy
From watching to walking the ballroom floor
Reflecting on their individual journeys, each of the house members recounted how they initially found ballroom and entered the scene.
Precious
“I was actually connected to Patty by Honey Givenchy…she had spoken to him [saying] she knew someone who was interested and…thought Ballroom would help expand her knowledge. She saw that I was just yearning for the love that Patty has been giving…and then Patty and I spoke over Instagram. We scheduled a call.”“He then invited me three weeks later to help assist commentate their vogue night. The vogue night, him and his daughters put together.”
“That's where my ballroom journey started…over an Instagram call. I found myself [on] Gadigal [land], where I met everyone who are now my siblings. All thanks to Patty for believing in me."
“When he brought me in, there were so many people that fell in love with me because I bought something different. And I feel like that's why we are all in the house because we bring something different that not everyone has.”
Patty
“I guess my entry point into Ballroom was back in 2019 when my mother Ella was currently living in Sydney. Then she came back up to Brisbane, and she started a little queer POC movement where queer POCs just came to perform and have a place to dance and express themselves. Then further along, she created a house.”“I remember watching America's Best Dance Crew and watching Vogue Evolution. It had like Leyomi, Omari and Deshaun, and…I remember watching it as a twelve-year-old being like, ‘I shouldn't be watching this, but I'm watching it…this is so cool.’”
“And then, doing my own research and seeing all the ballroom cultures and then watching Paris Is Burning (1990), I'm just like, ‘that's something that I want to be a part of.’ And so, when the opportunity came around in 2019, obviously I said yes. 'cause I always wanted to be a part of this scene.”
Yasmin
"I was introduced to ballroom through my roommate at the time who showed me Pose and Legendary. I’d never heard about ballroom or voguing before.”“Later that year I went to my first ballroom event which was The Alexander Ball 2021, and honestly it was as if I was in a candy store. It was just so magical and I’ve been falling in love with ballroom ever since.”
“I didn't even know it at the time that I was watching my future mother walk.”
“Ella Alexander reached out to me in 2023 wanting to get to know me more and asked me herself about where I see myself in ballroom and if I’d ever consider joining/walking and to come to a training her house was having.”
“She spoke to me about the category ‘Body’ and that it hadn’t been done at the balls in a while. She was bringing it back and wanted me to walk it. She introduced me to Imani, Jay, Priestess, Huda and other 007s in the Magandjin scene.”
“I started attending the trainings in June and ended up walking my first ball, The Alexander Ball 2023 category ‘Body’ and took home the GP for Luscious Body and I’ve been walking every since.”
Loki
“I was just really searching for particularly a trans space. Queer spaces that I'd been in didn't really align with me and I guess I never really felt particularly politically aligned with them.”“And I don't know where, but I was literally lying on my bed and voguing came into my head. I don't even know where I knew it from. I genuinely don't. It was like spiritually projected into my brain of like, ‘why don't you just look up if there's ballroom here?’ And I did and saw the House of Alexander.”
“Then like two days later I ran into one of the house members in Fortitude Valley in the club. And they were like, ‘we have this thing on in a couple of days, come along and find out.’ And that was in 2021.”
Beyond the glamour of the ballroom floor
In closing our discussion, we asked if there was any advice each of the house members would like pass down to individuals discovering ballroom and for those just starting their journey within the scene.
Patty
“Learn your history. Research. This culture is not for the glitz and glamor of it all. There is so much pain and so much struggle from this culture that I feel like needs to be respected.”
“I think a lot of people come into the scene thinking that ‘oh, it's a bad thing to do and I wanna be fab,’ there's more to that.”
“There's a long history about the struggles of trans women, of gay men who’ve gone through abuse, who have gone through the AIDS crisis back in the 80s.”
“[Ballroom] was a place to train and how to survive in the real world. And I don't take ballroom lightly.”When I see somebody that is not educated on it, the first thing I always say is research. Google is free. YouTube is free.”
“We are in a day and age now where there is so much resource about this culture that you really have no excuse coming into this scene.”
Yasmin
“Yeah, definitely. I mean, he’s put it to a T. Obviously it's a beautiful thing to witness, the lights, the camera, everybody cheering, but there is such a deeper meaning. That's just the surface. That's just the cherry on top.”“And some people say it's not that deep but it is though, this is your life, especially for those who are trans. Like I'm not trans…but like there are things that they are going through that I will never understand, [and] ballroom will just help them in so many ways.”
“It's not just all fun and games. There is something serious happening here and you need to know what it is that you're doing because at the end of the day, you have to be able to give ballroom back something.”
“And saying these things is not to scare people that want to be a part of ballroom, it is gatekept for a reason.”
“Obviously, you want people to know about Ballroom. You want people to see the beauty in it. But there also needs to be a level of understanding that's taken seriously too.”
Loki
“As our sister Huda always says, Ballroom is not as safe space, it is a brave space and I feel ballroom is something that was fought for tooth and nail...[it’s] survival work.”
“It is this beautiful place where all of you is accepted and you find family and that sort of thing but it's also a space that is fought for all the time and that you frankly earn your place in, and show dedication to and respect to by constantly putting yourself fully in it.”
“And so that can be like confronting but it's also like part of the beauty of it. I think especially when you are white as well, just making sure that you understand that your place in particular is as a visitor or as a guest within Ballroom.”
“Take your time, don't rush in too much straight away because you do actually have to earn your place. Everyone does in ballroom, there's no one that's exempt from that. There's no one that can just waltz in automatically.”
“Just acknowledge and really think critically about like why you are in ballroom and what you can do for it, as much as it can do for you.”
Precious
“I agree with what everyone said. I think for me it's to take every opportunity. On like a lighter side, I feel like if I wasn't, if I didn't take the opportunity that Patty organised for me or gave to me…I wouldn't be here where I'm able to see what the future holds for me.”“But obviously it comes with what my family said, learn your history, know that the safe space was curated by struggle as well…know your privileges, but to also have fun with it.”
“I feel like I wouldn't be myself if I didn't have fun with ballroom.”
Rosario Journal would like to thank Founding Mother Patty, Godmother Yasmin, Loki and Precious for their time and trust during the interview. We wish them and the rest of the House of La Sadé all the best.
Keep up with the House of La Sadé
@kikihouseoflasade