Women’s events evolve

by Heather Cassell

San Francisco’s queer women’s nightlife is bursting at the seams, more than it has in years, in spite of hard economic times and the rapid closure of some of the Bay Area’s newest and oldest lesbian bars. The bay’s lesbian nightlife scene is pulsating with constant rhythms of new beats and new faces.

Oakland’s lesbian bars Velvet and Vibe Lounge danced to a much different tune nine months after a heady beginning at the start of 2009. Velvet’s owners decided to go straight, after a much publicized rough relationship with the lesbian community, and Vibe shut its doors.

San Jose experienced a similar fate with Club Savoy, the South Bay’s longtime lesbian hot spot, shut down without much fanfare last year, to the surprise of the local queer women’s community.

San Francisco’s queer girl nightlife also experienced a shake up. The Castro’s Tuesday night lesbo revolution simmered by the end of the year into a round of longstanding and new tea dances, while Q Bar and other venues kept their doors open for ladies’ Tuesday nights.

Then Mango, the tea dance that started it all at El Rio, promoter Chantal Salkey passed away earlier this year. Mango kept the beat alive under new leadership and mission in the late promoter’s memory.

In the late Salkey’s own words about the burst of queer girl nightlife activity at the beginning of 2009, “Party on girls, party on.”

Flock of T gals
These losses didn’t deter queer women from going out and having a good time or promoters rising up to meet the need to groove.

“One major change that we have noticed in particular is the surge in women’s promoters with a lot of great ideas,” said Christie James, co-promoter of Lollipop, a club that caters to the 80’s Retro, Top 40, Hip-Hop, Electro music fans, with Michelle Mitchell. They welcome the new energy and the diversification of clubs.

“It seems like overnight women decided, ‘Hey, we deserve the same caliber of events that we travel to Palm Springs or Atlanta or Miami for,’” they said.

Christine De La Rosa, who took over management of Velvet in 2009, and life partner with mixtress Olga Texidor, better known as DJ Olga T, spun Velvet’s change of heart to their own tune by revolutionizing and reviving the Bay Area’s lesbian nightlife.

Less than a year later, the couple emerged as a party machine with Movement Productions, a queer women’s entertainment production company, throwing quality, hot and sexy queer women’s parties that lesbians are flocking to around the bay.

De La Rosa agreed with James and Mitchell. She feels lucky to live in and be a part of the lesbian’s “beautiful and dynamic scene,” that includes clubs, live music venues, burlesque type shows and artist showcases that makes the “scene compelling and interesting” and a “destination for lesbians from around the country and the world.”

Lexbians and Fem Bars
In spite of its vibrancy, the Bay Area’s lesbian party scene suffers from a lack of good publicity and remains relatively invisible due to its impermanent nature, an obstacle for queer women travelers and locals who casually attend the club scene.

Clubs rapidly come and go, said Carol Hill, Mango’s promoter, reflecting on her 13 years experience in the scene. “If the community doesn’t support our venues, the clubs close. Sooner or later new clubs appear.”

“The party scene for women is very transient and confusing,” agreed Eve Friedman and Shereen Pinto, the gals behind Fem Bar.

A natural occurrence of the lesbian nightlife scene, said Lila Thirkield, owner of The Lexington Club, San Francisco’s lesbian bar, who gets excited about “all the new parties, DJs, and happenings that pop up along the way.”

Clubs continue to rise up in place of old ones or make space in new areas no matter how mainstream lesbians become because, “We still need our spaces that are just for us,” said Mariah Hanson, who launched Club Skirts in San Francisco a little more than 20 years ago and is celebrating two decades of The Dinah in Palm Springs this year.

“Regardless of how integrated we become as a lifestyle, no one really understands our lifestyle unless they live it,” she said.

There will remain a need to have a “space for women to feel comfortable and safe to express themselves in a way that they will not be judged or harassed for their sexual orientation,” agreed Elyssa Pon, better known as DJ China G, promoter of Rebel Girl, with Hanson.

Which is why Club Savoy was quickly replaced by Movement Productions’ Afterglow, and promoter Diane Felix’s, known as DJ Chili D, club Octopussy in San Jose.

That need for girl space along with increasing acceptance is also driving lesbian party promoters to take the parties beyond San Francisco, San Jose and Oakland. Girl clubs are emerging in cities like, Hayward, where La Vaquerita and Club Congas are being produced by Alejandra Delgado of Boricua Productions.

Read more about East Bay and San Jose women’s events in our special “Get Out of Town” August issue of BARtab.

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1. Mango’s Ripe
2. Feast of Eden
3. Bad Girl Cocktail Hour @ The Lexington Club
4. Gay party venue fights to remain open
5. BARchive: The Tool Box