Please note that during this national moment of mourning the Mobilise event that was due to take place on Friday 9 September has been postponed. We will update our website with further information as soon as possible.

Dancing is the one thing that makes me feel free, it allows me to be truly myself and forget about the world for a moment.
Feedback from local LGBTQ+ Community Member

Building on the historical significance of dance floors as LGBTQ+ meeting places, MOBILISE is a series of raucous, joyful and radical queer accessible sober social dance parties and silent disco, created specifically to empower people to dance, take up public space, feel confident, and celebrate themselves (with particular focus on centering trans, disabled, fat, PoC, and other marginalised queer bodies).  

Birmingham based queer performance company Fatt Projects, have assembled a crack team of leading queer artists from across the midlands working across dance, performance, music, and activism to co-create a new model for accessible sober dance spaces for LGBTQ+ communities. Using wireless headphone silent disco technology and working with a diverse team of disabled and non-disabled artists, the company will deliver a series of QUEER POWER PARTIES specifically aimed at creating much needed space for marginalised queer folk. 
 
Alongside these events, a team of twenty-five queer artists will work with a recruited LGBTQ+ community dance ensemble to create a once-in-a-lifetime processional protest performance which will lead the 2022 Birmingham Pride parade in September.  

Together we will dance in the streets as an act of collective resistance, mobilising our bodies into a force for joy and transforming the city into runways and discos, in a riotous act of celebration.   

The project is supported by a paid Community and Accessibility Steering Group made up of local LGBTQ+ community members to ensure we prioritise a holistic approach to accessibility working to ensure the widest possible opportunity for participation regardless of ability, socio-economic status, gender, body types, and race. Read more about the steering group at fattprojects.org.

Accessibility

MOBILISE is an 18+ event, this is a sober space (free from alcohol or drugs) for the LGBTQ+ community. MOBILISE is a space that centres accessibility, and has been created with disabled community members. Experienced through wireless headphones (provided), audiences have the ability to adjust their personal volume levels and take a break from the music at any time by simply removing their headphones. 

The space includes: 

  • step-free access
  • Dedicated quiet space
  • Alcohol-fee cash bar service 
  • Plenty of comfortable seating 
  • Accessible gender-inclusive bathrooms 
  • All gendered private dressing space 
  • Changing places toilet (basement level accessible by lift)
  • 8pm-9pm, optional social dance section lead by MOBILISE artists (get comfortable learning some simple moves) 
  • Bursaries for travel (for low-income, disabled, and anyone who feels unsafe to travel publicly e.g. trans and gender non-conforming people)

Full access statement and venue information can be found on the Fatt Projects website: www.fattprojects.org/mobilise

 

Generously supported by the Paul Hamlyn Foundation and Esmée Fairbairn Foundation.