Dancin’, Prancin’, Romancin’, Protestin’…
Crossways is a small Christian community centre in an old house on the corner of Elizabeth and Brougham Streets. Monthly, we had great lesbian dances. We only played women singers, except when it started getting a bit too folksy. So, Jude made livelier women singers' tapes for us. Some dances were alcohol-free. There was a very friendly vibe (except on a couple of nights of fights and drama). One time, we had a garden lesbian fair here.
DOODs were large monthly women's dances fundraising for Lesbian Radio, Lesbian-Line, + individual lesbians. Organised by Heather, Leonie, Mary and Boots, then joined by Ang, Sally and many others. At Mary's one day (when the Amazons softball were in debt) Mary said, "Why can't we do something to get dykes out of debt?" Heather, who was doodling, quietly said "DOODs". Initially held at the Dominion Tavern (so chocker they had to close the doors downstairs, where Georgina was the barmaid), then at The Thorndon Tavern (with karaoke) in 1992 until 1994. Other venues were at two clubs above Tory St, Barneys in Dixon St, in an upstairs club space attached to a carpark building in Edward St (once was Caspers), then Blue Note on comer of Vivian + Cuba Sts. Thanks, Boots.
In Brooklyn, we had lesbian dances at the very large hall for a while. One of those was on the night of the Lesbian Liberation March on Friday, October 10th, in 1980. We were still having them there around the time of the 1990 sesquicentennial commemoration of the signing of Te Tiriti o Waitangi. Sussun would hang large newsprint signs on the inside of the toilet doors with details about sewerage in Te Whanganui a Tara and other issues of colonisation.
Reclaim the Night March 1980: Lesbians protested male violence against women with a Lesbian Liberation banner. We'd have danced afterwards.
Lesbian Balls started in the old Wellington Town Hall in the 90s. Then we had one up at the James Cook Hotel on The Tce. The old wooden Newtown Community Centre was the hall for candle-lit women's dances and live lesbian theatre as fundraisers for Lesbian Land & for the Amazons' 10-year celebration in 1987. We also had theatre and live music fundraisers in the even older theatre in Tonks Ave at the top of Cuba St
Similar live theatre called Amazon's Rising, again written & produced by local lessie Lynne, was performed at the national Lesbian Leap weekend at Elsdon, 1982. This weekend also had gun shooting lessons to prepare for the revolution.
The Pines at Houghton Bay on the Raukawa Moana (Cook Strait) has been a long-running venue for women's dances. They started out as over-30s-lesbian dances, then they aged to over-35s. Now the Pines are occasionally used for our funeral gatherings.