Despite having hopelessly nerdy moves, I love to dance: specifically alone in my room in my bra and underwear listening to 80s hits. When I lived at home in a town near Philadelphia, the city--containing a slew of places that were open and welcoming to my teenage presence bopping to the beat--offered me numerous opportunities for public dancing. In Philadelphia, cheap concert tickets were available to me in venues without age restrictions and with impromptu dance parties after concerts ended. Of course, even in my home city, there were events I wanted to attend with friends or even my mom (who, I will be the first to tell you, is my best friend) that were 21+. For the most part though, I never had a problem with finding a place to bust a move or two.
Then I moved to New York for college and places for the underage to dance (or do anything late at night, really) were virtually nonexistent. Before leaving for school, I had looked up places to go out, but found that those I had researched had either closed or were no longer open to those under the age of 21. Most people I know work around this issue by purchasing fake IDs. However, for those of us who don’t even want to drink at these 21+ venues, the purchasing of one of these sketchy and expensive fakes seems stupid and beside the point. One problem I have with the age-restriction system as it currently stands is the assumption that all people, specifically those under 21, want to drink and go crazy when they go out, potentially causing themselves and others a great deal of harm through alcohol-induced activities.
My largest problem with the age-restriction system is more ideological; this system insists that maturity and age are synonymous. Maturity should not be founded on age, but on experience. Granted, this system must find a simple way to gauge who is and is not “ready” to handle certain experiences…. (Truly though, I’d rather not have people who do not know me tell me what I am and am not ready for).
Additionally, all-age safe spaces to dance are especially important in more marginalized communities. Voguing comes most readily to my mind. A strong tradition in the queer community, the dance called “voguing” serves as a safe mode of expression for queers and began in the early 60s in Latin and African American sections of NYC. This mode of dance was especially important to Latino and African American gay men and trans individuals who experience extreme forms of marginalization. Voguing and participating in “ballrooms” shows how the act of dancing can bring joy, love, and self-acceptance.
I will thus propose some fixes for these problems. The legal drinking age was, once upon a time, 18 years of age. However, it does make sense for the age to change from 21 to at least 19, for lowering the age makes the activity less taboo and thus leads to less of its overuse. Additionally, the drinking age staying where it is, a method already in place in many concert venues already can be employed; everyone can be carded at venues and different wristbands given to those over 21 than under 21.
In case you’re in need of a good, cleansing dance and are under 21 in Brooklyn try:
Trans-Pecos http://www.thetranspecos.com/
Baby’s All Right http://babysallright.com/
