![Gay History: The Lost and Forgotten Art of Gay Disco Fan Dancing Featuring: Bret Lacquement [Rare Video]](https://i0.wp.com/www.back2stonewall.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/Disco-Ball-e1475159886504.png?resize=425%2C266)
In the late 1970’s and early 1980’s during the heyday of gay disco not only were you treated to the hedonistic world of loud thumping music, poppers, great recreational drugs, and the bodies of hundreds of hot, sweaty, gyrating men. If you lucky enough were treated to spectacular displays of “disco fan dancing”.
No one knows when it started and who was the first gay man to hit the floor and twirl but we do know that one of the best fan dancers of the era was Bret Lacquement member of the first and finest of the fan dancing troops who toured Europe and America teaching and dancing.
Disco fan dancing is truly a forgotten art form as well as a lost piece of gay history.
Watch this rare 1977 footage of Bret twirling at the White Party at the Trocadero Transfer below.
thanks for the post……. but I was never lost…LOL I’ve been here all the time…..Bret
So many others have been man! YOU ARE HISTORIC!
Amazing dancing! And I’m glad to hear that you are alive & well!
I would love learn more about the dance troupe, dance style and how to build fans that for it (most fans I’ve seen I haven’t been able to stand this type of spinning/movement). Thanks in advance!
Bret, how can I get a hold of you? I fondly remember this from the late 70’s. I’m now in my 50’s and would like to learn how. Do you still teach?
How much do u charge for a pair of fans. It brings back alot of good memories!!
Can you please contact me regarding fan-dancing?
I was 18 years old, just coming out, and fortunate enough to catch the tail end of the disco era. I was so enamored and fascinated by the few fan dancers that I did see during that time. I think it’s time that this lost art be brought back. Where would one get the fans to use?
The video is no longer available! Is there anywhere I can see some fan dancing?
Philip H November 2015
Wow!! I was a “fan dancer” in the mid 80’s here in England, I first saw guys floating fans in Heaven the gay disco in London and was hooked, one of the guys came off the floor and I asked where do you get the fans, he told me, you have to make them and spent half an hour explaining how to make a set of fans and where to buy material etc – the next evening I was back with my first set of fans, the guy showed me some basic movements and that was the start of my fan dancing. I took them with me to all the gay clubs when I travelled in the UK and abroad. I was diagnosed HIV positive in 1985 and in a way the “fans” where my saviour as they enabled me to stay in the gay community as I felt that they had rejected me because I was OUT as someone living with the virus.
I was one of the few women fan d as ncers at Trocadero. I remember Bret and I occasionally still pull the fans out.
Can someone give me the dementions for making the “fans”? Please?
So many fun memories of the first time in a gay bar and I remember seeing the fan dancers. Now as I am older, I really would like to finally add my spin to it. Does anyone know where to buy the fans or the specs to make them? I see that the video is no longer available. Is there another way to view it or is it just no longer available?
i would like to know where to purchase or how to make them for my 40th class reunion
Ah! Thank you so much for this article! Here is a fun transatlantic update for you–every Sunday in the iconic club Berghain in Berlin, Germany, tons of guys dance gorgeously and mesmerizingly to techno with their fans. I was wondering where that fan dancing came from originally, and it is hard to google as you usually get stuck with the definition of “fans” as in “fan of a celebrity” not fan, the object. But then I found this article, and it is so cool and fascinating to learn that this dance came from the age of disco!!! Happy to say it is not forgotten, it is having a revival, just to different beats!
I came out late and went through my “gay adolescence” during the late 80s at the end of the real Disco Era. Wonderful, Joyous, marvelous memories! I sometimes wish I could just travel back in time. Years later I went to “a” White Party (not “THE” White Party) in Provincetown. I guess I experienced “gay lite” but glad I did.