Décalé, founded by Chooc Ly Tan and Anne Duffau, is a club night that brings together sci-fi, queer resistance, and decolonial thinking. The event celebrates otherness and showcases the exploration of groundbreaking performance, music and dance. With support from our team, full creative freedom, and zero hire fees, these Yard Residents aim to “amplify the work of artists from underserved communities who continue to be overlooked, despite their undeniable talents.”

WHAT WOULD YOU LIKE TO DO WITH YOUR TIME AT THE YARD?

We want to use The Yard residency programme to showcase innovative art at the intersection of visual arts, movement, poetry, and music.

Our goal is to create a safe and immersive experience for all generations to come together, let go, and release — and to treat them with a multi-sensory experience that feels gooood. We hope to connect with the other Yard residents and communities and learn from The Yard’s knowledgeable team; to become a force together!

At our first Décalé event as residents, we collaborated with the performance artist and creative communion 144 (Ijeoma Uzoukwu) to fundraise for Saffron Music — a music tech initiative taking an intersectional approach to redressing the gender imbalance in the industry.

WHAT’S YOUR BACKGROUND IN EVENTS, AND HOW DID YOUR COLLECTIVE COME ABOUT?

We are Chooc Ly Tan and Anne Duffau, experienced event organisers in the visual arts, club nights, and education. We created Décalé, a dynamic platform that brings together these areas of practice. In 2018, we launched Décalé with the support of DIY Space for London, and since then, we’ve organised events in various venues like Ormside Projects, Space289, and Somerset House studios. We also brought Décalé to Poekhali! Festival in Norway, is quite a unique festival curated by Eva Rowson and Borealis; and we partnered with Chinabot for an unforgettable night at The Yard. Our most recent event was LUNAR LATE: Year of the Queer Rabbit, which celebrated Lunar New Year 2023 at Matchstick Piehouse, in collaboration with Asia-Art Activism and HYEY collective.

As Décalé, we aim to amplify artists from underserved communities who are often overlooked despite their undeniable talents. The term “Décalé” refers to being displaced in space and time, and we’ve supported many artists who were unknown at an early stage of their careers. We’re over the moon to see many of our Décalé alums, like FAUZIA, Loraine James, and Désiré Niamké, achieving success. However, despite our previous events and collaborations, we still struggle as a niche platform. That’s why we’re excited to be working with The Yard through this residency, which feels like a breath of fresh air.

WHAT ARE YOU MOST EXCITED ABOUT FOR YOUR NIGHTLIFE RESIDENCY AT THE YARD?

We are really excited to work with amazing artists that we admire. Décalé is an evolving platform; we have curated many events suited to the club environment — but not exclusively. We can’t wait to use all the different spaces and facilities The Yard has to offer.

We look forward to expanding our practice and network and partnering with like-minded people, collectives and organisations.