A Night with Camp Terrorists
There were arabic women ululating! There were belly dancers. There were camels! And a one point there was a very strange Busby Berkleyesque episode about tiling the bathroom floor with all singing and dancing handmaidens and a grotesquely fat man in drag! And that was only on the video projection screen at the back of the dance floor.
It was mayhem, middle eastern style! A club night for Sydney's Gay and Lesbian middle eastern community. And I had a ticket.
S, a straight friend from Newcastle, had convinced me to come out for a night on the town. As I seemed to have turned into a bit of a hermit, he feels it's his duty to get me back into circulation. I guess being jaded by the whole gay old Sydney thing, I'm not really inclined to get down and boogie with the boys these days. I only decided to give it a go as I'd heard of this club night before leaving Sydney and it'd had sounded like fun. I'd thought that the usual crowd that you'd find in the clubs and bars in Sydney wouldn't be there. Also the music was reputed to be awesome.
After navigating a foyer transfigured for the evening in bedouin fantasia; the hugest hooka and more pink tenting you'd ever seen in your life; we found ourselves on the main dancefloor. At this early point in the evening, a few brave souls were whirling like dervishes, the rest of the patrons in the sparsly populated room were gathered at the bar, fueling up.
Oh, well, at least I won't have any trouble finding a spot under the mirror ball! Except there wasn't any mirror balls. And that's when I took notice of the video projection screen. It sort of dominated the night with a constant and strange melange of images. Perhaps it was my ignorance of middle eastern culture, but I guess a woman preparing a meal of what looked porridge in an apron, stockings with garters and a whopping great strap on is somewhat subversive.
And subversion became the theme of the night. But the emphasis became politcally subversive as the party progressed.
The venue filled surprisingly quickly and before you could say hommus and tabouli, it was packed! I never did get to have a good boogie, for even with the lack of mirror balls under which to dance, the floor was so jammed with bodies, you could only really wobble or jump up and down on the spot. I also managed to collect any witless dance companion with an overly energetic style that included excessive elbow action. Nursing bruised kidneys, I was forced to retire early from a promising career as a podium dancer, and retreated to the balcony to watch.
I couldn't help to notice that most of the anglo guys (of whom I recognised quite a few!) had coagulated together, shirtless in the middle of the dancefloor. They were quite uniform, in dress, in appearance, dance style and expression. A grim faced determination with furtive glances to see who, on the floor around them, might be watching.
It was in stark contrast the dusky lads and lasses, many dressed in bright hues, swirling in abandon around them. Arms raised, hands in constant arabesques of motion, heads thrown back, faces alight with mischief and humour.
And above them all, the screen presenting visual snippets of demented arabian life started scrolling transcriptions of daily brutality in Palastine. "..... my best friend shot in the back as we walked to school...." and ".... beaten senseless..." and ".... we were scared for our lives..."
Wandering around the venue, snatches of conversations overheard compiled into a multivoiced monologue, in iambic repetetion-sedition. The word seemed to be one everyone's lips.
With the new anti terror laws under discussion and the negative press and puplic opinion directed towards this community, partygoers were laughingly joking that we'd all be hauled off to be tried for sedition any day now and tee hee, do you think that guy over there is in the secret service?
Except it wasn't really that funny. I think most of us that night were aware, that if the proposed laws are passed, a dance party, arranged by a suspect community, could easily be interpreted as a protest. And under those laws, such protests would be illegal. And seditious.
Having a good time with all your clothes on had suddenly become subversive!
Post scriptum. It took me four attempts to publish this post. On three separate computers! I can't help but to imagine a bunker in Canberra with computer nerds paid to google "terrorist*" and "camp".
It was mayhem, middle eastern style! A club night for Sydney's Gay and Lesbian middle eastern community. And I had a ticket.
S, a straight friend from Newcastle, had convinced me to come out for a night on the town. As I seemed to have turned into a bit of a hermit, he feels it's his duty to get me back into circulation. I guess being jaded by the whole gay old Sydney thing, I'm not really inclined to get down and boogie with the boys these days. I only decided to give it a go as I'd heard of this club night before leaving Sydney and it'd had sounded like fun. I'd thought that the usual crowd that you'd find in the clubs and bars in Sydney wouldn't be there. Also the music was reputed to be awesome.
After navigating a foyer transfigured for the evening in bedouin fantasia; the hugest hooka and more pink tenting you'd ever seen in your life; we found ourselves on the main dancefloor. At this early point in the evening, a few brave souls were whirling like dervishes, the rest of the patrons in the sparsly populated room were gathered at the bar, fueling up.
Oh, well, at least I won't have any trouble finding a spot under the mirror ball! Except there wasn't any mirror balls. And that's when I took notice of the video projection screen. It sort of dominated the night with a constant and strange melange of images. Perhaps it was my ignorance of middle eastern culture, but I guess a woman preparing a meal of what looked porridge in an apron, stockings with garters and a whopping great strap on is somewhat subversive.
And subversion became the theme of the night. But the emphasis became politcally subversive as the party progressed.
The venue filled surprisingly quickly and before you could say hommus and tabouli, it was packed! I never did get to have a good boogie, for even with the lack of mirror balls under which to dance, the floor was so jammed with bodies, you could only really wobble or jump up and down on the spot. I also managed to collect any witless dance companion with an overly energetic style that included excessive elbow action. Nursing bruised kidneys, I was forced to retire early from a promising career as a podium dancer, and retreated to the balcony to watch.
I couldn't help to notice that most of the anglo guys (of whom I recognised quite a few!) had coagulated together, shirtless in the middle of the dancefloor. They were quite uniform, in dress, in appearance, dance style and expression. A grim faced determination with furtive glances to see who, on the floor around them, might be watching.
It was in stark contrast the dusky lads and lasses, many dressed in bright hues, swirling in abandon around them. Arms raised, hands in constant arabesques of motion, heads thrown back, faces alight with mischief and humour.
And above them all, the screen presenting visual snippets of demented arabian life started scrolling transcriptions of daily brutality in Palastine. "..... my best friend shot in the back as we walked to school...." and ".... beaten senseless..." and ".... we were scared for our lives..."
Wandering around the venue, snatches of conversations overheard compiled into a multivoiced monologue, in iambic repetetion-sedition. The word seemed to be one everyone's lips.
With the new anti terror laws under discussion and the negative press and puplic opinion directed towards this community, partygoers were laughingly joking that we'd all be hauled off to be tried for sedition any day now and tee hee, do you think that guy over there is in the secret service?
Except it wasn't really that funny. I think most of us that night were aware, that if the proposed laws are passed, a dance party, arranged by a suspect community, could easily be interpreted as a protest. And under those laws, such protests would be illegal. And seditious.
Having a good time with all your clothes on had suddenly become subversive!
Post scriptum. It took me four attempts to publish this post. On three separate computers! I can't help but to imagine a bunker in Canberra with computer nerds paid to google "terrorist*" and "camp".
posted by Van Dino at 9:47 pm
1 Comments:
Spindleshanks! You work in theatre! You obviously don't circulate with the right people. In my experience, these days, many people who call themselves straight are queerer than queers! Believe me, that night was v tame and decidely less camp than many so called straight parties I've been invited to!
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