OutDance After Party

Saturday 17 August
9pm–2am
The Albany Theatre

OutDance is returning to the Albany Theatre after a hiatus of 20+ years. Launched in 1987 by Oscar Lumley-Watson and Brendan Nash, OutDance was an inclusive, accessible, community-driven club night that ran from the late 80s well into the 90s.

“Outdance was probably 60-40 per cent men and women, racially diverse, we had a regular bunch of half a dozen men and women dancing in wheelchairs and we even had a signer: there was this very beautiful boy who used to dance on a podium with a little crowd around him and we realised he was signing the songs – once we figured that out, we let him in for free because he was doing us a service,” says co-founder Brendan Nash.

The Albany Theatre has always been a champion of LGBTQ+ rights and the rights of People of Colour. Known from the 1890s to the 1970s as the “Albany Empire”, the theatre, which to this day functions as a community hub hosted a number of “Rock Against Racism” gigs which are thought to have been the impetus for a far-right arson attack 1978, which destroyed the original building.

Bringing OutDance back to the Albany with the blessing of the original organisers is a privilege and an honour.