The very same week the prestigious Met Gala takes place, a gala of a whole other variety will be held in Manchester.
Iconic queer club event Your Dad Sells Avon will be celebrating a bit of ‘Northern Glamahh’ and embracing the ‘nasty, tacky and trashy’ with The Manc Gala rave party at The Deaf Institute on May 7.
The queer house and techno rave will feature the likes of Coco Deville, Alexa Allana, Meme Gold, the House of Blaque and event founder Ali Saeedian AKA Ali Stopit.
Originally from Wigan, go-go dancer Ali created YDSA - as it's affectionately referred to - last year in response to a lack of events he felt connected to.
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“Since lockdown and the whole BLM movement, the way I look at myself and my surroundings has completely changed,” Ali, 33, tells the Manchester Evening News. “I started noticing there were rarely any people of colour or trans people - anyone who was slightly different to the norm - around the Village.
“None of these people were getting hired, and my friend, Alexa Allana, who is a transgender model and influencer, couldn’t get any work despite everything about her being perfect.
“I just decided there and then that I would create a night and hire my friends to ensure they were booked. I just wanted to help my community and push those who were deserving of being recognised.”
The name Your Dad Sells Avon came from a cheeky insult Ali, who works as a treasury analyst for an accountancy firm by day, heard thrown at someone at school. It’s stuck with him ever since and was always going to be the name of his first ever club night.
“It’s attention grabbing and it’s very British,” he smirks. “YDSA sounds a little bit like the YMCA too, so it just fits.”
Ali, who performed in drag as Yassica Skreams before lockdown, found his way into go-go dancing when clubs started to reopen following their closure during the pandemic.
“There was a new club night opening in Manchester and I was invited to dance there,” he says. “I did it the first weekend and it just started to become a regular thing. I started getting my friends involved and started getting more known myself.
“Other venues started creating nights and I was invited along to front them, but then I started to wonder why I was making money for everyone else, when I could do it myself.”
Ali, who himself regularly performs at venues like Albert’s Schloss, ON Bar, Cruz 101 and Homobloc, is known around Manchester’s night scene for his rhinestone cowboy looks, his revealing numbers and his statement pieces.
He says being a prominent feature in the city-region’s night scene has allowed him to witness first hand how he feels the Village itself has changed in recent times and how he can make YDSA stand out from the crowd.
“The Village has become a bit of a zoo,” he confesses. “When straight people come, they will often oogle you and think they can just touch you. I’m not in a case to be displayed, I’m a dancer. Join in and have fun, but leave me alone.
“I will often see people making fun or attacking the performers. Before I perform anywhere now, I will always ask venues what the customers and security are like.
“There are also conversations behind had right now about how the Village treats people of colour. I know certain venues will often photoshop and insert people of colour into their posters, long after the photoshoots, in an attempt to look inclusive.”
Ali, who is of Persian heritage with his parents hailing from Iran, says it’s for some of these reasons why he made the ‘conscious decision’ to hold YDSA at the Deaf Institute, instead of the Village.
He explains: “For me personally, I didn’t want to take it to the Village because I haven’t really felt a sense of community there recently. I don’t know what it is but the Village has a completely different vibe these days.
“I also wanted to make sure it wasn’t a gay thing. It’s a queer thing, straight people can be queer or allies and I didn’t want to close it off so much.”
YDSA’s third night will revolve around the theme of a Manc Gala, held on May 7, just days after the Metropolitan Museum of Art's influential fundraising Met Gala in New York on May 1.
“I decided the theme before I realised the Met Gala was on the same weekend,” he says. “The whole night is very Manc, I really want it to shine a light on Manchester and to celebrate the Northern glamour we’re known for. Think of it as the Hacienda mixed with an 90s underground New York club scene and you're on the right track.
“We’ll also be raising money for charity, which we have done for all other nights so far. A pound from every ticket will go to charity, and we’ll also be fundraising on the night too.
“If anyone asks me why they should come to YDSA, I always say that if you’ve ever wanted all of the good things in one place then this is for you. I’ve essentially brought together all the best bits from Manchester’s queer night scene in the last 17 years and put them in one place to create the best night possible.”
Held over three floors, featuring a range of DJs and performers, Ali promises YDSA is going to be a mainstay of Manchester’s queer nightlife scene for years to come.
“We always go all out,” he explains. “Some clubs stop the whole thing in the middle of the night to lip-sync but I don’t want to do that. Our performers are going to do something in the style of Chicago’s Cell Block Tango, which is split into six different stories, and we’re going to blend four performances into one number.
“There’s going to be pyrotechnics and full numbers. I am closing the performance out, I have two back-up dancers and a whole production planned out. It’s going to be big.”
“My friends say I’ve changed the way people club,” he adds. “The way we market the event is that we amplify voices who aren’t heard. I give all the performers their own poster as if they are the headline act. I want everyone to feel like they are appreciated and celebrated.
I wanted people to see posters of people like them and to think ‘I could do that, that could be me’. Everyone we feature is a minority of the LGBTQ+ community, whether they’re trans, non-binary, Black, hairy, a full-figured lesbian, a bear, or Middle Eastern, like myself.
“We’ve all had our struggles and setbacks in life and we’ve been brought up with the standards of modern beauty meaning you have to be thin, white, smooth, or muscly. I’ve taken that vision and turned it around.
“People who are talented but never actually given the platform now have a place to shine.”
Tickets for YDSA’s Manc Rave on May 7 at the Deaf Institute can be bought here.
You can follow YDSA on Instagram, and Ali can also be followed here.
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