Vivyne Chen | Department of Gender, Women & Sexuality Studies

Graduate Student

Contact Information

ychen301@uw.edu

Fields of Interest

Ballroom culture Chinese Dance Ethnography Fashion Globalization Performance Studies Queer Studies Women of Color

Biography

M.A., Gender, Society, and Respresentation, University College London, London, 2022

B.A., Social Anthropology, London School of Economics and Political Science, London, 2019

Vivyne Chen (she/her) is a first-year Ph.D. student in the Department of Gender, Women & Sexuality Studies at the University of Washington.

Her research investigates the transnational spread of Ballroom—the Black and Latino queer performance culture originated in the 1960s New York City—with a focus on the Ballroom scenes in Post-Socialist China as an emergent site of negotiating new queer and nationalist subjectivities and world-making possibilities.

Vivyne’s work bridges her academic interests in transnational feminism and global queer economy with her own artistic and community practices within Ballroom. In particular, she draws on her performance knowledge of Ballroom’s signature dance style, Vogue Femme, to revive visions of alliances across gender, sexual, racial, and national lines embedded in historical forms of body rhythms and feminine expressions.

Broadly, her research asks how art, embodiment, and gender mediate the expression and exploration of personal identity and belonging among the millennial and Gen Z generations of Chinese queer youth.