A very queer – womxn only – DIY club night built around dance, love, and connection.
Sunday 28th November 9pm – 1:30am at Lost Horizon HQ, Bristol
DJs: Sadsugar, DJ Ammi (myself), Jamurai, EMMY, and Yours Truly.
Half of profits generated by ticket sales will be donated to local charity Pride Without Borders, which offers assistance, support, and a safe space for queer-identifying refugees.
On Sunday 28th November, Lost Horizon, the IRL Bristol space from the team behind Glastonbury’s Shangri-La, will host Misscoteque, a very queer, womxn only, DIY club night built around dance, love and connection.
Soundtracked by all queer and fxmale or non-binary-identifying selectors, the night will deliver feel-good, old skool, campy vibes, taking inspiration from the music that would have been played at Bristol’s original lesbian discos: disco, old skool house, and old skool garage.
As young queer womxn, Amaia and Georgia, founders of the Womxns Disco Collective and the team beind Misscoteque, often found themselves struggling to locate themselves in the world.
Georgia moved to liberally minded Bristol from a rural village in Somerset, and having hoped to find more queer spaces was inspired to look into the history (or herstory) of lesbian nightlife and social spaces in 70s, 80s and 90s, through archive work and most importantly oral history interviews.
Hearing about the clubs, pubs, hidden back rooms of straight pubs and hotels, and the pop up discos that empowered the marginalised lesbian community, was inspiring to Georgia. The phrase that was heard and echoed throughout those interviews was “Those places were my world.”
Georgia said: “Many of the women had their first encounters with other lesbians in these places and were able to explore their sexuality – a lot of them literally snuck out their houses away from their families and went on their own to these pubs and clubs when they were questioning their sexual identity. And there was such a sense of community that the older lesbians would take them under their wing and bring them into the community.
“What inspired me most was how transforming it was and is to have that community, connection and ability to see others like yourself reflected back at you.
“When I was undertaking this research it was mid lockdown, so feeling ever more isolated. When the women I spoke with began to narrate how these spaces started to disappear towards the end of the 90s, I started to reflect on my own experience living in Bristol without them.”
“It just felt so painful to me that these places had to go away when they were literally everything for these women, and they could have been everything for me and my friends.”
Hence the Womxn’s Disco Collective and Misscoteque was born, from this feeling, this bereavement of owning a space. The club night has found its new spiritual home with Lost Horizon, a space formed by the team which masterminded the Sistxrhood project, a womxn-only space within Shangri-La at Glastonbury Festival which shares an ethos nearly identical to Misscoteque’s own.
The night draws inspiration from the old skool lesbian discos, broadening the space to be more inclusive. Anybody who identifies as fxmale, non-binary, or gender nonconforming in any other sense is welcome on the dance floor, using the term she’s and they’s for simplicity at this point, but always listening and adapting to guidance from the community on terminology.
Amaia comments: “Going out in Bristol, and across the UK, as queer womxn we are marginalised, in straight clubs many still don’t feel comfortable to openly kiss other womxn or don’t even have that opportunity because how do you meet other queer womxn in heteronormative clubs!
“We have lived our lives in predominantly heteronormative space and that can be really painful. But we are also marginalised in gay clubs, which are dominated by gay men. This is why there is STILL a desperate need for these spaces – where queer womxn can feel safe, explore their identity and ultimately be themselves.”
Every single person involved in the Womxns Disco Collective identifies as a womxn, non-binary or gender non conforming. This includes the collective’s graphic designers Amy and Asha, photographer Lily, and all bar, security, and managing staff present on the night.
For more information on the Womxns Disco Collective and Misscotecque, please follow: @womxnsdiscocollectiv
