Culture Slut: On Dancing
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One of the things I have found most painful about our current Corona climate is the closure of queer clubs and dance spaces. The loss of this physical realm of self expression and unadulterated joy has really hit heavy one year on. But, at last, a glimmer of hope is on the horizon. The government roadmap has projected the reopening of clubs to be the 21st of June, and even if it doesn't happen, that is at least a point in the future to focus; a possibility that reminds that one day this will all be over and we will be able to dance with our friends again.
It’s one thing to hear your favourite song being warbled by your laptop speakers as you sit in bed, but its entirely another to hear it in club, from a speaker as big as your torso, to feel the music deep in your veins and truly allow yourself to be transported, limbs thrown about in wild abandon! This last year has been as close as we have been since the days of witch burnings for communal dancing to practically be declared illegal. When you dance, the power of the universe flows through you, you become a conduit to the global consciousness of joy, it is truly The Way, The Bliss, The Love. Dancing is alchemical. Dancing is the exploration of gnostic mysteries.
I find myself listening to one song in particular on repeat since February, when it was released - Marea (We’ve Lost Dancing), by Fred again.. and The Blessed Madonna. It’s a dance track with an infectious beat and a poignant spoken word delivery. It talks about how of all the things we used to take for granted (space, love, hugs with friends), it is the loss of dancing that hits us hardest. We’ve lost dancing. I listen to it at least once everyday. Towards the end, it urges us to keep holding on, to keep the faith, that “if I can live through the next six months, day by day, if I can live through this, what comes next will be marvellous.” It gives me chills.
In the before times, I was undergoing therapy for, amongst other things, a slightly excessive partying obsession. I had started using hedonism, inebriation and dancing as a way to escape the very real and difficult things I was having to process and go through, and my therapist was very clearly of the opinion that I was chasing a high that would never actually come.
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But I remember the moment the bulb switched on, and my life was illuminated. We were sitting in her office, and I had just told her about how I had dragged myself out to the clubs in search of something, and she very confidently asked “but you can never really find it can you?” I stopped and thought. And I realised she was totally wrong. All the times as an adult that I have felt true euphoria has been on the dance floor in a night club. The times I have felt truly myself, truly happiest, truly freest have been whilst dancing. It’s happened when drunk, when high, when sober, the important part is the dancing.
In this dark, dance-less world, I choose to love myself, now and forever.
The function of a queer night club is, I think, different than that of a straight one. Straight clubs are somewhere to peacock, to find a mate, to have a laugh, to find something to do or someone to fight. Queer clubs are about somewhere to be free, to finally let down the guards against a hostile world, to bask in the unconditional love of community, to shine brighter than any star that has risen before. One of my close friends and frequent collaborators Angel Rose writes spectacularly about how dancing is spiritual resistance in the cult hit The Serious Fun zine, but it is her description of the nightclub experience which truly speaks to me:
”Last night my body was catapulted into the excesses of ecstasy, whilst my soul blazed a trail on the dance floor. The collective consciousness of the party told me that whatever I was doing, in that very moment, was the right thing to do. It was there that I experienced the way, the truth and the light of disco. I found the meaning of fun.”
During these dark, dank, disco-less days of lock-down, I found myself compiling a list of some of my favourite euphoric dance memories as a note on my phone, so that when I felt low, or like things will never change, I can look and remember true happiness. I’m going to share some of these now in the hopes that it will help you, dear reader, remember some of your favourite times in nightclubs, even simple things, that you might have forgotten.
-On stage in Envy, in Brighton at the Trans Pride official after-party about five years ago. Brighton Trans Pride was the only event of its kind at the time, and truly felt like radical queer joy. I went to the club night with friends and had been dancing for a while, when suddenly Don’t Leave Me This Way by The Communards came on, we rushed the stage and I climbed up and started dancing wildly, my dress in rippling chiffon waves around me. The song culminated in my sharing my non-binary, powerful, beautiful body with the crowd and they screamed and applauded. It was truly euphoric, and I listened to that song everyday for a year afterwards to help me get through hard times.
- By myself, on the dance floor in a club called Subline, a gay fetish club in a damp basement. I began frequenting this bar and so got to know all the staff and DJs. Sometimes it was very busy, sometimes it was very not, but I always enjoyed it. I remember dancing on a podium with a pole in just a jockstrap to a 20 minute Donna Summer mega-mix the DJ put together just for me, whilst a few old queens at the bar sat with their backs to me, decidedly uninterested.
- In an old drag pub called The Queens Arms, small but absolutely packed, with a brilliant and hideous drag queen who pulled me and my friend out of the crowd to join her on the tiniest stage in the world to be the Tina Turner back up dancers whilst she sang Proud Mary. The steps were simple and just kept repeating until it got to such a fever pitch it truly felt transcendental.
- In a popular gay club in Brighton, Club Revenge, on a not so special night, with no special circumstances. I don’t think I had gone with anyone, I was just in need to music and dancing. I remember holding my drink and dancing on small catwalk stage and the new Miley Cyrus song at the time came on, We Can’t Stop. I had no particular love for Miley, still don’t, but I really connected with the words in that moment.
“This is our house, this is our rules, and we cant stop, and we wont stop.
It’s our party and we can do what we want,
Its our party and we can love who we want.”
In this dark, dance-less world, I choose to love myself, now and forever. Soon, the world will open again, and we can all orbit each other on cramped disco floors with stars and lasers in our eyes. Soon we will be able to live unfettered lives and laugh with our friends, dance with our families, snog strangers in shadowy corners. Soon we will be able throw our bodies on the floor at the mercy of a punishing bass line, reach up to the painted heaven in ecstasy, drink deeply from the wells of joy. You will find me in any club that will have me, drinking vodkas in a booth of my friend’s coats, spilling gins on a sticky dance floor, catching my breath in crowded smoking areas. You will find me stalking the stages of seaside gay clubs, shining bright under the broken spotlights of dreadful dives, glittering in the shadows of the dazzling darkness.
“if I can live through the next six months, day by day, if I can live through this, what comes next will be marvellous.”
Words and Imagery: Misha MN
