“A while” depends on how long you can last typically, the music goes until near sunrise. Instead, it’s a space where people can come as their best selves, serve a look, have some fun, listen to some excellent techno, and stay for a while. You can feel it in the air when you walk into Stroke - it isn’t dour, or a place where you feel your behavior is under monitoring. They provide the entertainment, the space, and the vibe, and the people form that community around it, a microcosm of queer experience that’s zoomed in and ephemeral. The idea is the people make the fun for themselves, without pressure or too many eyes. “Well, it’s not at a venue it feels special,” Alex offers. They were truly ruminating on how they engender a queer space. When asked how they represent the queer community, the three were contemplative for a time - this isn’t to say they were stumped. “There’s such a lack of space that is not, like, Midtown for queer people who are artists, who are weirdos, who are just fucking different,” Cameron says. “I think there’s a lack of underground parties in Atlanta that have the venue to accompany it.”īranded as a “queer centric dance party,” the event has a strict “zero negativity” policy, whether that be from blatant hate speech or denigration of bodies. “Coming from the concept of house parties thrown at Cameron’s, then moving into this space, it gave us an opportunity to evolve the concept and grow in scale,” he says. And people kind of need this getaway to survive.” You know, the world\’s fucked up right now. And ultimately for me, it\’s about community. “I’ve been brought to tears because of parties before. “It was quite literally born in my bedroom,” Cameron says. For the past few years, he has had a large event with guest DJs at his own apartment for New Year’s Eve, his own way of bringing in the new year with propulsive house beats and a room of smiling friends. Dedicated to providing a good time for everyone, the trio aims to bottle what makes a good party so good and provide that, in equal amounts, to everyone present.Ĭameron has been a longtime party thrower. That’s exactly what defines Stroke, the bi-monthly passion project by DJs and event organizers Cameron Allen, Nolan Georgenes, and Alex DeWahl. These extroverts, champions of gatherings, and providers of imbibements foster community in a way no one else can. It’s a thankless job, throwing a party, which often leads to invisible Gatsby-esque hosts who skulk around the party never truly participating as if constantly pulling on an intricate system of strings that keeps all the event’s moving parts in their proper place, ambulating with hip-shaking finesse. To tick all these boxes, you need money and you need labor. You want to provide an entertaining time, but you also want it to be effortless - guests should be able to come in, kick off their shoes, lose themselves to dance, and get to that particular level of inebriation they desire (which might be none!). Say you’re having some people over, you’re hosting at your own place. Rarely is it that one considers the work that goes on behind a party. Left to right: Alex DeWahl, Nolan Georgenes, and Cameron Allen at Food Court/Mammal Gallery in Atlanta, Ga. An interview with Cameron Allen, Nolan Georgenes, and Alex DeWahl Stroke, At Midnight.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |