♥♥♥ TORONTO QUEER SLOWDANCE - Valentine's Day EDITION! ♥♥♥

♥♥♥ You are cordially invited to Toronto's QUEER SLOWDANCE! - Valentine's Day EDITION! ♥♥♥ With a lending library of designated dancers for all you wallflowers, and a dancecard-booklet to set up dances in advance (should you choose to), Toronto Queer Slowdance has all slow songs, all night long! (Except for the occasional intermission when we play the fastest songs we can find!) It's high school with a happy ending. Come and experience why slow is beautiful, and why love is not ironic. PS. Fabulous and inspired attire, while desired, is not required. But it would be AWESOME and HAWT. Since this is our Valentine's edition, you should wear the thing that makes you want to get your groove on. Wear the thing that makes you feel warm and purry. Wear the thing that you don't normally have the opportunity to wear! Wear all the things! Finally, you do not have to be queer to attend this party, but you must have an open mind, an open heart, and have open arms. Do keep in mind that the majority of folks attending are lesbian & gay, so if you are stridently straight, this may not be the most receptive community for you. ★★★ Dovercourt house 805 Dovercourt Rd. (1 block North of Bloor, 3 blks. west of Ossington) Saturday, Feb 14, 2015 Doors at 9:30, Dance from 10 PM - 3 AM. $10 admission includes your Dancecard-booklet! Regretfully, the Dovercourt House is not wheelchair-accessible. 19+ We are always looking for designated dancers for our evenings. If you are outgoing, warm, and willing to undertake the very serious duty and responsibility of inviting wallflowers out onto the dancefloor - if in fact, such a prospect gives you great joy - then please contact the organizers at inconsolablecat@hotmail.com. To be alerted to ♥♥♥ FUTURE EVENTS ♥♥♥ in your area, please sign-up to our emailing list right here: http://eepurl.com/QHnpb and friend the organizer, Sherwin Sullivan Tjia: https://www.facebook.com/inconsolablecat Preferably both! We will do our best not to spam you! We hate that too! Likely it will be one or two emails a month letting you know what events are upcoming. ★★★ "Relive the prom without the angst." - the Canadian Press "In an age where physical contact is a scarce commodity, an event that brings strangers safely together is long overdue." - The Montreal Gazette "I really like hugging people, and this is like, a five-minute hug." - Telyn Kusalik, one of our guests ★★★ ♥ A NOTE ABOUT THE DANCE CARDS: The dancecards are these little handmade booklets that contain a setlist of every song that will be played that evening. The idea is that during the course of the evening, you can "book" certain songs with certain people, and vice versa. So when your charming hosts announce a particular song, you can look on your dancecard and see who it is you're going to dance with next. There is a little space after every song where people can write their names. How filled your dancecard gets depends on you, of course. Ask someone to dance! Or give someone meaningful looks! Look for the Dancecard-Signing Station located somewhere on the premises, usually near a light, where small pencils are available. The dancecards also - thoughtfully - have lots of empty places where you can write down the names and numbers of charming people whom you may have danced with that night. Use of the dancecards, is, of course, optional, and completely up to you. Proceed at your comfort level. ♥ A NOTE ABOUT THE RULES OF ENGAGEMENT: The Rules essentially state that as someone coming to Queer Slowdance, you have the right to ask anyone you want to dance. But whoever it is you asked has the right to refuse your request, and not have to give any reason why. But wonderfully, you have this right as well. This is done because slowdancing with someone is rather an intimate sort of enterprise, and a minor commitment, and you should have the right to back out anytime you wish. Queer Slowdance is about consensual respect and enjoyment. Just because you may have danced with someone for most of the song, if at any point you are feeling unsafe or uncomfortable, you can simply walk away. If whoever it is persists in their attention, locate one of the organizers, and they will be ejected from the premises. And fucked-up. Anyone who refuses to comply by the rules will be fucked-up. Kidding! Kinda. ♥ A NOTE ABOUT THE DESIGNATED DANCERS: On any particular night there will be a handful of our Designated Dancers available to dance with you for the first half of the evening - so arrive early! They will be wearing glowing items over their hearts, and these Designated Dancers are warm, charming, and safe people to ask to dance. Of course, the same Rules of Engagement apply, and they, as free agents, can decide for themselves who they want to dance with, and for how long, but in all likelihood, they would be very open to dancing with you. Please think of them as a warm taxi light in the middle of a blizzard; the cast of a lighthouse, when you are too far from shore and shrouded in fog; a glimmer of hope after a lifetime of desolation. Well, actually, that might be pushing it. Please think of them as a temporary safe harbour. They will also be looking for you, and asking you to dance, trying in their way to turn any wallflowers into perennials. ♥ A NOTE ABOUT ACCESSIBILITY: Regrettably, the Dovercourt House is not an accessible space. For those who are interested in the particular accessibility challenges that the Dovercourt House presents - there are 12 steps going up the front to the "main" floor, with a handrail, and then another step at the doors. The bathrooms have stalls, but they are very small and difficult to manouever. We have been the recipient of a number of emails and wall-posts about accessibility - or rather, the lack of it - at our current venue, the Dovercourt House. We understand, and it is an ongoing concern. A more complete statement about accessibility and our efforts to find an accessible space can be found here: https://www.facebook.com/notes/sherwin-sullivan-tjia/a-note-about-accessibility-at-my-events/10152392794924459 We do endeavour to hold Queer Slowdance in the Gladstone Hotel Ballroom at different junctures in the year, which is an accessible space. ♥ A NOTE ABOUT COMMON SCENTS: Because at this event folks will be in very close proximity to each other, pretty much hugging, we would like attendees to be mindful of what they smell like. Now, we don't want to stipulate that attendees must not wear scents, or use scented soaps or shampoos, or not smoke. One of the best thing about Queer Slowdance is that you can choose who you would like to dance with, and we are loathe to take choices away from attendees - but if you have a habit of spraying a cologne or perfume on before leaving the house, we would ask that you consider NOT doing so. Smell the way you smell. This does not mean not bathing. We heartily encourage bathing and wearing freshly laundered clothes. But the fact is, in this culture, we often try to cover up "bad" smells by pouring on the "good" ones. We would ask that you take as much consideration regarding what you SMELL like as what you LOOK like before you leave the house. (PS. We recognize that our providing breath mints and gum is totally hypocritical here). And actually, for some chemically injured/scent-sensitive folks, this is an issue of accessibility, so we ask you to be considerate. Thank you! ♥ A NOTE ABOUT POLITELY DECLINING: So at this event, there is a high likelihood that you may be asked to dance by someone of the same, opposite, or indeterminate gender. We understand that people have preferences, irrespective of gender, regarding who they want to dance with. We urge you to be very polite if someone has asked you to dance but you do not want to dance with them. A simple "No thank you," will suffice. You do not have to explain why. One incident that was related to us involved a young woman who was asked to dance by another, and she responded thusly: "No, I'm straight." For reasons we hope are self-evident, this is a little rude. No explanation was required. We urge you, when declining, to be brief and polite. Please keep in mind that the person asking you to dance is taking a big emotional risk. You do not have to explain why you are declining. Indeed, we urge you not to. ♥ A NOTE ABOUT HOMOPHOBIC ARTISTS: It was recently brought to our attention that certain artists, like Bon Jovi, Guns ‘n Roses, Sting, Eminem, Ween, Public Enemy, The Pogues, The Kinks, Sex Pistols, Frank Zappa, Korn, Violent Femmes, or Chris Brown, are alleged to have made homophobic slurs or statements in the past, and/or have homophobic lyrics in their songs. In certain cases it’s hard to be sure if the homophobia was deliberate, like in The Kink’s “Lola” which leaves things kinda mysterious. In other cases, like The Spice Girls’ “2 Become 1”, heteronormativity is espoused, like in their lyric “Any deal that we endeavour/boys and girls go good together”. Though, to their credit, in recent years, a new version of that song has emerged, which has changed the lyrics to: “Once again when we endeavour, love will bring us back together” which is more inclusive. This puts us in a bit of a quandry, as you can imagine, because it’s hard to keep track of every homophobic artist and every homophobic song, and even more difficult to parse out the meaning behind every lyric. Additionally, this brings into question whether we necessarily need to attach the views of an individual artist or band to a particular song. What if the artist is homophobic, but the band is not, and the song has nothing to do with queerness? Should we enjoy the song? Here, at Queer Slowdance, after much agonizing, we’ve decided to take on the possibly controversial policy of “Fuck It – it’s a great song.” We are going to play whatever song we like because it’s a wonderful song and succeeds in bringing people closer together. We know that some of you might disagree with this, and we look forward to your angry emails, but we are also big believers in Ani DiFranco’s truism: “Every tool is a weapon if you hold it right.” And we believe that any song can be made beautiful if you’re holding the right person in your arms. ♥ A NOTE ABOUT SAFETY: Sometimes it happens that there is someone in the crowd who will make you feel unsafe or uncomfortable when dancing. This does not have to be an obvious thing, like leading with their groin, or grabbing your bum. It could just be a weird feeling. You are more than within your rights to stop the dance right there, and not have to explain. Overwhelmingly, our guests are courteous and polite and will comport themselves like gentlefolk, but every event that is open to the public may occasionally encounter someone who is, let's be honest, kinda creepy. While we encourage testing limits, when it infringes on someone's boundaries, that is when we draw the line. If something like this happens, do please let the organizer know. The organizer is the man in the stunning dress at the DJ Laptop. He is both your mom & dad tonight and a safe person to come to if something happens, and we will try to resolve it with everyone's safety in mind. ♥ A NOTE ABOUT HELPING: We would love it if you would share our event on your Facebook page and invite your friends! You likely know hundreds of people we have never met, and in our attempts to bring slowdancing to everyone on the planet, we would really appreciate it if you would share the event. Thank you! ♥ ANOTHER NOTE ABOUT SAFETY: The organizer reserves the right to ask anyone to leave for any reason which he does not have to divulge to anyone. ♥ A NOTE ABOUT THE NOTES: Holy shit! Did you really read down this far? That's awesome. We always read all the minutiae & marginalia too. But really, you're crazy heroic for reading all this. *** ♥ Copyright 2015 Sherwin Sullivan Tjia ♥