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Make no mistake, folks are having tea time in Albuquerque these days, but it’s probably not exactly what you’re thinking. You can participate this Sunday at 3 p.m. on August 24 at InsideOut (622 Central Ave. SW) when everyone is invited to spill some tea, party with a diverse crowd and dance to boiling hit dance mixes from DJ Justin Cristofer and friends. The music should keep you energetic and alert for hours. And if that doesn’t work, the go-go dancers from New Mexico Strippers might perk you up. At any rate, the party will definitely get you moving more than a midday caffeine boost and some scones. This weekend’s ABQ Tea Dance is an old-school tradition that’s been making a resurgence in Burque and around the country. It’s a celebration that was never really about the tea to begin with.
“I think what we’re doing right now is making a community better and stronger at a time when I think everybody’s walking on eggshells,” Steven Westman, organizer and “supreme host of the tea dance” says. “But if, once a month, we have a group of guys and girls in a space where they feel safe and they are dancing their asses off, I think that’s the joy of it. That’s the gift back.”
A Little History
We’ve all heard of tea time. Even today in many parts of the world, it happens around 11 a.m. and involves the steeped beverage, snacks or a full meal and hopefully some tasty gossip. The U.S. equivalent is brunch, a time when New Mexicans like to grub down on chips and a bowl of guacamole and socialize over mimosas or margaritas. Maybe even dance. During times when it was literally illegal for gay men in the states to get their drink on — or god forbid, slow dance in public — savvy same-sex socialites figured out a way to use tea time as a way to get around the prohibitive and oppressive rules.
“In the ‘50s and ‘60s, and even way before that, when it was illegal for men to dance in a bar together, especially in New York, these guys found a way to go to hotels where women were having the high teas on Sunday, and they would party with them, they would drink with them, and they got music to play,” Westman explains. “On Sunday afternoons, you would go at 3 p.m., you would go home at seven, and you’d be ready to go to work the next day.”
For the LGBTQ community, it was a safe space. In the event of a raid, gay men would quickly change partners to mixed-couples dancing. Since, oftentimes, there were no women at these clubs, and tea dance organizers were forced to follow “no touching rules,” they developed a style of dancing apart – something we’re used to seeing between both same-sex and mixed-gender dancers at clubs around the world today. The tea dance was born.
In the late ‘80s, Westman lived in Santa Fe in an apartment behind a bar called Victor’s — a little Italian restaurant by day and a gay club by night. He says Santa Fe was kind of a wasteland of gay bars back then, but eventually Club Luna opened up – which later became Club Cargo – the biggest gay party space in the city at that time. Those clubs became his “training grounds,” and it’s where he met young people from the College of Santa Fe who taught him what a tea dance was.
Westman says today almost 200 to 300 people show up to the ABQ Tea Dances throughout the day. People ages 21 to 92 are hanging out together, everyone’s getting along, everybody’s happy. Westman says he never sits down throughout the four-or-six-hour bash and passes out unique party favors to everybody: two giant gumballs in a tea bag.
“I tell people they’ve been tea bagged, and some of them like me to be very naughty with the way I give it to them,” Westman says.
Westman says it’s not just a gay crowd in attendance. There are plenty of women there, and a lot of straight guys come with their girlfriends to enjoy what has developed into one of the most happening dance parties in Burque. Westman says when guests arrive, each table displays a printout with the history of the tea dance.
“They’re framed at the bars,” Westman says “One of my favorite things is to see somebody go and pick one of those up and then walk over to me and say, ‘I had no idea what the history of this was,’ and they fold it up, and they put it in their pocket, and they take it home. And if that’s how the day ends, that you’ve educated somebody a little bit about it. That’s the perfect cup of tea for me,” Westman says.
Westman says there are guys in their 60s, 70s and 80s who feel a little bit lost in the town’s new gay crowd, but they realize the tea dances are a homage to them, something that’s extremely important to everyone involved. Every two weeks or so, organizers send about 70 to 80 cards to veterans of the tea dance scene saying, ‘We have not forgotten you.’”
“I hit my ego spot with it this year, and I do feel good about it. I used to be just like, ‘Oh, this is what we do.’ But you know what? I’m okay with people coming across a room at a restaurant and saying, ‘You’re the tea dance guy.’” Westman says. “I walk the room, and I thank everybody who’s shown up. It’s important that you look everybody in the eye and tell them you’re glad they’re there – because we are elated about it. It’s become quite a phenomenon, and people are talking about it.”
He’s right. People are talking, and they’ve noticed the waves he’s making around town. Recently Westman has been nominated by Pride Equality Magazine for its Models of Hope award, which honors people who have done good things for the gay community. Westman says two years ago in May, he joined forces with Justin Cristofer, an award-nominated “powerhouse DJ.” He asked Cristofer what they could do to make the modern tea dance different from the parties they threw back in the day. Cristofer responded by hiring go-go dancers, promoting the events harder and providing a new soundtrack for the old tradition.
“I’m proud of working with somebody like Justin, who has been a gay community advocate since he was a teenager out in the L.A. days. He’s super smart, he is super socially conscious, and he keeps me grounded when my head starts spinning,” Westman says.
Come On, Vogue
More than just modern dancing styles evolved in same-sex gatherings. The genres of music you might expect to hear at dance clubs – pop, house, and many forms of electronic music – have been heavily influenced by queer culture. And few musicians in town know what music is gonna pack a dance floor better than DJ Justin Cristofer, who will be spinning at this weekend’s event at InsideOut.
Cristofer wasn’t always a DJ. Several years ago he was a metalhead playing in a wicked band called Against the Grain. But even then, the scope of his music lens and the variety of his musical influences was a bit wider than the myopic headbanger who only listens to Ozzy, Slayer and Korn.
“We created house and techno in queer, black and brown communities. So I really try to keep it reminiscent of those times,” he says. “There’s always going to be a lot of remixes of pop music that are looked at through the lens of those two genres.”
After honing his skills as a young adult performer in the Albuquerque music scene, he started really getting into electronic music in his early 20s. Cristofer says a lot of things happened during that time. His band broke up, and he moved to Los Angeles in 2010 where he attended the Musicians Institute in Hollywood and graduated from their DJ production and performance program. After immersing himself in the world of L.A. dance music, he saw the ways in which queer party culture had not only influenced mainstream music, it cemented a strong foundation for queer safe spaces.
“I lived in L.A. for 10 years, and after seeing how people there and how queer people have taken over the spaces that they want to take over, I definitely feel like it can happen here.” Cristofer says.
When COVID threw the entertainment world into chaos, he found himself back in Burque. And as the music scene began to crawl back to its former glory, he worked as the resident DJ at Sidewinders for two years. He says Underwear Night was his main gig, and during that time he met people from the Social Club and Effex, started playing at those venues, and evolved into one of Albuquerque’s hottest dance music authorities.
“Being a party promoter was definitely not on my note card when I started, but I noticed a need that we were able to tap into, and it just kind of fell on my lap after that,” Cristofer says. “If you know the history of what a tea dance is, it began in the era of the late ‘60s and early ‘70s, so disco was very, very prominent during that time. So was pop music and a lot of very dance-heavy music. So I definitely love to stay in the disco vein.”
He says he was playing here and there at gay bars around the city when he met Steven, and the two hit it off. The ABQ Tea Dance had its two-year anniversary in May, and Cristofer says organizing the music and entertainment for roughly 30 events is a pretty big milestone for “queer people living their truth.”
“Queer culture has some very unique slang terms,” he says “One of them is ‘spilling the tea.’ People think that means actual tea, but ‘spilling the tea’ means spilling the ‘T’ – the truth. Like, ‘What’s the T? What are you saying?’ What’s the gossip, or what did you hear?”
It’s clear that, like Westman, Cristofer has succeeded in helping create a safer space for people to be their authentic selves. But he says the country’s political climate is very against queer and trans people right now. He wants to make sure that queer culture is represented at venues throughout Albuquerque, not just in the two gay bars left in our city. One of the ways the two achieve this is by incorporating drag performances into the tea dance, celebrating locals who are not only active in the gay community, but those who show them love and support. The go-go dancers from New Mexico Strippers are definitely a big draw to their events.
“I think we definitely have a great relationship with them, because the guys who run it are very gay friendly,” Cristofer says. “New Mexico Strippers is primarily straight men, but they’ve been able to kind of go outside the norm for them. Now they have queer, go-go dancers and women. So, like I said, there’s something for everybody here, and we really work to make sure that even though everybody is invited, we definitely make it known that we are proudly queer, and they’ve stuck by us throughout that.”
Cristofer says at its heart, the ABQ Tea Dance is really all about the people. They’ve truly created something special by breathing new life into an old tradition while honoring those who laid the groundwork for Albuquerque’s vibrant queer party scene.
“In the community of house music, the dance floor is where all the magic happens,” Cristofer says. “It’s where all of our differences disappear. You never know who you’re dancing next to, and we encourage everyone to connect that way.”