Bubblegum Club

Tag: safe space

  • AFROPUNK returns to Constitution Hill

    AFROPUNK returns to Constitution Hill

    It is fitting that the first AFROPUNK Festival to be held in South Africa took place on the historically significant Constitution Hill in Johannesburg. The festival, inspired by the documentary ‘Afro-Punk’, which spotlighted black punks in America, was first held in 2005 in New York City’s Brooklyn. Originally aiming to help black people build a community among the white dominated punk subcultures, it has grown to include a wider audience and a broader range of music, yet still highlights alternative black artists.

    With this shift away from pure punk culture towards celebrating blackness in its many forms, the festival has grown. Events are being held in Atlanta, Paris, London, and Johannesburg, with a total of more than 90 000 attendees. Utilising their platform for entertainment as well as change, the mantra of AFROPUNK is: “No Sexism, No Racism, No Ableism, No Ageism, No Homophobia, No Fatphobia, No Transphobia and No Hatefulness”. A free space for black and other bodies that do not fit into the moulds presented by mainstream media.

    Judging by the expressions and attitudes of those who attended South Africa’s first instalment of the festival, it is clear that this approach is highly welcomed in the country. For many this is a cathartic experience, beyond just the amazing music that is on offer from local and international musicians.

    And it is this fact, that the festival both provides a high standard of music along with a safe environment to enjoy it in, that has led to its success. Returning to Constitution Hill, this year’s AFROPUNK line-up is no different, with a strong balance between forward-thinking local and international artists. From the likes of Los Angeles’ future R&B superstars, The Internet and Thundercat. To experimental electronic music from Flying Lotus, who is debuting his 3D show on the African continent for the first time, to the superb dance grooves from producer Kaytranada. The legendary hip hop group Public Enemy and the queen of New Orleans bounce, Big Freedia. The international acts are a highly diverse showcase of black creativity.

    Similarly, the local acts on the line-up have all carved out niches for themselves in South Africa’s competitive music industry. They have stood out as artist that not only make a difference, but sound different. Local hip hop in its many guises is represented by Mozambique’s Azagaia and Cape Town’s YoungstaCPT, and Dope Saint Jude. Each of which are incomparable with their unique take on the art of emceeing.

    Other acts on the line-up include Joburg’s performance duo FAKA with their sound that is familiarly South African, yet utterly futuristic. As well as the sex-positive performer Moonchild Sanelly with her leanings towards Gqom and alternative pop. Joburg’s Thandiswa brings her revolutionary fusion of modern and traditional African sounds, while Nomisupasta brings a unique take on locally inspired music. Rounding off the local acts is Soweto’s BCUC, AKA Bantu Continua Uhuru Consciousness, with their highly energetic and emotionally charged rhythms.

    Themed THE PEOPLE RESIST, this year’s AFROPUNK is a call to action against racism, patriarchy and any form of hate. With 20 000 people descending on Constitution Hill for the first instalment of AFROPUNK Johannesburg, this year’s event promises to be even better and bring people closer together. Aside from music, the festival also encompasses Bites & Beats, Activism Row and the SPINTHRIFT Market as well as the chance to earn tickets via the Earn a Ticket programme. In the build-up to the event, the Battle of the Bands Joburg competition is held that seeks to unearth new musical talent.

    To buy your ticket click here, and keep your eyes on AFROPUNK’s social pages to find out which other acts are announced and for more details about the event.

  • Cherrie Bomb // exhibiting the effects of the male on the female

    Cherrie Bomb // exhibiting the effects of the male on the female

    This is not an attempt to fight the man.

    Nor is it an attempt to latch onto social campaigns like #MenAreTrash and #MeToo.

    Cherrie Bomb is a collection of lived experiences that express what it feels like to be a womxn in a patriarchal society.

    Curated by Nthabiseng Lethoko for Umuzi’s First Thursdays, Cherrie Bomb aims to interrogate and shed light on the norms of patriarchy and toxic masculinity. For a female audience, the exhibition is supposed to be representative and voice the daily subjugation of the female body. For the male audience, the exhibition is meant to be the mirror that prompts self-examination. Ultimately, the exhibition aims to demystify the severe effects that male dominance has over womxn.

    The pieces featured in the exhibition are all by womxn.

    ‘Safe Space’ by Botshelo Mondi & Motshewa Khaiyane

    Botshelo Mondi and Motshew Khaiyane explored the creation of safe spaces. The threat of patriarchy is an accepted norm in every public and private environment and the female body in particular is affected as a result. Essentially, this body of work titled, Safe Space, seeks to express the problems or politics of space as well as the subtlety and pervasive nature of patriarchy. The work comes from visualising patriarchy as a physical mass that occupies and intrudes in a way that marginalises and overlooks its victims.

    In Boitumelo Mazibuko’s Lobola photographs, she captures how this traditional ceremony places value on her, value that she did not consent to, which ultimately makes her a possession. Even though the beauty of the ceremony is acknowledged through its celebration of the women joining her partner’s family, the  treatment of her as an asset can lead to her demise.

    ‘Lobola’ by Boitumelo Mazibuko

    Basetsana Maluleka and Nompumelelo Mdluli interrogate the accountability that womxn are supposed to have for men’s actions and expectations in The Constant.

    Tshepiso Mabula examines how the male gaze has made the female figure subservient and an unimportant item placed on the periphery through her work titled The Gaze. This work aims to shift this portrayal and show women as defiant figures that reject patriarchal standards by defiling the female figure.

    ‘The Gaze’ by Tshepiso Mabula

    Lastly, Thakirah Allie’s Hey Sexy is a multimedia series documenting the everyday phenomena of street harassment and catcalling. Since 2016, the project has developed and infested from sharing the artist’s own experiences of it, to that of other young girls and womxn in and around the public spaces of Cape Town.

    Regardless of gender, we are accustomed to the expectations and consequences of patriarchy. Toxic masculinity, a distressing by-product of the system, has daily repercussions for anything and anyone unlike it. The necessity of this exhibition is undeniable and the conversations it intends to spark will be vital to reimagining our society.

    Cherrie Bomb’s first exhibition took place in Cape Town and will soon be in Johannesburg during another Umuzi’s First Thursdays.

    ‘The Constant’ by Basetsana Maluleka & Nompumelelo Mdluli

  • Visualizing Privilege in the Wake of Woke // With Rebone Masemola

    I am heterosexual

    I have never been a victim of violence because of my sexuality

    I still identify as the gender I was born in.

    I never had to “come out.”

    I am a cis man.

    I have never been catcalled.

    I am white

    I was raised by both my parents

    I have never been discriminated against because of my race

    I have never gone to bed hungry.

    I have never felt poor.

    I have never had to worry about making rent.*

    Statements annunciated. Bellowed throughout the crowd. If affirmed, a step is taken forward. An articulated advantage. The starting line of life clearly left uneven – individuals pinned to peppered points of privilege. These are but a few of the points raised by Pro-Black Feminst Rebone Masemola at the last Woke Saturday as part of a ‘privilege checklist’. She used the list to visually highlight the extent and position of privilege beyond just a buzz-word.

    This gathering was one of the inaugural public events she has hosted –  intentionally fostering a safe space in which people are invited to explore ideas and issues pertinent to notions of race, privilege, sexuality, masculinity and intersectional feminism. Woke entered public discourse on a tide political consciousness. As founder of the platform, Woke Project – Rebone notes a differentiation between woke and staying woke. In a sense she believes that the popular colloquialism has been tempered down from its original embodiment of social awareness and intersectionality. Staying Woke, extends from political awakening into action and activation.

    Creating constructive discourse seems to be an important step in enacting social change. Rebone holds the policy of “open invite, open mind” and utilizes the platform to, “showcase the works of emerging thinkers, activists and creatives who address a diversity of social issues.” The programme also strives to incorporate artistic endeavors like photography and poetry to address political consciousness in an inclusive way.

    Rebone’s experience in the space of academia, advertising and activism has inspired a desire of integrating these seemingly siloed disciplines. The utilization of critical thinking as a transferable skill has allowed her to engage across this spectrum of careers. The culmination of which has manifested through Woke Project – activating space both on and offline. The platform was created as a resource to share information and personal experiences, rooted in community.

    *An extract of the Privilege Checklist by Rebone Masemola 2018

  • Isaac Kariuki on internet culture, autonomy and identity

    Disillusioned by the idea that the Internet is a democratic space, digital artist Isaac Kariuki centres his work around internet culture, the body, autonomy and identity. I had a conversation with him about these themes, as well as his zine, Diaspora Drama.

    Having studied a BA in Digital Art, Isaac confesses that playing around with Photoshop was where he learnt most of what he uses to create his work now, which is a combination of solo, collaborative and commissioned work.

    Diaspora Drama issue 2

    As he started delving into more theoretical work, he realized that there was not much talk about the Internet in conjunction with African identities, or non-Western identities. “As someone who is from Kenya and who got on to the Internet thing very late as opposed to Western countries, I found we have our own structure and our own way of connecting with the Internet”. Isaac is interested in exploring those structures and relationships to connectivity, expressing that he thinks that the Internet is something that we can tether to what is going on politically, socially and culturally in non-Western countries, specifically African countries. Hence his focus on internet cultures and identity. “It is about what works in certain countries in certain contexts. So since the Internet is a Western territory, we have to go around it in certain ways to not get lost inside the western context and just like feed into it”.

    SIM card project

    Isaac’s ongoing SIM Card project was recently part of the exhibition Potentially “Flawless” in Toronto. In this project he looks at supposed “third world countries” and their relationship to the internet, and connectivity in general. With African countries having heavily embraced the cellular boom, he critically explores how cellular culture has become restricting and overwhelming. His work is a commentary on the monopoly that certain service providers have, and the limited narrative around connectivity created through their marketing strategies. As a way to subvert or mock the institutions that put forward this limited narrative, Isaac replicated the aesthetic of the advertising or what you would see on a SIM card, such as a smiling person. As a next phase in this project Isaac is working on developing a limited number of working SIM cards.

    “I enjoy how people of colour use the Internet,” Isaac syas. Coming from the understanding that the Internet is an unsafe space for people of colour, seeing people of colour create spaces where they can represent and express themselves is encouraging for Isaac. With the Internet being flattened out in the sense that anyone who has access to it can create a page, Isaac enjoys how people of colour are creating safe zones in the scary, unsafe structures of the online where other people of colour can get access to information. When asked how he would re-imagine the Internet, he expressed that the main servers would be situated in remote places across the world so that it could be taken out of the control of large American corporations.

    In keeping with the need for outlets for people of colour to share information represent themselves, Isaac started his zine Diaspora Drama in 2015. Using the word ‘Diaspora’ was important because he wanted to connect it with more light-hearted content about people of colour and their relationship to the Internet. Volume 1 of Diaspora Drama will be sold at the DIY Culture festival in London in May.

    Check out more of Isaac’s work on his website

  • Turn-up Talk Series Episode 2

    The ‘Turn-up Talk Series’ is a collection of discussions in which young Jo’burgers share their nocturnal lives: stories and reflections from the city’s dancefloors. The candid conversations explore nightclubs as stages for young people’s negotiations of identity, belonging and power.

    This weeks episode is about how we ‘carve out space in nightclubs’.

    Produced by Beth Vale

    Background music by Ash_fx (@ashfx)

  • Multiplicity on the Dancefloor: nightclubs for the non-binary

    One of the defining features of nightclubs is that they are loud and dark: there’s little allowance for speaking. It’s a space where our bodies are especially loaded, in part because they are the primary means by which we signal to, and experience, one another. We dance, we push, we touch, we avoid, we shoot glances across the room. The resulting intimacy is charged with volatility — sometimes experienced as warm and exciting, but always on the cusp of something suffocating or even violent.

    Being Pride Week, I was prompted to reflect on some of the ways in which Johannesburg’s night spaces are experienced by queer and/or non-binary bodies. How does cis-hetero-normativity contribute to the contouring of the nocturnal city? To what extent are nightspots designated as ‘gay’ experienced as ‘safe’ by their intended audiences? And how do queer bodies negotiate the layered possibilities and vulnerabilities of the night-time?

    One of the very first places I went out after moving to Johannesburg was Liquid Blue, a cocktail lounge in Melville. It remains unclear to me whether Liquid Blue was originally marketed as a gay bar, or whether it has simply been claimed by a queer audience. Either way, the lounge is now a widely celebrated gay night-spot, with a playlist that spans house, kwaito, hip-hop, RnB and pop — designed to keep the dancefloor jumping. My early experience at Liquid Blue made me stunningly optimistic about Johannesburg’s night scene and to this day, it remains the most inclusive club I have visited in the city. No entrance fee, with an audience that is acutely representative of the South African demographic: predominantly black, with white, coloured and Indian partygoers as visible minorities. The dancefloor is an exchange of intimacies that disregards race and gender, and although the crowd is mostly men, young women of any sexuality can feel a precious sense of safety.

    Indeed, in my conversations with Johannesburg’s non-binary partygoers, one of the primary debates seemed to be about the place of cis-hetero bodies in queer night-spaces. A few months ago, while chatting to Desire Marea (of FAKA) about partying as a queer, black man, he told me that night-spaces specifically designed for queer audiences are increasingly rare. “Those spaces hardly exist now”, he said. “It’s literally a space that was once a straight club, and now it’s a gay club, and there are still some straight people.” In these spaces that were not designed for queer bodies but in which queer bodies are present, he argues that there is “still that energy and sense of being unwelcome”.   It’s “not as safe as a space that is designated especially for you. And we need those spaces. We can’t just integrate. We want to explore ourselves”.

    When Desire first moved to Johannesburg from KZN, he began renting an apartment in a lesser-known part of inner-city Jo’burg: run-down buildings, occupied predominantly by young men, many of whom had also migrated from KZN. Early on, he and Fela Gucci (of FAKA) began partying at the neighbourhood tavern. Having spent a lot of time in rural taverns, Desire described this to me as one way of connecting to a particular part of his “black experience”.  He and Thato had been in awe of how homo-erotic the tavern was. Young men, many of whom would not have identified as queer outside of that space, were the sole clientele. “They were dancing in ways that would not have been acceptable even at Buffalo Bills”, Desire reflected. It was an intoxicating place, but its permissiveness was also fragile. After one of their friends was assaulted there, they did not go back.

    Desire now speaks of his successes and struggles in claiming Braamfontein, as a space in which he, and other queer bodies, can feel welcome. There remains, he tells me, a class gulf between nightspots in Braamfontein and the tavern where he once partied, such that those in the tavern do not have access to places like Great Dane or Kitcheners. To some extent, Braamfontein has become a space in which the ‘alternative body’ is welcomed and celebrated. But Desire argues that there is often only a particular kind of ‘cool’, and a particular kind of ‘gay’ that is desired. He told me a story about a time he wore a dress on a night out and was waiting in the queue for the entrance. Although no one else in the line had been asked for an identity document, he was pressed by the bouncer and subsequently turned away. Those queues, he told me, were so often utterly “dehumanising”.

    Part of what Desire is pointing to, in his story about the dress, are particularities about how femme bodies are received in night spaces. He describes this as the “hetero-normativity of gayness” in which “femme bodies are not allowed to express their sexuality in the same way as other gay male bodies”. Of course, club culture that is anti-femme also affects how women experience night-spaces. To this end, the monthly Pussy Party at Kitcheners has sought to create a pro-femme platform that celebrates femme artists and audiences, featuring acts like FAKA, Angel Ho and Dope St Jude, while also pushing back on particular forms of cis-het machismo.

    These are instances in which traditionally hetero spaces have opened themselves up to more fluidity. But to what extent are designated ‘queer’ spaces experienced as ‘safe’ by queer bodies? Unsurprisingly, this answer is also not always clear. Many have told me that while these spaces might allow them to feel comfortable in their sexuality, gay clubs that are almost exclusively white provoke other discomforts and other forms of violence. Some described feeling “unacknowledged” which was “disappointing” and “painful”.  Reflecting on a night out at a gay night-spot in Illovo, a friend said: “obviously I feel safe there as a queer white man. But it made me feel more uncomfortable than when I was in Kitcheners making out with an ostensibly straight boy because it felt like a church of whiteness”.  Despite describing Illovo as “super white”, those I spoke to also recognised it as the heart of the post-Pride party.

    And of course, the city’s designated ‘gay clubs’ are not only racialised, but also classed. In Maboneng, a new nightclub, Industry, has been opened with the aim of catering to “upwardly mobile gay men and women”. It is a very chic spot, playing cutting edge electronic music, with patrons who look as though they just stepped out the pages of a high fashion magazine. It’s in image that is at-once immensely appealing to some, and deeply alienating to others. And indeed, this is likely to be true of many night-spots in the city.

    Much of the discourse on non-binary nightlife in Johannesburg is about the experiences of queer men, with very little attention given to queer women.  In reflecting on her experiences in the nocturnal city, a friend of mine said this: “one of my major concerns when visiting night spots is about the level of unwanted attention and uncalled for touching. For me, not all queer safe spaces feel safe, in the same way that not all heterosexual spaces do. One of my most unpleasant memories at a particular gay bar was being accosted by the bouncers not only outside, but also while waiting for drinks. So one person’s safe space is not necessarily another’s no matter how queer safe they claim to be.” Perhaps unexpectedly, she said that one of her favourite spaces to go at night was the strip club, where the music was good, men did not bother you, and all the attention was on the working women.

    Over the past few days that I’ve spent talking and reflecting about nightlife outside the bounds of cis-heteronormativity, the term ‘non-binary’ has exploded in its meaning. Not only do we need to think about how our night-spaces might welcome or militate against gender non-binary audiences. But we might also think about the ways in which our identities are always more than one thing at once. We might be both woman and queer and black; straight, white and disabled; rural and gay man; hip-hop head and crowd-phobic; and so the list goes on. All of these identities factor in the ways that we experience space. The question of queer-safe nightclubs seems then to point to this wider question: how might we craft night spaces that take our multiplicity as their basis?

    “There’s just a lot more in Jo’burg”, Desire reflects. “There’s a lot more people dealing with energies, dealing with trauma. There’s a lot more conflict. It’s just a thing about the city. The conflict is a thing that’s in the air. But also a unity that’s very hard to reach. You have to delve to the deepest darkest places to try and find shared experience. Nightlife for us is not just going out. Nightlife is also sharing a bed with someone. Essentially nightlife is living the way you want to exist and it’s transcending the experience you have during the day. It’s like you’re emancipating yourself. It’s resistance”. 

  • Bloom – Women Growing Together

    ‘And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom’ – Anaïs Nin

    The above quote was the very first post by BLOOM when they launched their Instagram account, on the 1st of September this year; the first month of spring. It encapsulates the vision founders Nandi Dlepu and Farai Simoyi have for their platform. BLOOM seeks to provide spaces for women to meet, converse and inspire each other. “A platform where we can communicate freely about the challenges and triumphs we face in our careers, our relationships, our spirits and with our bodies”. Their bi-monthly conversations take place in Johannesburg, New York and Harare. I caught up with co-founder Nandi to get a feeling for their philosophy of blooming, together.

    The seed for BLOOM was planted when Farai and Nandi met through a mutual friend earlier this year. Nandi hosted a pop up event in NY and Farai offered her coffee shop as the meeting spot for the Brunch & Ride. Soon after Nandi’s return to SA Farai hit her up looking to link up with like-minded women on another project of hers. From that conversation they found themselves talking about organizing like-minded women together to chat and collaborate in the same way that they had done, and the seed for BLOOM began to grow. “From conversation to conversation we haven’t stopped imagining and building,” Nandi explains. “BLOOM was in part inspired by all the good conversations we ever had with our girlfriends and/or mentors, and sometimes even with strangers. That feeling you get after such meetings. It’s as if your heart and mind have opened themselves up to more. I would leave such conversations inspired, motivated and challenged. So I sought to package that experience with and through BLOOM. That feeling of being open to more, being and doing is the feeling I want women to leave BLOOM with”. All event themes and uploads on their IG account always relate back to their idea of growing together.

    img_3574

    September saw events hosted in all three cities .Their first meet up in Johannesburg also took its cue from their overarching theme for September, conversations around creativity, and so BLOOMERS headed off to Keyes Art Mile in Rosebank for a guided tour by Whatiftheworld in their collaborative space with Southern Guild followed by lunch. Conversation on Creativity, their Johannesburg event for the month, was conceptualized by Nandi and focused on “getting and staying inspired as well as finding and establishing your own authentic & creative voice”. Founder of Art Talks Kholisa Thomas (@kholisa) and poet Lebohang ‘Nova’ Masango (@novatruly) were invited to lead the conversation and speak to the importance of everyday creative habits and the practical side of living a more creative life. The event in NY, themed Free You Mind, Free Your Spine, was conceptualized by Farai and her event was all about blockages; from emotional and mental to physical blockages. They explored the things we do and say that hold us back and the power of freeing your mind. In Harare the Keep Afloat in a Challenging Business Environment event, organized by entrepreneur Langa Lloyd, was about having a space where women could share their challenges, insights and offer support to one another in the context of Zimbabwe’s difficult socio-political environment.

    img_3583

    Their Instagram account is a continuation of the conversations that emerge from their events, or as Nandi calls it, the “conversation between the conversation”. Their BLOOM Playlist greatly inspired by their BLOOMERS, can also be found on their IG and is another coordinate in the journey of growth and discovery that the Bloom ladies are trying to map out for and with other women. Suggestions on visual and audio content such as empowering TED talks to watch are shared through the Playlist.

    “I cite this often,” says Nandi, “‘The best project you will EVER work on is yourself’. I hope that BLOOM will be a great compliment to the journey of self-discovery and affirmation for all BLOOMERS”.

    BLOOM’s Johannesburg coterie will be hosting another conversation in November. To stay up to date with BLOOM news check out their IG account, @bloomorg.

    img_3548

  • Pussy Party Politik

    It’s dark and warm in the sweet sweat-scented nightclub. Exclusively female and femme-identified DJs stroke the decks — a sonic pleasure patrol, an Empress insurrection. There’s a Hello Kitty pussy-cat vagazzling the DJ booth, backlit by velvet and a lick of pink lighting. Think Pussy Pride. Pussy Play. Pussy Power. Pussy Party. It’s a story about how femme bodies might take back the dancefloor.

    Pussy Party pops off every second Wednesday of the month at Kitcheners, offering a platform in which femme DJs and artists can “practice, incubate, exchange and expose”. The organisers describe it as“an experiment in amplifying feminine energy on the dance floor”, an act of “yielding beyond the gender binary”, a femmeditation. In a thickly and narrowly-defined masculine industry, Pussy Party has sought to nurture and celebrate young female and femme-identified talent: each party is preceded by a three-hour workshop for aspirant femme selektas.

    Three months in, Pussy Parties have boasted a fierce line-up of femme foxes: SistaMatik, FAKA, Lady Skollie, DJ Doowop, DJ Mystikal Ebony, LoveslavePhola, and Lil Bow.  But the curators, creators, and dancefloor equators behind Pussy Party are DJs Phatstoki and Rosie Parade. Rosie Parade (AKA Coco) is part of Broaden a New Sound, music curators for Kitcheners.

    ‘When we arrived at Kitcheners, in 2009, courtesy of Andrew the DJ, there was nothing. There wasn’t 70 Juta. There wasn’t Smokehouse. Nothing was happening at Alexander Theatre. Kitcheners was a dive bar. I had my 21st birthday here at a time when what is now the bathroom was the office, when Great Dane was just an empty hall. Initially Kitcheners was the type of venue anyone could book. Butin late 2014 we were conscious to say ‘Okay, what’s happening to the space around us? What’s happening to the club? What’s happening to the dancefloor?‘

    Phatstoki (AKA Gontse) is a music mixologist and penetrating photographer, whose artistic raw material has been gathered through a lifetime of traversing city, suburb, village and Soweto, where she now lives. Phatstoki’s fluid audio-eclecticism resonated with Broaden a New Sound, whose mandate has been to curate genre-bending, and in this case, gender-bending night-spaces. ‘Phatsoki’s had this series of mixes called Boobs and Honey ’Rosie Parade remembers. ‘Boobs and Honey! Those are literally like my top two things (laughs) ’The two groove goddesses, Rosie Parade and Phatstoki became reciprocal fan-girls, teaming up to create what is now Pussy Party.

    ‘I remember walking through the club and being approached constantly’, Rosie Parade says, ‘being pressurised constantly by men.’ Whether a baggy hoody, or a tight skirt, or a long dress — each garment is re-imagined as the self-same solicitation. And so, femme bodies are propelled through a current of pull—stroke—squeeze—clutch. The crowd become an excuse to make the brash laying of hands appear accidental. And the dancefloor — ‘Hey baby’ — becomes — ‘You look like a million dollars’ — an exercise — ‘I like your…’ — in carving out space and protecting one’s borders. Just the presence of a woman in a nightclub, particularly if alone, can be read as implicit consent for all manner of invasions.

    Then there are those femme bodies that outwardly supersede gender circumscription. Courageous, embattled bodies living dangerous, defiant and godly in a beyond-binary space — whose bodies are cowardly read as provocations to violence.  As Desire Marea of FAKA once told me, a proximate dance might result in a punch to the face.

    ‘Looking at the dancefloor’, Rosie Parade explained, ‘there came a point [where we as Kitchener’s management thought] ‘Okay there’s a lot of guys. Women [and femme-identified men] are telling us that they feel unsafe. That’s not a positive club environment. I’m privileged that the management and staff at Kitcheners trust and respect me. So it’s about ‘What do I have that I can use?’ And for me, this space, and these people, this is what I have that I can use’

    ‘Maybe’, says Phatstoki,‘there’s a space for women/femme energies to actually own the dancefloor — not just necessarily own the dancefloor so that guys can hang around, but own the dancefloor ‘cos we actually wanna party, for us. We are the party, so can we actually be given the space to do just that.’

    Go to an instalment of Pussy Party and you’ll still find many men. ‘To be quite honest I don’t think femmes want to exclude men’ Phatstoki says. ‘We just want some goddamn respect! Maybe this is a way we can teach them. Ya’ll are more than welcome, but ya’ll need to know what this party is about. If you don’t like it, by all means [leave]… if you wanna appreciate our efforts and party with us, please do…’ But understand that ‘it’s not your night tonight, you know’.

    True to its name, Pussy Party, in monthly cycles, sets out to be a place of warmth, and pleasure — to cradle and excite us. It changes its shape to let us in, remoulding the club-space into a femme-positive experimental sanctuary. It can ache for us. It can be potentiallylife-giving. But, as with any pussy, right of admission is reserved. There are pre-requisites of respect, appreciation and recognition that Pussy Party is grappling with enforcing.

    ‘Actually’, Rosie Parade says,‘what’s been simple is: put women behind the decks, or femme-identified individuals behind the decks [and] the femmes in the space respond. Tell people that it’s a space for femmes and honeys will come through’.

    Both Rosie Parade and Phatstoki know that this is the awkward, messy, beautiful beginning — of a movement to disrupt club cultures. ‘It’s still marginalised. You couldn’t do this on a weekend. We’re mid-week and we’re mid-month. It’s not payday weekend’. 

    They also know that Pussy Party, as it stands, attracts a particular, pre-defined Model C, middle class. ‘But [for this space], this is how it starts’, says Phatstoki. ‘I want to bring these issues up, and depending on how we address them, that’s when I’ll know if we’re serious about the movement or not. [We need to make sure we] don’t forget those who go through the most [regarding this subject].’

    The Pussy Party agenda aspires to openness. ‘Come through and tap us on the shoulder and say what’s up. This is the night to come through. If you have a problem coming through, tell us about the problem. I think you need to admit where you’ve gone wrong and made mistakes ’Rosie Parade says. ‘Openness. That’s a big part of a femme party’, Phatstoki adds, smiling. ‘That flexibility. It can stretch’, laughs Rosie Parade, ‘and it can shrink. It can self-lubricate’.

    10082016 FBC

  • Sun and self-love; For Black Girls Only

    City life breeds cynicism, after attending event after event, countless nights in clubs, exhibits en masse and even the odd lecture, new events, alternative spaces and new movements can be received with skepticism. For Black Girls Only is a new and necessary addition to what is offered as fun in Johannesburg. It may not boast what jaded Joburgers may be accustomed to in terms of entertainment or alcohol availability, but it is revolutionary.

    A public space, where black women can share in public what has only been conferred and experienced in private; Sisterhood. The Sunday sun blazed and brown skin beamed. All around and everywhere to be seen, was black woman, beautifully shaped and come to commune with her kin. Picnic baskets and brown children sprinkled the scene and there was some sensual music to be swayed to.  A marvelous occasion unfettered by pettiness and pretence, providing a unique opportunity to share black femininity in a sweet setting. May there be more.