Listed in Time Out as one of London’s Best QTIPOC Parties
(YOU CAN CRY IF YOU WANT TO)
Sunday 18th August | 4pm – 10pm | The Yard Theatre
@miseryparty | facebook.com/miseryparty | miseryparty@gmail.com
Following the success of MISERY’s first event, a sober healing space of celebration centering queer and transgender people of colour (QTPOC) and their friends, we couldn’t wait to announce our next one; a sexy, sober, sad girl summer fair – because sad girls just wanna have fun. Find us at The Yard Theatre on Sunday 18th August hosting a day of music, queer performance and workshops based on physical and art therapy. We’ll also have tarot, trauma-informed massage, genderless manicures and tattoos on offer, and local QTIPOC vendors selling their wares. MISERY chef, Rajiv Bera aka Queer Masala will prepare a delicious South Asian soul food fusion menu to keep you dancing through the sun set.
Expect a slightly confused but very sexy mix of afrotrap, baile funk, house, pop, rnb and global club edits to grind and cry to, brought to you by some of London’s cuntiest queer DJs including Basmati, a resident at Pxssy Palace; Aisha Mirza, resident at queer Bollywood party, Hungama; and GIN, founder of Nite Dykes, Resis’Dance and Faggamuffin Stage at Hackney Carnival.
MISERY is a non-judgmental space. We’re not mad at those who enjoy a drink, but we want to create a space for queers to have fun at night in an alcohol-free space. For queer and transgender people of colour, our communities and our trauma, the need for disassociation and self-medication are all too familiar. We’re holding this party for friends actively struggling with substance use issues (of which there are many); for people who are curious about their relationship to intoxication and for folks who just want to have a good time.
MISERY was started in 2019 by a group of friends (counsellors, DJs, art therapists, writers, legal case workers, sex workers, chefs & people who have experience of sobriety, addiction and navigating the mental health system). We wanted to build on the incredible work already being done by QTPOC collectives and party-throwers in the UK, to create more spaces, options and experiences that feel ok and good for our community.
There is pressure on everyone, but particularly marginalised people, to be “happy” and “strong” and “fierce” and “inspirational” and hot all the while. We so often hear accounts from people who have been miserable, once they have found their way out the other side of it, as though sadness can only be tolerated in hindsight. No-one wants to be sad all the time, but MISERY is an invitation to come as you are, to talk and heal collectively, to be sad or quiet in public, to celebrate, and to give gratitude for those before us and around us who have not had that option.
