The Coming Back Out Ball (All the Queen’s Men)

In 2017, I was approached by Tristan Meecham, artistic director of All the Queen’s Men, to provide an independent assessment of The Coming Back Out Ball, a large-scale socially engaged arts project in Melbourne (Badham, 2019). Like many social art initiatives, the project had developed first through a personal political motivation and then was cultivated through a series of outreach events, partnership development, community participation, and a mixture of interests from State Government of Victoria and the City of Melbourne funders. The Coming Back Out Ball was a spectacular social dance event that celebrated the contributions of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Intersex (LGBTI) older people aged 65+ in Victoria. The Ball and LGBTI Elders Dance Club delivered in the lead up was created in response to recent research on the social isolation and culturally specific needs of aging individuals in LGBTI community. Held at Melbourne Town Hall, this community celebration hosted more than 520 people including more than 350 LGBTI seniors. The Ball included performances by leading LGBTI artists, high end dinner service, and dance party as a premiere event of the Victorian Seniors Festival in association with the 3rd National LGBTI Ageing and Aged Care Conference.

The original intent of the evaluation was to ‘measure and value the participation of guests, presenters and partners’ and to ‘record and evidence the outcomes of the event’. Together with artists, LGBTI community and agencies, a participatory evaluation framework was developed as the need became apparent to focus not only on ‘value’, but also ‘values’. A third aim for evaluation was articulated: To build an understanding of the ‘meaning and significance of the Coming Back Out Ball’. While all levels of stakeholders were interviewed and surveyed, particular attention was given to centre the voices of LGBTI elders and artists to unpack their own experiences and tacit knowledge. Building on this relational approach, this evaluation extended the dialogic methods embedded in most of All the Queens Men’s projects asking open ended questions: How did it make you feel? What was your experience? and so on. A significant public participatory evaluation conversation was hosted to broaden understanding.  Further methods included ethnographic site-based observation; review of literature and media, interviews with the lead artist; review of organisational planning material; an online post-event survey; public meetings, and discussion of preliminary reports to the community before publishing final results.

Successful evaluation of social art projects is rare as they are resource heavy, require long-term commitment from organisations and individuals, need to develop long-term trust and relationships with community, and the impact of events is difficult to measure in the short-term. Socially engaged arts projects employ localised and specialised creative processes. Activities often unfold in unpredictable ways, posing challenges for linear forms of evaluation. Here, by paying close attention to the knowledge of practitioners and community, we aimed to better understand how the project functioned by exploring both artistic and community aims. Furthermore, socially engaged arts typically aim to contest the idea of singular narrow or pre-defined ideas of cultural value. For instance, queer performance and spectacle or social dance with LGBTI elders will exhibit different aesthetics than other forms of professional or community dance.

Within the context of literature and media review, the data was then organised into four key project priorities. The strengthening of social connections for LGBTI elders and allies was the first and primary outcome, as loneliness was discussed as a key issue for older LGBTI people. The second outcome focused on the need for more nuanced representations of older LGBTI people and their life stories as media representations remain limited: The constraint narrative and the celebration and empowerment narrative. Extended dialogue through a national media campaign was the third outcome and the fourth was the value of the project as a forum to think about the future. This included dialogue about equality, housing and social needs, and coming together by way of intergenerational experience, intercultural exchange and intersectionality. Further, the evaluation proposed three models for future iterations of the event for the community and artists to consider going forward as well as providing some additional broader political recommendations like advocating for a Council of LGBTI elders appointed to advise government and social sector bodies for the development of coordinated services and the necessity for additional research on the social needs of LGBTI elders.

While the Coming Back Out Ball had a clear starting mandate to celebrate and honour the experience of LGBTI elders, many of these priorities and the artistic strategies used to achieve them emerged later. Through the building of trust relationships, Tristan Meecham and the LGBTI elders were able to hold this indeterminate space through ongoing dialogue and experimentation of creative expression. The evaluation built on these values through dialogic and democratised methods in the effort to understand the significance and meaning of the project.