4 MB THE NEW YORK TIMES, SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 8, 2020crowd, would work the door in drag, while
Ms. Feliciano and Mr. McDonald got their
starts spinning in go-go cages that dangle
above the dance floor.
Many of the House of Yes resident per-
formers were used to doing shows several
nights a week, as the club hosted multiple
events each night nearly every night of the
year. Yet once March 13 hit, there was noth-
ing to do there, and no one to perform for.
“I was really mourning my performance
career,” Mr. McDonald said. “I miss my
friends, and performing, and the live stage
and having the energy of the audience
there.”
Other troupe members — Blaine Petro-
via, Allegra Meshuggah and Pixel — were
touring with House of Yes’s Blunderland
Variety Show. It was in Australia that they
performed their last shows at nearly empty
clubs.
“It was really weird,” Mr. Petrovia said,
“because the main thing about performing
is the energy of the audience and the people
in the space with you.”
Peter Mercury, a nonbinary aerialist and
go-go dancer at the club, was also out of the
city, producing a House of Yes-inspired
party on a cruise ship. The ship was sailing
through the Bermuda Triangle, of all places,
when quarantine set in, and on the same
night that House of Yes shut down, the
cruise ship had one last hurrah.
“We still threw this party, and did aerial,
and had all the bells and whistles,” Mx. Mer-
cury said. “It was kind of like the last party
on earth.”
As soon as House of Yes shut down in
March, Ms. Burke and Ms. Sapozhnikova
started a GoFundMe campaign to support
their staff members, and the club eventu-
ally reopened in July with food and an out-
door bar. But in August, House of Yes closed
again when its liquor license was sus-
pended over violations relating to the
state’s mandates that food be served with
each drink order. Ms. Burke and Ms.
Sapozhnikova have since created a Patreon
account for the club, which offers playlists,
virtual dance parties and remote classes
taught by the resident performers. But it is
a pale imitation of the chaotic, blissful ener-
gy of House of Yes at its peak.
Last fall, costumed partygoers entering
House of Yes would be overwhelmed by glit-
ter and neon and booming disco — or house,
hip-hop or whatever music fit that night’s
theme. But the 20 or so members of the
club’s performance troupe were what made
each party something different. Every
night, attendees were treated to celebra-
tory performances of queerness that car-
ried an emotional weight not often found in
dance clubs the size of an airplane hangar.
“Here I’m able to do the more artistic per-
formances that I wouldn’t be able to do in a
club in Manhattan,” Mr. Petrovia, the resi-
dent pole dancer, said last November.
“What Blaine is trying to say is that he
gets to be sad here, and he can’t do that any-
where else,” said Ms. Meshuggah, who
works as House of Yes’s neo-cabaret clown.
“He wants to put on a sad song, dance to
FKA Twigs and cry on a pole. And you can’t
do that everywhere, but you can do that
here.”
Joshua Oates, who is known onstage as
Pixel, performed at House of Yes for nearly
four years as an aerialist drag queen.
“We’ve grown to this point, to 2019, hear-
ing primarily straight white stories,” Mr.
Oates said last fall. “You know: Boy meets
girl, they fall in love, happily ever after. But I
want to tell my story as a queer person, and
a lot of people haven’t had the privilege to
do that.”
Today, the performers are keeping the
club’s energy alive as they paint their faces
and spin on poles from home, hoping to
bridge the gap until they can swing from the
balconies and rafters of the venue again.
“That’s what we’re asking our policymak-
ers to do,” Ms. Burke said. “If they care
about culture, they will make moves and fig-
ure out how to, at least, let these places hi-
bernate until it’s safe for them to operate
again.”
Now in their seventh month of exile,
House of Yes residents have become accus-
tomed to looking for new ways to perform.
Ms. Sapozhnikova did say there was a
benefit to taking a break: “The slowing
down of everything got everyone to be way
more thoughtful about their own work.”
Mr. Dennis has taken this time to stretch
his creative boundaries.
“Even though I’ve been doing this foreight years, I didn’t really know the kind of
artist that I was,” he said. “We were all be-
coming very individually focused, and we
were all — I felt — maybe becoming too
comfortable, too settled into the work. What
this time has forced us to do, as creatives, is
find alternative routes to entertain.”
Madame Vivien V is now doing delivery
performances on people’s streets and drive-
ways; Queen Ravenden and Jon Joñi are
still recording aerial routines (and Queen is
using her extra free time to create homeo-
pathic herbal blends); Blaine Petrovia
teaches twerking and pole dancing via his
Instagram page; Pixel does makeup and
dance tutorials on a new Patreon account;Allegra Meshuggah is planning a cross-
country road trip; and Peter Mercury, who
returned to New York this summer after be-
ing quarantined on a remote island in Thai-
land — has been recharging.
“I’ve been focusing on listening, and incu-
bating and dreaming up a really optimistic
future,” Mx. Mercury said. “As an artist, it’s
so important to put forward a really opti-
mistic worldview and hope other people
join in.”
Though the future is hazy at best, both
owners have full faith that Brooklyn’s club
scene will prevail.
“Nightlife will survive,” Ms. Burke said,
“but not all venues will, unfortunately, and
that’s what hurts and feels very unfair.”
This pandemic isn’t the first catastrophe
that the venue has faced. Ms. Burke and Ms.
Sapozhnikova started House of Yes in 2007
as a collaborative living and work space in
the original location on Troutman Street,
but in 2008, a blue corn tortilla caught fire
and set a monster puppet ablaze, burning
the building down.
Operating in a rapidly gentrifying part of
Bushwick meant that the political at the
club was never far from the hedonistic, and
long before this year, the staff routinely or-
ganized food drives, drug safety trainings
and other forms of community support.
Most recently, in response to the protests
this summer against police brutality, House
of Yes performers and regulars have been
fund-raising for Black trans people.
“You’re not just here to get onstage and
sell booze,” Mr. Dennis said last fall. “Two
and a half years ago, I was gay-bashed in
the neighborhood, and I was able to create a
performance around it and able to talk
about it onstage.”
But until the club is safe again, its spirit
will have to live offstage.
“The symbol of House of Yes as a place of
radical expression and acceptance is going
to endure,” Mr. Dennis said. “It’s still a
space where everyone is accepted, and it’s
still a space where creativity is the most
valuable form of currency.”Pining for a Brooklyn Club’s Comeback
CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1
PHOTOGRAPHS BY MOHAMED SADEK FOR THE NEW YORK TIMESClockwise from top left of grid:
Allegra Meshuggah, Madame
Vivien V, Jon Joñi, Peter
Mercury, Pixel and Queen
Ravenden. Aerialists, center,
and dancers, above, were a big
draw for House of Yes.‘Nightlife will survive,
but not all venues
will, unfortunately.’