Paying homage to the Black queer dancefloor
Responding to CLUB by Esme Allman
If you ask any queer Black person what they’re missing the most throughout the lockdown, you’re guaranteed they would mention their friends and the club. Why? Not only because of the music, smoking area and intense bathroom conversations, but because the club is where we are unapologetically, loudly, freely ourselves. Esme Allman captures this transformation and celebration beautifully in her film CLUB, which takes us from the initial staring-in-the-mirror-what-do-I-wear moment, through the dancing, all the way to the morning after.
CLUB is a necessary documentation and celebration of the queer Black community’s creation of our own spaces - out of preference, out of joy, out of necessity. Not only does this film speak to what happens when a community is relegated to the sidelines of white, straight, or male-centred spaces, it also represents the vitality of telling our own stories and documenting the joy that grows within them. Similarly to this film being digitised from a theatre’s stage, what is special about CLUB is that its core message could be translated to any community that queer Black people have created for themselves, from book clubs to gaming groups to hiking meet-ups.
What I appreciate about CLUB is how neatly Allman captures the experience of going out with chosen family. The subtleness with which Allman’s facial expression towards herself lifts as she gets ready reminds me of myself in my bedroom choosing the right playlist to begin the night, accompanied by makeup, five outfit options and texts to my friends that I’m running (read: strolling) late. Each character represents a foundational part of the night: we can all picture who the ‘dancer’ is, whether it’s a friend or stranger that the dancefloor forms a circle around to applaud.
In CLUB, guests are usually texted the address, but tonight’s event is running on an ‘if you know, you know’ basis. It evokes the comforting familiarity of family gatherings on the dancefloor - it’s not just the close kinfolk that makes the night, but the extensions that transcend your close circle and still remain within the branches of family who know where to go. The poetry that weaves through the film takes us into the mind of each character, delicately detailing how this “commune of outcasts” came to be. Through these words, we are purposefully invited to feel the music in the walls, on the floor, in our chests.
If the images and the words are the scenic journey of this film, the camera work is what drives us in the right direction. Caleb Azumah Nelson seamlessly places us next to Allman looking in the mirror as she begins the process of getting ready for the night; watching her hands move from clippers to lipstick as her gestures take us into the preliminary space that is just as important as the dancefloor.
The Dancer’s spotlight moment is framed by the camera angles that every dancer wishes they had during their favourite song, focusing on the dynamic measured moves from the perspective of the applauding circle. As the words describe the ascent of the night, we do away with the ‘clandestine care’ with which our inner child dances. Instead, we lean into the music, the camera transporting us into the synchronised messiness that is dancing in the club with your nearest and dearest. Of course, no club experience is comprehensively documented without mentioning the bathroom, so the scenes of the MC having a quietly boisterous moment in the mirror are a fun and necessary detail.
The making and showing of CLUB in a time when it is impossible to convene and dance in enclosed spaces demonstrates that queer Black joy is kinetic and malleable; throughout our history it has been in the face of adversity that films, parties and stories have bloomed. In CLUB, Allman invites us to think about how we transform ourselves - not into anything else other than our truer selves. This film is an ode to the home that so many of us have found being onstage, physically, virtually, and crucially: communally.
