About
Us
So you wanted to know more about Strut.
Maybe you’ve heard about or been to a silent disco and experienced the fun of slipping on a pair of headphones and entering a world of music, fun, and belting at the top of your lungs on astreet corner while dancing a little salsa.
At least was my introduction to silent disco in the height of the COVID-19 pandemic in NYC.
But with a few years my own incredible experiences with silent disco communities in New York City under mybelt, I just knew these liberating spaces could do so much more and I was plagued with ideas and haunted by questions like:
Why shouldn’t our spaces of laughter, dancing, letting go, and taking up space not also benefit the most vulnerable in our communities?
Why shouldn’t dance spaces that flourish and profit off of Electronic Dance Music center and uplift the very communities - Blackity Black, Brown and Queer - that first brought them to life on the dance floors of Chicago and Detroit?
Is there a balance we can find between escaping reality on the dancefloor and acknowledging that our joy andfun allow us to resist systems of disconnect, exploitation, and oppression?
Is every ecstatic dance, EDM festival, silent disco community space destined to be predominately white and financially inaccessible? And why is that, when House music birthed it all from the jacking of criminalized Black and Brown gay people all those years ago?
How can we actually turn our sitesof joy and fun into sites of liberation?
Humans have been dancing out our grief, rage, excitement, playfulness and joy for millions of years. Beneath all the landscaping and human development, is land that longs for our dancing and our joy, our truth. How can we honor the deep connection between humans, music, dance and nature the way our ancestors have done for so long?
Silent disco is sensory friendly, allowing people to take their headphones off and control personal volume as well as distance themselves from a dancing crowd,without missing a beat of music. Silent disco allows the flexibility to dance outside, without worrying about sound permits or quiet hours.
I partly was inspired by the work orchestrated by the women of the Original Black Panther Party, I envisioned a space of fun that could provide fair pay tocreatives while also putting that money right back into the community, into the networks of mutual aid and hands of those in need.
(History note, before the infamous split of the Black Panthers between Oakland and LA, Elaine Brown helped lead initiatives that allowed Black Panther owned bars and movie theaters to support community financial needs.)
I was galvanized by the Conjure x Pinhook’s RENT DUE parties in Durham, NC that had supported my wife and I personally when we couldn’t pay rent.
I knew that there could be space that collided it all.
I envisioned Strut The Yard.
The reason Strut was created was to build a collective focused on providing basic needs and a creative, musical outlet for the QTBIPOC community in the RTP. Portions of our proceeds go directly into the hands of QTBIPOC needing to pay for rent, groceries, phone bills, medical and utility bills and more. It transforms a mobile dance party and ripples out tangible support for the local community.
Join our misfit collective. Journey beyond the boundaries of gender, beyond the confines of accepted movement,beyond the reality of state violence that polices our very bodies. Let go. Throw caution to the wind and dance like you are in a 90s music video or walkalong with the crowd and look up at the stars. And if you really have a goodtime, maybe you can help create a Strut journey of your own. You’re part of something way bigger.;)
Maybe you’ve heard about or been to a silent disco and experienced the fun of slipping on a pair of headphones and entering a world of music, fun, and belting at the top of your lungs on astreet corner while dancing a little salsa.
At least was my introduction to silent disco in the height of the COVID-19 pandemic in NYC.
But with a few years my own incredible experiences with silent disco communities in New York City under mybelt, I just knew these liberating spaces could do so much more and I was plagued with ideas and haunted by questions like:
Why shouldn’t our spaces of laughter, dancing, letting go, and taking up space not also benefit the most vulnerable in our communities?
Why shouldn’t dance spaces that flourish and profit off of Electronic Dance Music center and uplift the very communities - Blackity Black, Brown and Queer - that first brought them to life on the dance floors of Chicago and Detroit?
Is there a balance we can find between escaping reality on the dancefloor and acknowledging that our joy andfun allow us to resist systems of disconnect, exploitation, and oppression?
Is every ecstatic dance, EDM festival, silent disco community space destined to be predominately white and financially inaccessible? And why is that, when House music birthed it all from the jacking of criminalized Black and Brown gay people all those years ago?
How can we actually turn our sitesof joy and fun into sites of liberation?
Humans have been dancing out our grief, rage, excitement, playfulness and joy for millions of years. Beneath all the landscaping and human development, is land that longs for our dancing and our joy, our truth. How can we honor the deep connection between humans, music, dance and nature the way our ancestors have done for so long?
Silent disco is sensory friendly, allowing people to take their headphones off and control personal volume as well as distance themselves from a dancing crowd,without missing a beat of music. Silent disco allows the flexibility to dance outside, without worrying about sound permits or quiet hours.
I partly was inspired by the work orchestrated by the women of the Original Black Panther Party, I envisioned a space of fun that could provide fair pay tocreatives while also putting that money right back into the community, into the networks of mutual aid and hands of those in need.
(History note, before the infamous split of the Black Panthers between Oakland and LA, Elaine Brown helped lead initiatives that allowed Black Panther owned bars and movie theaters to support community financial needs.)
I was galvanized by the Conjure x Pinhook’s RENT DUE parties in Durham, NC that had supported my wife and I personally when we couldn’t pay rent.
I knew that there could be space that collided it all.
I envisioned Strut The Yard.
The reason Strut was created was to build a collective focused on providing basic needs and a creative, musical outlet for the QTBIPOC community in the RTP. Portions of our proceeds go directly into the hands of QTBIPOC needing to pay for rent, groceries, phone bills, medical and utility bills and more. It transforms a mobile dance party and ripples out tangible support for the local community.
Join our misfit collective. Journey beyond the boundaries of gender, beyond the confines of accepted movement,beyond the reality of state violence that polices our very bodies. Let go. Throw caution to the wind and dance like you are in a 90s music video or walkalong with the crowd and look up at the stars. And if you really have a goodtime, maybe you can help create a Strut journey of your own. You’re part of something way bigger.;)
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