Dancing without a Floor: The Artists’ Politic of Queer Club Space

Club events have been an important element of queer culture in urban North America. In the following article, I document the nature of a specific queer club space, Vazaleen, in Toronto, Canada. The article describes the historical context of Vazaleen, as well as artist Will Munros influence on the event. I argue that club space can contribute an important politic to queer culture when the event supports a culture of diversity for queers. Club space becomes significant queer space when based upon an ethics of change that refuses ontological foundations. Within the club space, concrete sensuous, specific relations, both real and acted out as fictions, challenge the taken-for-granted assumptions about queerness. The politic of the space is a challenge to abstract conceptual purity and the transcendent. Munros interest in ephemeral, open-ended, communal space, along with his refusal to rush to judgement, has been influential in affecting the philosophical nature of the space. Social critique and experimentation is important to participants who value the subjective construction of local culture in the present through the historicity of the moment.