The Party Tent

The large tent on the Meadow is a central part of summer at Ox-Bow. At the start of each summer, staff and Fellows work together to put it up. The tent provides shelter and shade for Art on the Meadow classes, Friday Night Open Studios, and Friday Night Dance Parties.

Costumes and dance parties have always been an essential part of the Ox-Bow experience. Explore this page to see photos of the party tent; listen to a dance party playlist made by longtime Ox-Bow friend Eric May and our current Metals Studio Manager, Devin Balara; and read an interview with Eric May about the evolution of dance parties at Ox-Bow over the years.

a few Ox-Bow Party Theme Faves:

• Ox-Bow Goes to Hell

• Fake Naked

• Björkish

• Caveman Rave

• Goth Prom

PLAYLISTs

Listen to special Ox-Bow Dance Party playlists created by Devin Balara and Eric May. Songs are meant to be played in order. Make sure shuffle is turned off.

Molly Markow: Thank you so much for agreeing to this interview! What years were you at Ox-Bow, and what positions did you hold? 

Eric May: I first came to Ox-Bow as a painting student in 1998, and I returned for more classes in 1999. I was hired as a cook in 2000 and was promoted to Head Chef in 2004. I held that position until 2014.

MM: That’s a long time! So you attended a lot of Ox-Bow parties. What is your fondest Ox-Bow party memory?

EM: The night we set John Rossi’s wooden cock on fire comes to mind. When [the dance party theme] Fake Naked became real naked. One beautiful memory was when a luna moth landed on my hand while I was deejaying. And the cumulative reverberation of dance floor bliss over 150-plus parties will just always shine bright in my soul.

MM: I think I found some photos in the archive of that night with John! What is your favorite Ox-Bow party theme? 

EM: Well, I invented Fake Naked, so I have to say that one. It could really be a debauched evening if the mood was right and the weather was hot. It could also be a pretty awkward one. I always intended the theme to be a reclamation, celebration, or subversion of body image, but I know that can be a fraught space for folks, and I can see how the theme ran its course. 

MM: What are some examples of party themes from throughout the years? 

EM: There were always a few that recurred every summer, but [we] would kind of cycle through depending on the cultural tone of the times. Like, the White Trash Hoedown was a staple of early summers, but was inevitably deemed insensitive. Ox-Bow Goes to Hell and Retirement Home were two memorable themes from my earlier days. Goth Prom, Fake Naked, and Caveman Rave happened most summers during my years. In 2014, my last summer, there were a few particularly good ones—[especially] Lisa Frank and Isa Genzken. There was a period when the themes were decided throughout the week, on the dry erase board, by the entire community (rather than voted on by staff at the beginning of the summer). That process could be spontaneous and fun; there’d often be multiple competing themes that would emerge. But inevitably, themes wouldn’t be decided until the morning of the party, which wasn’t exactly enough time to pull costumes together.

MM: Wow, I would have loved to see the Lisa Frank and Isa Genzken one. Why are the Friday night themed parties and cabin crawls so essential to life at Ox-Bow? Do you know how these traditions started? 

EM: Ox-Bow is an entirely social experience, which can be pretty intense. So I think that partying is like a release valve for all that high-key social energy. I’ve been around awhile, but these traditions go back way further than my history at Ox-Bow. The costume parties go way, way back. I’m not as sure about cabin crawls.

MM: I’m curious about the intersection of dance parties—in particular, themed dance parties at Ox-Bow—with queerness and the history of dance parties in LGBTQIA+ spaces. Is there a connection here?

EM: Honestly, the culture at Ox-Bow during my time was pretty hetero-dominant. It seems like that needle might be moving nowadays (I hope). John Rossi cannot get enough credit for queering the tent. He’s spinning very gay club records like Menergy and Male Stripper and the kids are dancing their asses off. I’m a student of dance culture history and a child of the nineties rave scene, so I’m deeply invested in the utopic potential of the dance floor. I always liked to find parallels between what happened under the tent and the New York ballroom scene, club kids, and disco and house dance floors. But I think it’s kind of inappropriate to draw a line from the liberation, refuge, and expression of the nightlife cultures forged by disempowered urban LGBTQIA+ communities to costume parties populated by largely straight students (at least during my years) at an expensive art school.

MM: That makes complete sense, and it feels important to acknowledge that history and draw that line, even if the needle may be moving nowadays. I appreciate your honesty in response to this question. Speaking of John Rossi, what is the best John Rossi party costume that you’ve seen?  

EM: Like a lot of Ox-Bow lifers, John has a certain set of looks, a curated wardrobe. But unlike many of us, a lot of John’s Friday night outfits are actually things he wears out in the world to other parties. He has amazing leather daddy gear. So when I imagine peak John, he’s got a black leather cop hat, definitely a harness, bonus points if the bottom strap terminates in a cock ring. A black leather vest. Nineties John might have a leather jock strap and nothing else down below, but grown-up John probably has jeans on. A lot of the other bad boys on staff would get a kick (kink?) out of borrowing John’s leather gear. I know I sported his harness and leather cap to a few Mommies, Daddies, Babies parties!

MM: Ha! There are definitely a lot of photos in the archives of John’s different looks. His presence plays such an important role in life at Ox-Bow, and in particular at the dance parties.

So much work goes into the dance parties—the set lists, setup, and teardown. They often curate the set lists to align somehow with the party theme. Can you speak to the experience of deejaying at an Ox-Bow party?  

EM: The DJ situation really evolved during my tenure. In the nineties everyone brought CDs down to the tent and it was a free-for-all. This often had a disruptive effect—there were gaps in the music, and sometimes people were disrespectful of other folks’ selections. And inevitably there’d be just bad, undanceable music like Dave Matthews Band. Mikey Henderberg first introduced turntables to the Friday night setup; he’d bring his gear down maybe once a summer, for a special set. Mikey was always a cool-older-brother figure to me, and I would do my best to emulate his cool-older-brother skills. So I bought a turntable setup in 2003, I learned to spin, and we used my gear at the parties (Ox-Bow eventually purchased its own rig). John Rossi had a massive vinyl collection rooted in eighties gay party music—disco and Hi-NRG stuff that was great at parties. So Mikey, John, and I would each spin a set, a lineup that continued for years. I hate to admit that I was always a little possessive of my sets—I was the closer of the night (well, John would play Judy Garland’s “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” to chill people out at the end). I very actively collected new music and worked hard to feel out the consensus of what the kids were excited to dance to, so I guarded my slot pretty hard. After I left in 2014, things seemed to get a lot more inclusive, a rotating cast of DJs that included more staff, Fellows, and even students. Back in the early 2000s, though, not everyone even had iTunes at that point, but now most folks have deep musical interests and deejaying seems to be a part of the culture. 

MM: In my brief experience of Ox-Bow dance parties last summer, they really feel like safe spaces where folks can let loose and express themselves in many different ways. Can you speak to this?

EM: To walk back some of the skepticism I expressed in the question about “the history of dance parties in LGBTQIA+ spaces,” I do think that the dance floor at Ox-Bow can have liberatory possibilities, it’s just not a comparable scale in terms of cultural impact to those other legacies. I think that the whole experience of Ox-Bow provides a sense of communal safety that fosters self-expression. I know for me, as a young person, that was incredibly transformative. I like to think of residencies as temporary utopias—worlds where art and everyday life converge and people treat each other with open kindness. And the dance parties provide the climax for all that creative and social energy. 

MM: Absolutely. The utopic potential of residencies and in particular of Ox-Bow is palpable. How does the tradition of themed dance parties at Ox-Bow speak to the larger ethos and history of Ox-Bow and its community? 

EM: Again, I think that Ox-Bow is an ideal environment for the blurring of art and everyday life. That kind of language has been fashionable in the art speak of recent years, but I think artists at Ox-Bow have been living their art since its beginnings. And at the parties, folks are literally wearing their art, vibing their art, sweating their art in a welcoming, loving space.

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