When We Dance, it’s a Declaration against Death
The legacy of the ‘Club Kids’ lurk in the shadows like they did in the streets of 80s and 90s Manhattan. To some, the Club Kids were a young group fiercely shattering boundaries of the New York nightlife with a transcendent elegance. Using fashion, parties, drugs, pop culture, and gender, they created a constantly reinventing world found on the dance floor.
Today’s artists, dreamers, freaks, and rebels may still be using clubs as a platform for radical expression in the shadows but the Club Kids live wildly on.
Cape Town’s dancefloors hold one of the most influential underground queer club events in South Africa. Founded by Tazme Pillay aka DRAGMOTHER, The Death of Glitter embodies queer nightlife as radical resistance to create a place that is both inclusive and wildly unpredictable.
On the 30th of May, The Death of Glitter (DoG) celebrated three years of creating spaces that promote the visibility of queer identities, creative rebellion, and self-liberation.
What would’ve normally been a night of diverse, latex or barely-clad queer bodies pulsating in the freedom of being was our 64th day in National Lockdown. Instead, the DoG dancefloor went virtual and it was a spectacular night of performances by Pussy Riot, Queezy, DRAGMOTHER, and other regulars.
But in a statement released on the DoG page, this celebration “came on the cusp of the intense waves of bravery and activism against police brutality and systemic racism in the USA.” Just five days before, the severe state of the world was ruptured further by a viral video showing the horrific murder of George Floyd by a white police officer.
No one knew how to process a global pandemic or predict what the future holds and we especially didn’t imagine that a virus would expose the real crisis in our society.
Partying while people are dying comes across as strikingly insensitive. But just as at the beginning of the AIDS pandemic and conservative politics of the 80s and 90s, the Club Kids resisted the mainstream by providing a safe place where one can rip open all the wounds, express what needs to be expressed, and just have some relief from the world.
The same ethos runs through DoG. In their statement of solidarity released, they declare, “Revolutions are fought in many ways; ours starts on the dancefloor.”
This moment of revolutionary upsurge in the US also erupts in action taken towards South Africa’s own oppressive systems with 13 deaths of black and people of colour at the hands of our police force since lockdown began.
DoG stands in solidarity with all fighting the fight and are donating the funds raised from the Birthday Livestream to GALA — Queer Archive’s ongoing LGBTQIA+ Support Fund — offering aid to LGBTQI+ persons in need.
A prominent New York Club Kid in the 90s, Walt Cassidy, once said, “When the Club Kids came along, we brought this idea that our identity was enough; we didn’t have to do anything else,”
For the oppressed and marginalised in every society, existing in one’s truth is one of the most radical acts.
Creatives such as Cape Town’s Club Kids are causing societal destruction through live performance, art installations, and fashion while cradling individuals, their pain, and their joy. As important as it is to mourn, there must be a call to mobilise.
DoG ends their statement with a call to action,
“We urge you to keep dancing when things get dark; to allow yourself to get lost in utopia to keep you strong for reality…Here’s to utopia radically shifting reality. Riot on.”
To fully honor Death of Glitter’s radical acts of party as protest, the words of one of the community’s holiest beings, Lady Gaga, must be highlighted;
“This is the dancefloor we fought for.”
