Social Advocate Miss Lawrence to Host the Purpose Ball
Miss Lawrence, the legendary Atlanta Mother of the iconic House of Balenciaga, is partnering with Pepsi, Live Nation Urban, and award-winning music artist Mary J. Blige to present The Purpose Ball: Bridging the Gap during this year’s Strength of a Woman Festival and Summit on Sunday, May 14 at The Bank in Atlanta, Georgia.
Created to honor the LGBTQ community’s undeniable impact on pop culture and celebrate the essence of ballroom culture, the Purpose Ball will feature special performances from Saucy Santana and special guest appearances from Blige herself, who is serving as a judge alongside Raven Goodwin and Dashaun Wesley of the Emmy-nominated HBO Max ballroom competition series Legendary. The ball will also gather notable members of the ballroom community and introduce rising stars from illustrious houses, all competing for one-of-a-kind prizes in different categories, a tradition from Harlem’s underground ball scene.
Aside from the Purpose Ball, the four-day festival and summit will include musical performances, a gospel brunch, and a comedy night.
Lawrence, who is known largely for his roles on productions like Bros, The United States vs. Billie Holiday, and The Real Housewives of Atlanta, will produce and curate the Purpose Ball and serve as the event’s Master of Ceremonies. He took some time to talk more about it with OFM.
Let me begin by asking, how excited are you to be involved with this year’s Strength of a Woman Festival and Summit?
I couldn’t be more excited! This is honestly what manifestation looks like. I have always had this idea, and it’s always been a dream of mine to figure out a way where our communities could blend. So, having this iconic part of Black, queer culture be a part of something that is so iconic, such as the Strength of a Woman Festival, speaking specifically to the strength of our women, and particularly Black women, that is truly groundbreaking. Again, this is something I’ve always been passionate about, bridging the gap between the communities. For this to be a part of that manifestation, it’s groundbreaking.
So, you believe an event like this is very important?
Oh, it’s extremely important.
Were you involved with the festival last year?
I was. Not as in-depth as I am this year; I wasn’t a part of the actual programming. However, I hosted a dinner. There’s a dinner series that I started called Miss Lawrence Presents “Plated Purpose,” which is designed to bridge the gap between the Black LGBTQ and the Black straight community. I brought together a group of Black hetero people and a group of Black LGBTQ people, and we communed together.
We dined; we shared our human experiences with one another, and I did that during the Strength of a Woman Festival last year. I reached out to Mary J. Blige’s team to invite her to the dinner, and she came and loved it. It was a beautiful, beautiful moment, and I believe as a result of that, I was asked and invited this year to officially be a part of the festival, curating and producing a ball. That’s why it’s called the Purpose Ball, because it’s derived from my “Plated Purpose” dinner.
Can you tell us more about the Purpose Ball and what attendees can expect?
All attendees can expect mounds of creativity, and balls are very affirming spaces. Especially for people of underserved communities. This ball will be special because it is the first time that we have had categories for people of the straight or hetero experience. We have one category in particular that I’m excited about called “Mother versus Mother.” It’s one of our fashion categories. Let’s say you want to come to the ball, and you want to bring your mom, who is a supporter of you. They don’t necessarily know much about the culture, but she is supportive of you, and you want to dress mom up, put her on the runway and walk against another mother. Then, whoever wins, the judges vote on who was best dressed for that evening, they’ll win a prize.
That’s a fun category, and it’s one that I’m very excited about. Again, it leans into the bridging the gap part of what our mission and purpose is. Bringing our loved ones and supporters into our space to make us all better. Another really big category that I’m excited about is the face category. The grand prize for the face category is $20,000; it’s sponsored by Gilead Sciences, and that one is special to me because the very first category that I ever saw when I got into ballroom almost 20 years ago was a face category. My dear friend, sister, and one of my ballroom mentors, Raquel Balenciaga, she’s the founding mother of the House of Balenciaga; that was her category. I went to a ball to support her; I had no idea what I was going into, and that was the first category I ever saw. I saw how electrifying it was and how crazy the people went to experience this category.
So, I wanted that to be the biggest grand prize category of the night. Also, because it pays homage to many mothers in the ballroom community. The Strength of a Woman Festival centers around Mother’s Day. It’s about those mothers and the strength of women, and how impactful and instrumental mothers have been in a lot of our lives. In ballroom culture, we have our mothers. I’m a mother. I’m one of the mothers of the House of Balenciaga, and it just makes sense to bring these cultures together. That one common denominator is to edify and celebrate what it means to be a mother and celebrate who your mother is.
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What is your background in ballroom, and how did you initially get involved with it?
I am a legend in ballroom, an up-and-coming icon! I would say I joined the House of Balenciaga in 2008, but I think I may have walked my very first ball in 2006. As you know, it’s a very magnetic space. It’s a space where you can literally become whatever you want and anything you ever dreamed about. If that’s a supermodel, if that’s an entertainer, whatever, here’s a space where you can go, and depending on how well you do and how well you put your best foot forward, the entire space affirms you as that thing. That’s pretty much how a lot of balls started. That’s the origin because society told us for so long, and I’m speaking for our forefathers and ancestors in ballroom, that you could not become this thing in real life, that we would never have a real space in society.
So, instead of crying about it, ballroom culture and the people that built it decided, “We will become those things. We’ll build it for ourselves,” and that is how a lot of the balls started. When I walk into a ball, even to this day, and we’re talking decades later, I still feel the same energy it was founded on. It’s a part of me. I feel like it’s in my blood at this point, and I don’t think I could ever abandon, neglect, or shy away from it. As for being a mother, I think I’ve been a mother in the house since 2016, and it’s a real treat because I understand that I’ve been able to occupy spaces that initially a long, long time ago, people, especially of the Black experience and the Black LGBTQ experience, thought that we wouldn’t be able to occupy.
Now that I’m a noted television personality, an actor, and a singer, I get to share my experiences, drop jewels, and plant seeds into people in my house in the ballroom culture that says, we can become all these things that our ancestors thought we would never be able to come. That’s why they created this space, but we now get to show them that their dreams were not deferred. We are now able to take up our rightful space in life, society, and culture.
Ballroom has contributed so much to the LGBTQ community. Do you think that has been forgotten in some ways?
I think ballroom has contributed a lot to not just the LGBTQ community, but I think it’s also contributed a lot to popular culture. Ballroom is literally everywhere. You can’t escape it. Now, does the ballroom community and the ballroom culture get all its roses and flowers as it should? No, absolutely not. I think we’ve made great strides, and again, we’re taking up these spaces.
There are shows that have given a glimpse into ballroom culture and its origin, like Legendary that was on HBO Max. That showed what the competition part of ballroom was like, so we’ve come a long way, but we still have a very long way to go. I think one of the missing pieces to the puzzle is showing how influenced we are by ballroom culture, even in our straight and hetero communities. Once we do more work in that space, I think we will have a little bit more equity in society as equals in ballroom.
Ultimately, what do you hope attendees take away from the Strength of a Woman Festival and Summit?
I hope people leave the summit and festival feeling empowered, I hope that people leave ready to do more work, and I hope that people leave feeling more affirmed. With all the moving parts of the festival, including the ball, I hope that people leave with this broader idea of what love is and what love looks like, as well as a broader scope of what inclusion looks like and how much more we are alike than we are different.
Before we wrap up, are there any other upcoming projects or anything else you would like to mention or plug?
Not at the moment. I have some stuff coming out later this year, but they haven’t given us the okay or confirmation about dates. However, I can say that I do have a film coming out later this year called The Deliverance. It’s a Lee Daniels movie coming out on Netflix with Glenn Close, Mo’Nique, and Andra Day.
Stay up-to-date with Lawrence by following him on Facebook and Twitter @lawrenceatl, or Instagram @misslawrence. For additional details regarding the 2023 Strength of a Woman Festival and Summit and to purchase tickets for the Purpose Ball, visit soawfestival.com.
Photos courtesy of Miss Lawrence
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