When considering who to talk to for my first profile, Eliza Brooks (she/they) was the obvious choice. They are the founder of HOUS — a queer arts group on MSU’s campus, and they are truly an inspiration to racially diverse queer progress on our campus. During our talk, we went over who Eliza is, what HOUS is all about, ballroom culture, and the Haunted House Ball coming up on Friday, October 22nd from 8-10 pm.
Q: Who is Eliza?
A: “I am a bisexual Afro Latina trans nonbianary person. I am a dancer but I’m not dancing at the moment because I just don’t have the time for it right now. I’m not a full time drag queen, I’m a full time drag mother.
I want to go to law school after I graduate. My goal is to make my way up into being a lawyer but I do ultimately want to get involved in politics. The end goal for me is working on a political stage. If not, my goal would be to open a community center of my own somewhere and run that for the rest of my life.”
Q: Why did you found HOUS?
A: “There were dueling reasons. The first one was I personally and other people on campus felt that a lot of the lgbt clubs we have were lacking a level of diversity that make them welcoming spaces to be in. They were very white and very male heavy and that’s just not a super welcoming experience or environment for all of us within the community so I feel like there was that. Also I think I am one of maybe two LGBT orgs that are BIPOC. I think there’s just myself and the president of the POC LGBT group. The other big reason is that there’s just no place for drag and ballroom culture on campus for students.”
Q: Tell us about your experience in ballroom culture
A: “I got involved in ballroom when I was 14. At first I could come watch and then it became participating. Participating for me was always something that was a big part because I am really competitive by nature, but also it was just a really cool way to find yourself.
I consistently walked two categories: body and catwalk, body being my personal favorite because it’s just a liberating experience. Catwalk is where the five elements of vogueing starts to come in.
To this day, no matter what it is, I make faces at people while I’m performing. Not on purpose but my brain just goes ‘scrunch your nose at that person’ while I’m on stage performing. That got me the nickname ‘The Ratchet Princess Catwalk’ because people assumed I was a mean, ratchet person. I can’t say that’s entirely wrong.”
Q: What does being a part of the ballroom mean to you?
A: “It’s literally everything. It’s my entire life in so many ways, from feelings I have on the idea of family to houses being named after the four pillars of life I was taught within the ballroom and taught to my own children. That’s where HOUS got its name. It’s everywhere and I think it becoming mainstream in the way it has is so helpful to so many people”
Q: Tell me about the Haunted Halloween Ball
A: So the ball is taking place October 22nd from 8-10 pm in the Erickson kiva. It’s the big circle classroom that’s jotting out of the edge at Erickson hall.
We’re planning on having five categories: face, body, femme runway, masc runway, and then a bizarre runway. We are having staff and faculty judges from MSU faculty that are POC, LGBT, or both. We’ll also have a couple other performances throughout the night including myself. I am coming out of retirement for this night! A few other queens from around Michigan are gonna come and perform.”
Q: Do you encourage non-queer individuals to come and experience this staple of queer culture?
A: “This is open to everyone. We did invite other orgs to send people to compete and what we told them is that this is a queer event. Like this is an LGBT event but we also feel that with how life has been lately and some of the tensions around social issues on campus lately that, you know, we all just need an environment that is gonna be Good, fun time, free of that negativity that there’s been a lot of.”
I would like to thank the talented Eliza for taking the time to talk to me, and I hope to see you all at the ball on Friday, October 22nd from 8-10 pm at Erickson Kiva!