10s Across The Borders

If the world doesn’t accept you and your kind, trailblaze a world that does. Inspired by the Black and Latinx underground Ballroom culture of New York, Sun, Teddy, and Xyza create Ballroom communities in Southeast Asia as safe havens from homophobia, transphobia, color discrimination and HIV stigma.

In Malaysia, Teddy runs away from his father’s violence and fights for his right to be himself in a deeply homophobic country. Meanwhile, he still hungers for a father’s love, and Ballroom is the place to seek out a new father.

Filipina Xyza dreams of being a model but is told that it is impossible because of her dark skin. In international Ballroom communities she finally finds her confidence. She comes home with a fire to build a community across the Philippines where everyone can feel beautiful and loved, regardless of color, sexuality and gender identity.

In Thailand, Ballroom is what helps Sun to make sense of his complex history as the queer mixed-race child of a sex worker, and of his fractured biological and foster families in Thailand and Norway. Buddhism and Ballroom merge in Sun’s creative language as a performance artist, as he speaks up to honor the lives of his sex worker mother, transwomen, and others whose voices are rarely heard.