Reflections: Erin Fussell on the Dyke of Your Dreams Dance

Published: Oct. 6, 2020, 8:15 a.m.

b'We\\u2019ve asked members of the Getty community to share short reflections on works of art they\\u2019re thinking about right now. These recordings feature stories related to our daily lives.\\n\\n\\n\\nThis week, Erin Fussell longs to \\u201ccut a rug\\u201d again as she looks at photographs from the 1978 \\u201cDyke of Your Dreams\\u201d dance at the Women\\u2019s Building. To learn more about this event, visit:\\xa0http://hdl.handle.net/10020/2017m43_6d9d703f54c264dc247ef2511a82bd4d.\\n\\n\\n\\nOver the next few weeks, look for new recordings every other Tuesday.\\n\\n\\n\\n\\n\\nTranscript\\n\\n\\n\\nJAMES CUNO: Hi, I\\u2019m Jim Cuno, president of the J. Paul Getty Trust. In a new podcast feature, we\\u2019re asking members of the Getty community to share short reflections on works of art they\\u2019re thinking about right now. We\\u2019ll be releasing new recordings every other Tuesday. I hope you\\u2019ll find these stories about our daily lives\\u2014from laundry on the line to a dog at a scholar\\u2019s feet\\u2014thought provoking, illuminating, and entertaining.\\n\\n\\n\\nERIN FUSSELL: Hi, I\\u2019m Erin Fussell and I work in digital preservation at the Getty Research Institute. I\\u2019m also an artist and I need a lot of solitude in general in my life to think, process, and reflect in order to create. But this much alone time in my apartment during the pandemic has felt kind of insane! And I\\u2019ve really missed going out.\\n\\n\\n\\nSo, I\\u2019ve been thinking about this great series of photographs from the Los Angeles Woman\\u2019s Building records collection that I recently digitized. This particular photo set documented a Valentine\\u2019s day event in 1978 called \\u201cDyke of Your Dreams\\u201d that turned a derogatory term directed at lesbian women on its head and made it empowering instead.\\n\\n\\n\\nThese images show women playing music, doing a go-go-type dance number, hamming it up for the camera, being sassy, sexy, cool. They look like they had so much fun together that night.\\n\\n\\n\\nThe event took place at the Los Angeles Woman\\u2019s Building that was located on North Spring Street downtown. The building housed a collective of artists and organizations centered around feminism with a number of different spaces like a cafe, a bookstore, studios, and a gallery. They hosted a bunch of different events like classes, exhibitions, concerts, and conferences.\\n\\n\\n\\nBut the tensions that arose within the feminist movement as a whole also seem to have played out at the Woman\\u2019s Building. There were issues of power dynamics and egos, issues of how feminism didn\\u2019t successfully address race or class. And they did not agree on what does or does not define what being a feminist means.\\n\\n\\n\\nHowever, what struck me with these photographs is that this event had a looser vibe than other ones I saw documented in the collection. Maybe because it wasn\\u2019t an educational experience\\u2014it was a party. And the title of the event clearly makes lesbian love the theme. While I can\\u2019t know exactly what that meant to them at the time, I do know that lesbian events were not typical which makes them revolutionary to proudly host this one. And lastly, whatever their identities were, they came together that night to celebrate love for Valentine\\u2019s day.\\n\\n\\n\\n\\u201cDyke of Your Dreams\\u201d happened in the same month and year that my parents eloped in Las Vegas\\u2013February 1978\\u2013and they\\u2019re still together after all of these years. It makes me think about how cultivating love in our lives allows us to value each other because of our differences, fight for equality, and find connection in our shared humanity.\\n\\n\\n\\nIt also makes me miss my friends and family scattered all over the world more than I usually do. And I think about how much I look forward to the time when we can all get together again to let our hair down and cut a rug.\\n\\n\\n\\nCUNO: To view this series of photographs from the Woman\\u2019s Building event \\u201cDyke of Your Dreams,\\u201d taken in Los Angeles in 1978, click the link in this episode\\u2019s description or look for it on primo.getty.edu. '