Holding Queer Space/Holding Space Queerly: Lockdown Reflections on Queer Performance and Community

The term ‘space holding’ has gained currency in performance and theatre-making circles in recent years, often understood as a short-hand, or offer – sometimes contested – of a form of facilitation that resists traditional hierarchies and foregrounds cooperation and community. From their intersecting perspectives as theatre and performance makers, queers, and users and holders of various spaces within performance, academia and the queer community, the authors unpack this term, exploring how space-holding manifests in theatre space, queer space, physical space, and digital space. We reference experiences of spaces and space holding which include Open Space Technology, queer cabaret events, and queer digital community QAFspace, reflecting on the particular affordances of queer space holding in lockdown.

Based on the transcript of a recorded conversation, the text partakes of the performative, framed as both script and documentation of a kind of improvised performance of academia, expertise and lived experience.

Keywords: access and inclusion ; digital community ; drag ; facilitating ; holding space ; LGBTQ+ ; lockdown ; London ; online community ; open space technology ; pandemic ; queer cabaret ; queer community ; queer performance ; queer space