Paris Dupree

Paris Dupree (also stylized as Paris Duprée or Paris DuPree; 1950 – August 2011) was an American drag performer and documentary participant featured in Jennie Livingston's 1990 documentary, Paris is Burning, which was named after Dupree's annual ball.

Career Dupree was the founding member and mother of the House of Dupree, which mobilized young, urban gays to express themselves in ways that mainstream America could not quite understand in the 1970s. In 1990 Dupree was featured in Jennie Livingston's documentary film, Paris is Burning. Dupree inspired the film’s title.

Legacy In one of the legends surrounding the origin of vogue, Dupree is credited as the originator or one of the pioneers of the dance form, and it was because of her that the art form is called vogue. Vogueing was originally the imitation of models in magazines and runways.

It is reported when she attended an after hours nightclub called Footsteps on 2nd Avenue and 14th Street, some gay Black men were throwing shade at each other. Dupree had a copy of Vogue magazine in her bag and started dancing then suddenly stopped, posing to the beat of the music imitating the models' poses. That provocation was returned in kind by the other Black gay men in the club. What followed next was a dancing and posing competition to the beat of the music.

It was also during the House of Dupree's first ball in 1981 that "the categories were really there (sic),"

Death Paris Dupree died in August 2011 in New York City. She was sixty-one years old.