Navel Maneuvers
Saturday, August 11, 1984
The Wayward Princess (Ship)
The August 1984 Navel Maneuvers dance took place on The Wayward Princess, a ship in Lake Ontario. At $19 each, tickets were more expensive than a typical GCDC dance, and concerns were raised that the high ticket cost would exclude many people, notably women. DJ-ed by Ted Bates and capped at 300 attendees, this was a much smaller dance than typical GCDC events. Minutes from a subsequent meeting note that, “The weather was beautiful and warm in the middle 70s and the wind was perfect. The 149 people who showed up had a great time and were dancing not only on the two dance floors but also on the cabin tops and succeeded in drinking all the liquor.” With less than half of available tickets being sold, this dance resulted in a small financial loss of $1,005.00 for the GCDC.
By the end of 1984, organisers had synthesised results from a survey conducted with 235 attendees from the Sappho’s Garden Party dance (April 14, 1984). Although volunteers did not speak with all attendees, the results of this survey give a sense of the demographics of GCDC dances in the mid-1980s. Of the attendees who responded to the survey:
70% identified as men
30% identified as women
Ages ranged from 16 to 66 years old
The average age was 28
Most heard about the dance through “word of mouth”
The vast majority of women, people who frequent downstairs, and first time attendees heard about the dance through “word of mouth.”
Despite more men and youth attending the dance, this 1984 survey found that a larger proportion of women and older people volunteered for GCDC dances compared to men and younger people.