This dance party is for ladies who want to wind down before midnight

CHICAGO — As dozens of women crowd the dance floor at Color Club in Chicago's Irving Park neighborhood, many wearing fancy dresses and surrounded by disco lights, the DJ starts playing “Wannabe” by the Spice Girls.

Cheers go up during the lyric, “Make it last forever,” before the room belts, “Friendship never ends!”

In fact, enjoying a fun night with friends — at a reasonable hour — is what brought many to the Earlybirds Club’s latest event in July, themed as a throwback to ’90s prom. Friends Susie Lee and Laura Baginski created the club for middle-aged women and nonbinary folks who want to let loose, but no later than 10 p.m.

Fittingly, it’s billed as “a dance party for ladies who got s— to do in the morning,” a popular refrain among other groups geared toward women popping up in Chicago and around the world. After last year’s summer of girl power, fueled by the trifecta of “Barbie,” Beyoncé and Taylor Swift, women are seeking out spaces that embrace their femininity, from ladies-only gyms to bars featuring only women’s sports and dance parties at nightclubs.

“It’s just like this woman energy,” Lee, 48, of Logan Square, said. “This room full of women singing at the top of their lungs, dancing their hearts out, sweating like crazy. Everyone’s so happy.”

Lee and Baginski, 48, of Old Irving Park, are longtime friends who were co-editors of the newspaper at Prospect High School. After the duo reconnected at their high school reunion in October, Baginski mentioned that she couldn’t find a place to go dancing that started before midnight and played the kind of music she liked, which is how they got the idea for the club. Their first event in February sold out in two days, and they’ve grown since, with larger venues and longer waiting lists.

“Especially coming out of the pandemic, where women with families had to take care of so much. We were taking care of the household, the food, the schooling, the mental status of our family,” Lee said. “Coming out of that, women were like, I just need something for me.”

“Like, I don’t want another book club. I don’t want another yoga thing. I don’t want to go to pilates,” she added. “I just want to have fun, without a purpose.”

That’s what many of the women who attended the July event were looking for as well. At the party, pop hits by the likes of the Backstreet Boys and Mariah Carey filled the speakers, as women took cheesy prom pictures wearing corsages at a photo booth. Some, such as Christine Lawrence, even pulled their high school prom dresses out of the closet for the night.

Lawrence, who came with a couple friends, said she’s been carrying around the black, sparkly dress for years. She particularly enjoyed the supportive environment, saying she’d like more similar activities. She also threw out a couple theme ideas, including ’70s and slumber party.

“We’re of an age where going out with very young people sounds exhausting. You can be surrounded by other middle-aged women and just go out dancing and not feel self-conscious about being old. Many of us have children, many of us are too exhausted to be out until 4 o’clock in the morning,” said Katie Suib, 41, of Lincoln Square.

After the parties end, one of Baginski’s favorite pieces of feedback is that someone “hasn’t had this much fun in years.” Women her age still want to go out dancing, she said, and it’s clearly a market that hasn’t been served.

“It’s not like we’re building a space shuttle or doing anything special: it’s a dance party,” Lee jumped in. “But there’s nothing that’s marketed toward our age group that’s for fun. It’s geared toward being a mom or being in the workforce. Men can go to a sports bar, they can go anywhere. But where can women go? To the freakin’ library, to go get coffee, give me more.”

For Lee, the events also feel somewhat like a “celebration of life,” something that’s important to her as she undergoes treatments for breast cancer. It’s fulfilling to see so many people experience joy, she added.

Baginski and Lee plan to expand the club beyond city limits, with future events scheduled in the suburbs and New York City. Meanwhile, other organizations in Chicago also hope to give people a space to “rock out and dance like nobody’s watching.”

Chicago is home to the lead chapter of Dance Dance Party Party, which hosts hourlong dance groups twice a month at the Hive Studios in Lincoln Square, according to organizer Mallory Nees. It’s a “safe and inclusive space for people of marginalized genders to shake it out,” she said. The dances aren’t choreographed, and feature lots of different music, she said.

DDPP was founded in New York City in 2006 for women who wanted to dance without the societal pressure to drink and the persistence of the male gaze. It eventually made its way to Chicago about 15 years ago, Nees added.

“I’ve always danced like nobody’s watching, and I got ridiculed for it a lot when I was younger, and so I developed a little bit of a stigma about it,” Nees said. “But having a space where it’s completely allowed to just really feel yourself and have fun in your body is really freeing for me, and has sort of become not only just like a source of joy, but also a source of maybe a little bit of therapy.”

Fellow organizer Carey Farrell recounted the first dance after the COVID-19 lockdown, when the playlist hit just right and it felt almost cathartic. Those in attendance screamed “Mr. Blue Sky” by Electric Light Orchestra and “Dog Days Are Over” by Florence & The Machine with “pure joy,” Farrell said.

It’s unsurprising that dancing is a popular activity, Farrell said. For her, it’s about reclaiming the “right to movement.”

“I was told as a kid ‘You can’t do that. You can’t move this way. You know you’re not good enough to be on the dance floor.’ Well, yes, I am,” she said. “And to have these spaces that welcome me and encourage me is really a wonderful thing.”