Floomp Mission Statement

THE FLOOMP’S MISSION STATEMENT (2014):

When we (Liz and Meghan) first discussed throwing a dance party at Wiscon, we never imagined it would still be going four years later. For one, Meghan had been trying, and failing, to throw a dance party at Wiscon for years. She’d convince Gavin of Small Beer to let me take over their room with one tiny terrible speaker, and she and five other people would jump around to too-quiet music.

Beyond Meghan’s thwarted dance party ambitions, however, is a deeper desire to bring a celebratory queer space to WisCon. We both love WisCon because it creates a space for our queer identities that so many speculative fiction conventions do not. But despite being engaged with queer issues, it lacks the kind of transformative queer celebration we’ve found meaningful in our own lives.

We’re staggered by the enthusiasm that has greeted a party we throw not to promote a book or an organization, but just because we wanted to have some (serious) fun. The party started out as a dance-party equivalent of the Tiptree award, a space where we invited attendees to explore and expand their notions of gender. As it’s gotten bigger, we’ve expanded its mission to foster a queer space for everyone. That doesn’t mean we’ve stopped encouraging people to celebrate gender playfulness however they feel comfortable, but we have widened the focus to a party with a raucous queer sensibility that is not explicitly about gender.

As geeks, we often think of dance parties as being like a prom—the kind of conformist heteronormative bullshit we had to endure in high school. The Floomp seeks to get to the roots of what can make public celebration not trivializing, but exalting: a chance to come as our best, most joyful selves. To celebrate genderplayfulness and queerness. To honor those experiences many of us live every day, and to create a space to play for those who can’t normally express themselves. And to have fun!

We expect nothing from Floomp attendees besides treating the space consciously, with respect. No one has to dance, no one has to dress any differently than they do daily. Sure, we’re all social creatures, so it would be naïve to suggest that there’s no inherent pressure to participate. But we want to welcome, not pressure, and if you want to chill out and watch for a while, that’s fine with us.

The Floomp isn’t the best place in Wiscon for quiet conversation, and no matter how “safer” the space, we can’t promise that nothing bad will ever happen. However, we will clearly post anti-harassment and photo policies and come prepared to confront anyone engaged in hurtful behavior and ask them to leave the party if it doesn’t stop. We also recognize that a public queer space is not for everyone, depending on where they are in their own personal journey, and may never be for everyone, so please don’t feel pressured to come if it’s not for you.

Thanks so much to the whole Wiscon community for having fun with us these past four years. We look forward to many more, and we’re incredibly grateful to the entire Wiscon community, who continues to talk with us, give us feedback, and help us create the most welcoming place we can. Got some thoughts to share? Hit us up at thefloomp (at) gmail.com.

ABOUT THE FLOOMP TEAM:

Liz and Meghan (founders) who have had tons of throwing this dance party since WisCon 35 in May 2011.

About Meghan:

I’m a fiction writer, editor, and journalist living in Austin, TX. I’ve been coming to Wiscon since 2005 and helped judge the 2007 Tiptree award. As a queer-identified person, the Tiptree Award’s focus on “exploring and expanding” concepts of gender has always been immensely meaningful to me. From wild dance parties at my college to Austin’s radical Queer Bomb, I’ve always experienced a particular communal joy when combining dancing and queerness, and I’m a firm believer in serious fun, and parties as transformative spaces. The party has functioned as that transformative space for me as well—I started wearing suits on the regular because of The Floomp, and I know of a number of other folks whose play at the party helped them to deepen their own understanding of their gender(s) and expressions thereof. I DJ the party as DJ Buckminster Fuller, a wild, foul-mouthed, troublemaking homo who loves everybody there so much. They promise not to drink too much whiskey and play lots of early Kanye this year.

About Liz:

I’ve been coming to WisCon since 2004 in support of my day job (I’m a book editor who works at a speculative fiction publishing company you’ve probably heard of), but there’s not much overlap between my work life and my Floomp life. Weirdly, before The Floomp, I didn’t really like dance parties—in fact, I generally felt pretty uncomfortable dancing in almost any context. I’ve also been drawn to the powerful celebratory feel of dyke marches and queer spaces, but as a huge nerd, and someone who falls somewhere on the femme continuum (but owns a proper three-piece suit), those spaces often look at me strangely as well. But WisCon feels more to me like coming home than just about anywhere on earth, so I figured if any space could make a dance party work for me, it’d be WisCon. It turns out that thanks to a little bit of luck and a lot of amazing (and gorgeous) community members, WisCon and the Floomp are the perfect place to combine my queer space and dance party urges. I’m so pleased that in the process we’ve also created a space that is beloved by so many of my friends and future friends.

The rest of our team is Annalee, Charlie Jane, and De Ana. We hope to get bios from them soon!

Liz and Meghan at The Floomp, 2013