Tea dances were events organized on Sunday afternoons in the US gay community, originating in New York in the 1950s and 1960s. The original dances included
tea service
Pink Floyd are an English rock band formed in London in 1965. Gaining an early following as one of the first British psychedelic groups, they were distinguished by their extended compositions, sonic experimentation, philosophical lyrics and ...
.
They were a place for singles to meet. The name alludes to traditional
tea dance
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A tea dance, also called a ''thé dansant'' (French for "dancing tea"), was a dance held in the summer or autumn from 4 to 7 p.m. In the English countryside, a garden party sometimes preceded the dance.''Party-giving on Every Scale ...
s of the English countryside.
History
It was illegal until the mid-1960s for bars in New York to sell alcohol to people known to be gay,
and New York City police would conduct raids on establishments catering to them. Hence, gay men in the area began to hold tea dances outside the city as an alternative venue for meeting. In New York, these generally took place on
Fire Island
Fire Island is the large center island of the outer barrier islands parallel to the South Shore of Long Island, in the U.S. state of New York.
Occasionally, the name is used to refer collectively to not only the central island, but also Long ...
, in
Cherry Grove and
the Pines, on Sunday afternoons. Serving tea rather than alcohol made them more acceptable and less law-defying. Because they were held in the afternoon, attendees could catch a ferry and return home and be ready to work on Monday morning.
Tea dances spread beyond New York and lasted into the 1990s and beyond, regularly taking place in Miami, Fort Lauderdale, Provincetown,
and Los Angeles and San Francisco,
among other cities.
As gay people became more accepted and legally protected, the tea dances were subsumed into nighttime club events such as
circuit parties
A circuit party is a large dance event. It extends through the night and into the following day, almost always with a number of affiliated events in the days leading up to and following the main event. Proto-circuit parties in the late 1970s, t ...
, although have recently seen a resurgence, particularly at gay vacation destinations such as
Fire Island
Fire Island is the large center island of the outer barrier islands parallel to the South Shore of Long Island, in the U.S. state of New York.
Occasionally, the name is used to refer collectively to not only the central island, but also Long ...
.
See also
*
Molly house
Molly-house was a term used in 18th- and 19th-century Britain for a meeting place for homosexual men. The meeting places were generally taverns, public houses, coffeehouses or even private rooms where men could either socialise or meet possible s ...
References
LGBT culture
Dance events
Fire Island, New York
LGBT history in New York City
Gay events
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