Waiting to go onstage at Queer Central took a lot of focus. Standing off to the side trying to remember choreography, channel emotions, double-check costume components, get immersed in the artistic headspace – and just two metres away, separated only by air, literally ANYTHING could be erupting on stage.
Maybe somebody was making the front row hyperventilate with seductive moves. Perhaps someone was pleasuring a rubber fist. Maybe somebody had the audience in stitches reinterpreting Kasey Chambers. Perchance, someone was juicing a crotch lemon. There was high drag, dark burlesque, camp cabaret, sharp satire. Show tunes and emo anthems, spoken word and epic mime. Explosions of glitter or water or wine, gyrations in paint, live piercing, political skewering, soul baring and queer strutting, all with DJ Sveta smiling like a sphinx over the decks in the far corner.
The act onstage would come to a climax – the audience would shriek full-throated appreciation – the crowd would whirl in a tight vortex as people took advantage of the break to rush to the bar – the performer would exit down the stairs – you were still clapping and mouthing WHAT THE FUCK DID I JUST SEE to yourself and then – that’s it. You’re next. You’re on. Focus. Showtime!
Taking the stage meant getting a proper look at the audience. From the first few rows sitting down the front with beers in hand, through the bar tables and packed standing room crush to the bar, and far down the back, the crew around the pool table with only an intermittent view. This was our barometer as performers. All these people were here, out late on a Wednesday night, for one important, overriding reason – and that was to pick up. There was eye contact to be made, drinks to be bought, numbers to be swapped and toilets to hook up in. Everybody there had their own personal show going on, and a limited amount of time to bring the house down. If they were going to divert their attention to somebody else’s performance, you’d have to make it worth their while.
As a discerning audience, they simply had no equal. They were knowledgeable, having seen everything; they had a sophisticated grasp of narrative and reference, getting all the jokes. They had an infallible bullshit detector, and if you gave them respect they paid it back in bucketloads. We used to say that you didn’t know if an act really worked until you took it on the stage at Queer Central. This was a crowd with shit to do, and if you could make them pay attention – especially all the way to the back – you had a keeper.
This crowd was nurtured by Sveta and by the hosts, performers and QC regulars. Hugo Retro would sweep first-time audience members and longtime supporters into a frenzy from the first number, banishing any weekday reticence by giving everyone permission to throw themselves into joyful whooping. Patron saint Sveta would bless all comers with tunes (and random super-famous celebrity audience guests), but also descend like a furious angel on breachers of the no-photos-of-strip-acts rule. Punters learned fast that when she requested honour, she was prepared to defend it.
And the QC audience stepped up. When the cops did their rounds and it coincided with a strip act, we could see the path to the stage close in on itself. People became slightly more uncoordinated in getting out of the way, packed tighter along the back of the crowd --sorry officer, spilled my drink there, you might want to go round the long way-- and the taller people mysteriously shifted to block the view of a boob or two.
This combination of challenge and trust made Queer Central a unique hothouse of performance. It wasn’t a sheltered stage, but it was definitely a place you could bring a budding act as well as a polished piece. The audience was generous to newcomers, appreciative of effort, and went with the flow when things didn’t turn out as planned. There was always an edge of anarchist DIY to whatever was going on, and this at least partly stemmed from the Sly Fox environment around us. Technical and staging malfunctions abounded as the Slox underwent different management and renovation stages. One night the microphones had all either disappeared or broken: we had to MC as Queer Central Unplugged, and the audience obligingly leaned in to hear us attempt Shakespearian projection. There was the time the sound system had a vibration-based meltdown and Sveta did the whole set balancing the decks in one arm while mixing with the other. This facing of common obstacles helped with performer solidarity as well – costume repairs, impromptu stage management, emergency drop sheets, binding, nipple tape, baby wipes, first aid, eyeliner, can you check to see if my bits are hanging out?
We’d all fought to be on a stage in the first place, and nobody was prouder of Queer Central performers than other queer Central performers. Everybody had something to say – celebrating sex, interrogating gender, dissecting power, owning pride – and those nights at the Sly Fox started conversations that continue today, giving many of us the courage to keep being loud. Our people were there, they were listening, and they told us what they thought. And after the shows were done, the music would rise and we’d dance it out until 3am.
There aren’t a lot of pictures or videos of Queer Central; media coverage was sparse and often enigmatic. Its legacy isn’t in a treasure trove of documentation; it’s all around embedded in the queer cultural landscape.
Queer Central: The Annual is on this Saturday at The Imperial Hotel: https://events.humanitix.com.au/queer-central-the-annual
