On Oct.12, The LH Horton Jr. Art Gallery hosted the Queer Joy Dance Party.
The event was from 5 to 7 p.m. and took place outside the gallery and Shima 146.
Multimedia Lab Tech Leo Marquez, was the DJ for that night too, Marquez himself identifies himself as part of the LGBTQ community.
The Queer Joy Dance Party was an event for the week of national coming out.
Delta’s Pride Center helped with the decorations, and the gallery took care of the rest, like catering food, music, and more.
This is also the first time Delta hosted a queer dance party.
The event honors the club shooting that happened in 2016 in the Pulse Night Club in Orlando, Fla., according to Art Gallery Coordinator Jan Marlese.
Marlese also mentions how important the representation of the artwork of the Engendered Agency is since it talks about identity and it connects to coming out week.
“The Engendered Agency is a presentation that advocates support of art for LGBTQ women non-binary, gender, expression of identity, and social economics. This gives students a voice to express themselves in a visible way. All the paint we have is from multi-culture,” said Marlese.
The (En)gendered Agency runs at the gallery until Nov. 3
The guest hosts for the (En)gendered Agency, Shanna Strauss and Jessica Sabogal, joined the event too after speaking at an artist talk at the Tony Fitch Forum earlier in the day.
Both are collaborative artists who identify themselves as part of the LGBTQ community.
Their art focuses on empowering Black, indigenous, and women of color.
“We like seeing younger people being free, it is nice they are colleges that host and acknowledge these kinds of events. I think this is a stand to host a party like this for what it represents,” said Satuss.
Also, others feel Delta hosting an event for coming out the week is important because many can lead on to support when going through this phase.
“It took me almost three years to accept myself as bisexual, and took me another year to come out. I always had my family support me and struggled more in school with classmates judging my preference so I can imagine how hard it can be for others. I think events like this bring people together,” said Delta student, Syair Royes.
Royes said she was aware of the Queer Joy Dance party while attending to art gallery event.
“My favorite part was the indigenous art ‘Serpiente de la Estrellas.’ It touched me a lot because they suffer injustice like social class issues like the black community. However, in the black community we have more support now while indigenous don’t have any or many people do not acknowledge it,” said Royes.