DUMBA

dumba was a collective living space and anarchist queer all ages community center and venue around which it is documented that Homocore, riotgrrl, and independent film scenes existed in Brooklyn, New York. The space, a 5000-square-foot commercially zoned loft under the Manhattan Bridge overpass, was active and housed six or seven residents between 1996 and 2006. dumba was the site of many types of events, including many fundraisers for political causes. What made events at dumba unique was the combination of music (always several DJs a night), film projections on 8mm, 16mm and video, artwork, performances, vegetarian food, no alcohol sold or provided, and the freewheeling erotic atmosphere.

Space

The space "was maze of rooms small and large," with a large open space used as a stage and dance area, two kitchens.

Visual aspects of dumba included the retro fridge in the front kitchen, the map camera room, and, in later years, a Kodak vending machine that dispensed Super8 film, and the Adult Books sign liberated from a Manhattan sex shop on 14th Street.

1996 to 1999

Located in Brooklyn, the name was a feminized version of DUMBO (Down Under the Manhattan Bridge Overpass), a name for the neighborhood between Fulton Landing and Vinegar Hill. The group who founded the space included Scott Berry, Brian Kay, Kabier, Vincent, and others in the summer of 1996.

dumba was first known for putting on all-ages punk shows, which were promoted by word of mouth and simple photocopied flyers displaying a DIY aesthetic. Some thought dumba stole the fire from ABC No Rio, the older anarchist space that also put on all-ages punk shows, in Manhattan's Lower East Side. Bands and performers that played at this all-ages space include The Need, Los Crudos, Limp Wrist, Nedra Johnson, the Spaceheads, Octant, God is My Co-pilot, Tribe 8, Kaia, Patsy, the Lookers and many more. Justin Bond and Penny Arcade performed there at the first ever Gay Shame event in June 1998.

Fuck the Mayor collective

A queer response to the racist, classist, sexist, and homophobic policies of the Giuliani administration.

Gay Shame

Gay Shame was annual response to the Gay Pride celebration during the weekend of June, starting in 1998 and continuing through ????. It was written by Alissa Chadburn in the San Francisco Bay Guardian, "The goal of Gay Shame in New York was to form a free "non-consumerist space for creating culture and community building" and to try to "build some opposition to the reactionary gay mainstream," which he says has "a stranglehold on all representations of queerness in the media."

• June 1998
• June 17th 2000

Times Square Sinema

The Times Square Sinema was an early Brooklyn Babylon Cinema event that featured a kissing booth and encouraged fraternizing.

1999 to 2001

Queeruption, 1999

The second iteration of Queeruption was largely housed at dumba October 7-11, 1999. Hundreds of activists came from across the USA and even from Europe for this free, radical queer "encuentro" that was part skill-share, social event and conference, featuring over 60 workshops, as well as films, performances and parties. There was a conflict over unequal representation by people of color, and at one point the scheduled proceedings were halted for an impromptu discussion, during which some people of color walked out in frustration. There was also a Columbus Day action in Central Park, led by mattilda aka Matt Bernstein Sycamore (see Transgressional fiction), in which city vehicles were "ticketed" for parking on stolen land, and to protest the arrest of a gay man, allegedly for cruising in the park although he claimed to be urinating.

Le Tegre, 2000

Another landmark event was the first-ever concert by Le Tigre on April 21st, 2000. The loft was over-packed that night, so much so that there was a live video feed of the band from one room to another. The band donated the door proceeds to the collective.

Lusty Loft Paties

In 2000 and 2001, DUMBA was home to the Lusty Loft Parties, described years later by sex columnist Tristan Taormino as "pure queer erotic utopia, with people of all genders fucking side by side"

These parties were amazingly successful, and were even written up in the Village Voice several times, notably by Guy Trebay and Tristan Taormino.

The four Lusty Loft parties occured:

• September 9, 2000
• ?
• ?
• ?

These parties were written about years after the fact.

Brooklyn Babylon Cinema

Brooklyn Babylon Cinema, a recurring analog film screening series, was born at dumba, and continued for several years, presenting such events as Times Square Sinema (May 7, 1999), a tribute to the Deuce's seedy past, and Caught Looking (March 2000), a program about voyeurism, curated by Aaron Scott, which included two video programs, and installations by Rob Roth and others.

The NY Press once called dumba the worst live-music venue in New York, because of its weird shape and poor sightlines.

2002 to 2006

The Dumba Collective

In 2002, writer Arial Levy described New York Magazine that dumba was home to a trannyboi scene, ("...a fluid identity, playing off 'boy' in the gay-male S/M sense of the term, as in Daddy/Boy, ...female-to-male transsexuals in various stages of the transition process,... some... date other bois and think of themselves as 'fags,' while others only date femmes..." ). This article claimed, further, that "... They have sex parties and art shows, and above the bathroom door, instead of GIRLS or BOYS, it says TRANNIES."

Connection to Shortbus

John Cameron Mitchell's film Shortbus (2006) was partially shot at dumba in 2005. In the film, a hyperbolized dumba was the site of Justin Bond's salon. As well, people associated with dumba appear in the film as "sextras".

In October of 2006, John Cameron Mitchell was quoted in the Village Voice as saying, "Still, real life and faux life merged while making the movie—the sexed-up loft scenes were shot in DUMBO at the DUMBA artists' space, and guess what: "DUMBA—where we shot it—has been shut down," Mitchell says. "The neighbors complained about parties and sex parties. The lease is up this December."

Timeline of (loosely defined) Events that Took Place at Dumba

• Fuck the Mayor celebration

• Gay Shame (annually during Gay Pride)

• Brooklyn Babylon Cinema

• THE WOBBLIES 8/3/2000
• MOMENTO MORI: THE FILMS OF JIM HUBBARD 1/31/2000

• Jerry Tartaglia retrospectives

• Vaginal Creme Davis

• Bruce LaBruce

• Times Square Sin-Ema

• SPIN CYCLE: THE GAME / Improved mix of coffee hour & kidnapping