It’s two a.m. on Martin Luther King weekend—and out in front of Crobar, there’s a line snaking all the way over to Tenth Avenue. No doubt about it: the Alegria tribe is out in force, for the fifth installment of Alegria Tribal. 

There’s Ralphi and Abel on the tables, alternating every thirty minutes or so, but always maintaining that chunky, Chicago house tribal beat—while above the floor hang four massive elephant heads with tusks in steel ribbing surrounding an immense African tribal mask at the room’s center.  The back wall of the stage is covered by an African tribal scrim—and tribal markings mask the faces of the grass-skirted bartenders. The message is clear: it’s a tribal gathering and we’re all members of the Alegria tribe.  A family of Alegria tribal boyz.

There’s a book out right now called Dancing in the Streets: A History of Collective Joy, and the author, Barbara Ehrenreich, addresses the forces which have, historically, attempted to deny us the right to dance:  colonizing cultures and Calvinism and religion and governmental intrusion.  When Africans were converted to Christianity, they were said to have “given up dancing.”

But it’s not happening here, not tonight, even in spite of the city’s forced closure of Crobar last week.  Instead, Ric Sena and his lobbyists have kept Crobar open—for us: to dance, to party.  The stage is packed with boyz and the floor is hands-in-the-air.  And there’s that song, “About Us,” with its skip-happy infectious beat—and Rosabel’s mashing it up so that it’s pop heart and pelvic thrust. What we like to do best. As for the rest of the world?  “They don’t know nothing about us.”   

Nitro blasts and strobes, and also a lighting rig which lowers to just above the crowd, flashing blue, fuchsia, and red—and then it’s “One Night Only,” which reminds us of the party happening simultaneously out on the West Coast, where the LA boyz are dancing…  And another party, one from years ago, at the Paradise Garage, the night Jennifer Holliday performed, and how it is that time has compressed, so that years later, we’re all still dancing to Dreamgirls—and still surrounded by Dreamboyz.  

And they’re all here: boyz who have flown in from Boston and D.C., Florida and Rio. A confederation of Alegria tribal dancers: Joe Caro and his Bryan, and Matt and Michael, and Clay, and Michael Circuit Dancer and his bf Olivier, and Alan, and Adam, and Chris and Dennis.  And we meet a guy who’s—gasp—never been to a circuit party before, least of all an Alegria, and maybe he’s a bit uncertain at first, when we meet him upstairs, before he’s entered the fray—but not for long.  Last we see of him, he’s grinning and holding on, swaying with his friend, happily manwiched.