Fabulous

The queer dancer Lasseindra Ninja is an icon for the LGBTQ community in cities like New York and Paris. In her native French Guiana, however, hardly anyone has heard of her, and her dance style, voguing, is still relatively unknown.

The leitmotif in Fabulous is a voguing masterclass that Lasseindra gives in a gym in the capital of Cayenne. Scenes of the lessons, in which the students are challenged to show their most feminine side, are punctuated by conversations with three young male dancers. They talk about the rigid ideal of masculinity in Guiana, their experiences of rejection by family members or the outside world, and the underground character of the gay scene in Cayenne.

Archive footage showing Lasseindra’s dazzling performance at various “balls” shows a subculture based on self-expression and unconditional mutual support—a mentality that also sets the atmosphere during the lessons in Cayenne. In the course of the workshop we see the participants’ self-confidence grow, and in a moving finale, a select audience gets to see them show off their catwalks, spins and dips—and above all, themselves.