One of the early names for AIDS was "The Saint's Disease," because by the second season, it had already begun decimating the club's membership. Both got going as the first glimmer of AIDS appeared on the horizon. The Saint and the Garage went through a wobbly existence. On Fire Island, people were suddenly dying. When disaster starting rolling in, people were freaking out. That scene informed the circuit in a number of ways: a lot of the terms we commonly use, like "fierceness" and performers like Power Infiniti, Kitty Meow, Flava and Kevin Aviance, held a large influence. Meanwhile, uptown in New York, the ballroom scene was flourishing in Harlem. San Francisco began developing its own clubs and nights, separate from New York. He decided he would bring the DJs and party themes to his club, Rudely Elegant. In Columbus, Ohio, where I was living, Corbett Reynolds, a local nightclub owner, visited Manhattan and Fire Island. But they would visit New York and bring what they experienced back home. In the rest of the US, queer people remained largely closeted. If you want to know the hottest circuit party today, it's Electric Daisy Carnival. The circuit was always underground.īoth were megaclubs that attracted different crowds, but together, they developed the night-into-afternoon musical "journey" that would come to dominate circuit parties. Unlike Studio 54, The Saint and Paradise Garage flew under the radar. Three years before, Paradise Garage opened several blocks away. Then, in 1980, the Saint opened in the East Village. The term "circuit" came from it being the "need to know circuit"-not only discos, but "in-in-the-know" places in the gay community that even included barbershops. I believe Dancer from the Dance marked the first time it was named in a book. There, DJs like Roy Thode, who may have invented the EP by looping a song back and forth until it filled one entire side of an album, were experimenting with new ways to play records.
Money started pouring in, with places like Flamingo and Twelve West, two of the most prominent gay male dance spaces, full of sweaty men dancing all night.Īt the same time, Fire Island became the place for people who could afford it. And in New York, thousands of men began gathering at Downtown loft spaces that began cropping up. Technological advances in sound systems and DJ equipment made it more attractive to open dance spaces. It was so crowded and hot, people began taking off their shirts, and the circuit was born.Īfter Stonewall, we were allowed to have our own clubs without police interference. When the Gay Activist Alliance was formed-the first gay rights group, born only six months after Stonewall-they had dances in an old firehouse in SoHo. Mickey Weems: It all started after the Stonewall Riots in 1969. THUMP: Can you give me a capsule history of the circuit? Weems spoke to their past, present and potential future, explaining what role the circuit has played in shaping queer and gay culture, and what its evolution says about the same today. To figure out the state of the circuit in 2017, THUMP spoke with Mickey Weems, a lecturer at the University of Hawai'i Manoa who has extensively studied circuit parties (alongside religious, anthropological and folklore interests). Undoubtedly, many younger gay men prefer smaller venues that "bask in the beauty and openness of queer culture." Plenty of older gay men, too, find the whole ethos of circuit parties - glow sticks, remixed diva anthems, color themes, "body fascism"-to be tired anachronisms. Many are asking if there's still a need for these all-male gatherings. But they may be on the wane domestically, and the future of the circuit is in question, thanks to the decline of LGBTQ community strongholds and the rise of new sorts of dance culture.īack in 2007, I questioned whether circuit parties were dying. Since their birth in the 70s, the circuit has grown into an international phenomenon, with parties blossoming throughout Europe, Latin America, and, more recently, the Asian Pacific Rim. Or, they can be wild, like at New York's Black Party, with "strange live acts" that have included erotic use of a boa constrictor or at San Francisco's Magnitude, held the night before the Folsom Street Fair fetish festival.īut they always give attendees a space to shed social expectations, where they can be nobody but themselves. Circuit parties can be mild, like at Austin's Splash Days, held at local watering hole Hippie Hollow, or at ski weeks held at resorts in the West and Switzerland, where action on the slopes rivals that of the dance floor.