Dancing While The World is on Fire
Community and Joy in the Worst Timeline
I was promoting a New Years Eve event when Donald Trump was elected a second time, and overnight I watched ticket sales plummet. With every subsequent act of terror driven by his regime, ticket sales would stall again. Now, with the seemingly endless news cycle of bad times, it is a given that every event we throw will be affected in some way by world events. Sometimes I feel like I am playing music while the Titanic sinks, and I should stay home, but I know that is not true.
During Covid, I was DJing online when the Black Lives Matter rallies started to take over. I was watching a live stream of a rally while playing music on Twitch and I hated it. I felt like a frivolous distraction. I hung up my headphones for the rest of Covid at that point and waited until the world reopened again. Now, things feel different. I no longer feel like I am taking the spotlight away from something important when I plan my parties or DJ an event. I feel like I am committing an act of defiance. They want us to hide. They want the Kings and the Queens to disappear. They want queer people to go somewhere else.
“If you don’t like it, then leave.”
How many times have I heard that phrase from the right? I was born in Texas. I have committed most of my adult life to making Dallas a better place. I care deeply and passionately about my city, and feel very opinionated about the way events, clubs, and cultural experiences take place here because I was at the heart of it all for so long. I want to make Dallas a better place and I strive to do so, but it can be very difficult
It took leaving for Oregon and Washington in the summers to show me a different direction. I cannot tell you how refreshing it was to get up to the Pacific Northwest and throw events around people who did not seem like they were constantly under the thumb of oppression. Everything just seemed so normal. I did not have to fend off the crazy people on the right just to throw a fun party, and the people at our events felt liberated from that oppression and were more open and able to be themselves. Everyone benefited from this. I had lived in a red state for so long that I did not realize things could be different.
My time throwing High Fantasy Events has shown me a different path forward. When we first started High Fantasy, it felt like a distraction from the dreariness of reality. Now I would say we are simulating a version of the reality we want to live in. A world where people are celebrated for their differences, uplifted, safe, and joyous.
I no longer see the people who attend our events as customers, but as participants. They dress up, invest in our collective entertainment with their ticket, and help make the world we imagine into a reality. It is so much more fun.
I am filled with purpose knowing our events bring people joy. I believe they really do matter. It is important for people to see that everything in the world does not have to be doom and gloom, and we can achieve something different if we all work together.
One example of this. Today is Trans Day of Visibility. Trans people are very visible in our cast. We celebrate the entire spectrum of gender. By creating a space where trans people, drag kings, drag queens, queer burlesque performers, and more are celebrated, we are hopefully showing our audience that it is in fact very cool to react positively and joyously to people’s gender euphoria and sexuality, and that the cishet world is a construct they do not have to feel trapped in!
The world needs more places for people to be themselves, and also where they can experiment and figure our who they might want to become. We choose community over isolation, defiance over fear. High Fantasy is not escapism, it is a rehearsal for a better future. I know what we do matters, and that I am exactly where Im supposed to be, even while the world is burning.