Biography
Born in 1991 in Paris, France, Vinii has been dancing new school hip hop and afro since forever. He discovered voguing while watching TV and since 2013 has been helping to develop the French voguing scene, which he quit for the United States in 2014 to try his hand at American ballroom, where he caused a huge splash and enjoyed several big wins. The dancer morphed into “Vinii from Paris”, a voguing prodigy in a genre hitherto dominated by American talent. He made his mark as Europe’s top legend, the second-highest of the voguing world’s four ranks: star, statement, legend, icon. He used his standing in the ballroom community to introduce the general public to voguing, featuring on the Opéra Bastille stage in Les Indes Galantes, directed by Clément Cogitore and choreographed by Bintou Dembélé in 2019; and dancing alongside artists such as Aya Nakamura in her clip Pookie. In addition, he is a founding member of Studio HMU, a French-American project that is doing research into Baroque culture and voguing. He is also involved in organising public events (United States of Africa Ball, My Sisters Lives Matter Ball, etc.) and numerous projects at the Gaîté Lyrique, notably Turgot is Voguing, a project to teach and raise awareness of voguing with the hip hop dance section at the Lycée Turgot in Paris during the 2019-2020 academic year, in partnership with the regional education authority’s observatory on preventing and combating LGBTQI+ discrimination. He holds workshops and voguing classes all over the world – in Brazil, Spain, the UK, Germany, etc. He also runs the House of Revlon, an international voguing house that is very active on the Paris ballroom scene.