The legendary overall mother of the Kiki House of Siriano shares her experience navigating motherhood, freelancing and ballroom…
By Victoria Hincapie Gomez
The Legendary Danah Rosales is much honoured for her work in dancing, teaching, coaching, mentoring, consulting, producing, and collaborative and interdisciplinary choreography and performance. Her inclusiveness, and love of dancing, started early. She grew up in the ’90s in the neighbourhood of Rexdale, which exposed her to a lot of different cultural influences. Her public school had a lot of diversity, with families of Caribbean, West Indian and Asian descent.
Rosales’ passion for dancing traces back to those earliest memories, a legacy ignited by her grandmother.
“Our dining table transformed into a stage under her direction. My brother and I would recite poems to movement and gestures for her and my family. My Lola also enrolled me in kinder-ballet classes. Growing up within a religious household presented a unique environment where secular music held a less prominent role. So I discovered a meaningful creative avenue within the church’s dance ministry, where this experience intertwined my inherent passion for movement and dance with spiritual expression,” she says.
Her introduction to voguing came later, when she was a music and dance major at the Etobicoke School of the Arts and met Mother Symba Mulan.
“Symba introduced voguing to me in 2006 when we became close friends as dance majors in our high school. During lunch and after-school times when the hallways were empty or when the dance studios were not in use, we’d pump vogue beats, play around, and he’d also choreograph voguing into his pieces,” she says.
Voguing originated in the ’70s in the New York City ballroom scene, as a form of rebellion towards traditional gender norms and discrimination against LGBTQ+ Black and Latinx folks. Ballroom emulates the structure of a family for those shunned due to their identity and/or artistic inclinations. There’s a mainstream and kiki ballroom scene in all iterations of ballroom around the world, but there’s only one Canada- based mainstream ballroom house – the House of Monroe – which became the country’s first ballroom house back in 2006. What differentiates a mainstream house and a kiki house is that the latter is tailored towards youth compared to the mainstream scene, where there’s more at stake and predominant ballroom figures who have been walking for more than five years appear to be more prominent.
The Toronto kiki ballroom scene goes back to 2010, when Icon Twysted Siriano (founding father of the house of Siriano) and Legendary Mother Vixen 007 co-founded the Toronto Kiki Ballroom Alliance (TKBA) to create a safe and supportive space for racialized LGBTQIA+ youth. The Kiki House of Siriano and the Kiki House of Juicy Couture are among the 13 ballroom houses in the TKBA.
In 2014, Rosales graduated from the School of Toronto Dance Theatre (TDT) along with Symba and another staple dancer in the performance(voguing) category in the kiki scene, Legendary Snoopy 007.
“Snoopy was the person who invited me to the first kiki ball I attended. Symba, Snoopy and I graduated post-secondary together at the School of TDT, and after one of our performances, Snoopy invited our class to the House of Nuance’s Ball, where I was introduced to the ballroom community here in Toronto,” she says.
Months later after spectating her first ball, Rosales adopted the name of ‘Maldita’ as her ballroom name, and debuted in the women’s performance (voguing) category in Snoopy’s first-ever ball, called ‘Let’s Have a Snoopy’ on March 14, 2015, at The 519.
“I honestly just wanted to wake it up for Snoopy, since he really was the one showing and teaching me how to vogue and sharing with me what the ballroom culture is, inviting me in, so as a little birthday gift, I walked his ball. I was so nervous,” she says.
Rosales says women’s performance walkers need to acknowledge that voguing came from the femme queens (trans women) and butch queens (gay men) in the scene.
“Walkers need to put a lot of time into research to really pay homage and give credit where it’s due. When walking women’s performance, I always feel like we are being included – however, to do the category justice, it really is to be putting in the work, in the process, in the rehearsing, in the practising and the involvement with the community,” she explains.
Three years after walking her first ball, Rosales would become Toronto Mother of the Kiki House of Siriano, to then become Overall Mother in 2023.
Other leaders of the Kiki House of Siriano include Founding Father Twysted, Father Bam Bam, Overall Godmother Kitana, Father Jaws, Mother Luxe, Overseer Songbird, Princess Poppers, Princess Meija and Prince Kamel.
In 2022, Rosales was given Legendary status at the TKBA Presents: The Red Carpet Movie Awards Ball for the impact of her contributions in the kiki ballroom scene in Canada.
Outside of ballroom, navigating the dance industry as a freelance dancer while balancing motherhood has posed some challenges to Rosales’ life.
“As a single mother navigating the dance/arts industry, the challenges I face extend far beyond the studio and stage. The inherent instability of this profession and the constant financial strain significantly impact both my well-being and my ability to provide for my children,” she explains.
“The pay is low and, unlike other professions, we don’t have reliable HR departments or unions that truly stand up for us and our rights. We need real change. We need increased support from educational institutions and companies, improved policies, stronger protections and, fundamentally, a societal recognition of dance and arts not as a luxury, hobby or pastime, but as a legitimate profession deserving of respect, equity and genuine care.”
Despite these challenges, Rosales has found success in her career trajectory, and opportunities in which her ballroom and dance background have intersected.
In 2023, she choreographed a show entitled ‘Convergent Divergency‘ for TDT as a love letter to the ballroom scene. Other notable mentions include overseeing the Ballroom Tri-City Project last December.
“My main career highlights would be these ‘crossover episodes’ of my ballroom world and family. Another meaningful highlight is being able to connect, build relationships, collaborate and foster community with more queer Filipinxs throughout this artistic journey,” she says. “My upbringing offered a relatively narrow window into the diasporic Filipino experience, largely shaped by the confines of religion and church. This early exposure, while formative and while still honouring my upbringing, presented a limiting singular perspective on identity and experience on what it is to be Filipino.”
Rosales is also a three-time Dora Award–nominated artist for her work encompassing dancing, teaching, coaching, mentoring, consulting, producing, and collaborative and interdisciplinary choreography and performance.
As a Legend in the ballroom kiki scene, Rosales has seen, and been an active force in, the evolution of the performance category in the past 11 years. The evolution of the most celebrated category within ballroomhas also been largely due to key figures like Icon Twysted Siriano and Legendary Snoopy working in partnership and collaboration with organizations and initiatives.
“Twysted’s tireless and consistent efforts are central to this growth, Rosales says. “Their long-running work with the TKBA as the co-founder and all that it encompassed – TKBA Drop-in Tuesdays, the AGO Kiki Lounge and many various pop-up workshops with organizations, along with school outreaches – has made performance skill development and introductions to ballroom culture accessible for queer youth, nurturing a generation of ballroom artists and members and [increasing] integration into the community,” she says.
“Snoopy’s many contributions through what he does as a professional dance artist, teacher and choreographer, teaching at The Underground Dance Centre and Studio North, spanning studio and commercial dance, have offered vital training and exposure, bridging different dance worlds and enriching performers’ skills.”
The collective impact of TKBA’s board, council and teams, alongside other organizers, and their commitment to diverse and inclusive spaces that directly support individuals’ ability to participate and showcase their talents, has also been crucial to the growth of the performance category and everything encompassing the scene.
Over the years, being the mother of the House of Siriano has shaped Rosales’ way of thinking about motherhood.
“In my personal life, I’m a single mother raising my two children without the presence or support of their fathers. While that comes with its own challenges, I’m incredibly grateful to have the support of my immediate family to help me and my children navigate life,” she shares.
“The Sirianos are not just my ballroom family – they’re an extension of my biological family. Motherhood in the ballroom has redefined what motherhood means to me: it’s about more than just biology, it’s a spirit as well. Ballroom has made my understanding of motherhood more expansive and inclusive. It has rooted me in the power of community care and reminded me that a chosen family can be just as sacred and life-giving as the family we’re born into.”
Despite the ongoing financial and legal struggles people within the 2SLGBTQI+ community face, Rosales believes the community will still find a way to be there for each other.
“I believe that the next generation of young people carries a significant source of hope and promise. Today there is more access to information, a greater understanding of diverse perspectives and acceptance, a heightened awareness of generational cycles of toxicity and mental health, so young people today possess a unique vantage point. I suspect this will translate and be embodied in the next leaders coming up in the ballroom communities but also how they express it in their craft, their performance,” she says.
VICTORIA HINCAPIE GOMEZ is a Colombian transgender journalist based in Toronto. She writes and reports stories about crime, culture and politics as well as profiles of people within under-represented communities. Victoria’s writing has appeared in CBC Arts and Humber Polytechnic’s news outlets, Skedline News and Humber Etcetera.
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