Queer Spaces: Honoring San Francisco’s LGBT Clubbing Legacy | Digital, 2020
Altar spaces allow us to center the sacred and honor the departed. Each of these altars has been created in remembrance of a queer space in San Francisco that has been lost, whether through gentrification, economic crisis, or just because of the natural end of an era. The altar boxes that inspired this project come from all over the world, but they are similar in that they are all personal altars that one would find in somebody’s home. They also all feature doors flung wide open, inviting the viewer to feel welcome among very personal collections of treasured artifacts.
The poems that accompany each altar are in the form of short, one-act plays, each alluding to a personal experience in these queer clubs. The play format is a nod to the sometimes theatrical nature of these spaces, but also to the collective engagement that club-goers experience as we vacillate between being the audience and the performers, the viewer and the viewed.
The Lexington Club (1997-2015)
During Which We Eat Burritos Under A Disco Ball Tree
[A jukebox is center stage. A pool table is center stage. A long, red bar runs along the center of the stage. Five women and two transmen are center stage. Three non-binary people are center stage. YOU and ME enter, center stage.]
YOU: Give me a dollar for the jukebox.
ME: Only if you play that song.
[YOU cross to the jukebox, insert a dollar, and push some buttons. Like A Prayer by Madonna begins to play loudly, filling up the entire space.
Life is a mystery
Everyone must stand alone
I hear you call my name
And it feels like home.
Everyone cheers, climbs onto the pool table, and dances.]
Blackout.
Marlena’s (1990-2013)
During Which We Are Overwhelmed By Antiquity
[One thousand Santa figurines are suspended from the ceiling. They litter the bar counter. They are pinned to the walls. They are piled up in the window. A drag queen commands the stage near the back. She is 60 years-old with the energy of someone who is 20. She is dressed in a lavish red velvet gown with white fur trim— a living Christmas Queen reigning over one thousand Santas who stand silently at attention. YOU and ME sit at the bar, watching.]
YOU: This is the only place to get a proper hot toddy in this city.
Blackout.
The Stud (1966-2020)
During Which We Lament Our Ex-Lovers
[Lights up on a body on a pedestal. It is a fat, muscled body. It is a body covered in hair. A body clothed in a jock strap and white hi-top sneakers. The body is dancing. HE is dancing. Dollar bills flutter, pressed between elastic and skin. HE locks eyes with ME.]
HE: Don’t dwell on your yesterdays.
ME: Tonight is all we have, isn’t it?
[HE and ME dance together, under the lights, under the sparkle. HE kisses ME and the set flies away, revealing a vast field of stars.]
Blackout.