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VIDEO | 10:58
Stud Country

Stud Country

Stud Country, a Los Angeles-based queer country western line dancing event, was created to preserve Los Angeles’ little known 50-plus-year queer line dancing tradition. Despite its success and fiercely committed community, the event is set to lose its venue due to gentrification.

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The story of “Stud Country,” a queer country and western line dancing event in Los Angeles, is as much a story of the queer community as it is of gentrification and loss of community spaces in the city. In this film, we wanted to show the old and new guard of queer country line dancing, which has a vibrant, little-known history in L.A.

As a third-generation Los Angeleno, Lina is passionate about highlighting a part of the city’s history that has never been documented. Alexandra shares the same interest, and as a New Orleanian, she values the preservation of culture, art, community, and the spaces that cultivate them such as the historic Oil Can Harry’s and Club Bahia in L.A.

Sean Monaghan, one of the founders of Stud Country, was initially skeptical about allowing us to film the dancing. He was worried that Stud Country could be misrepresented as a novel fad rather than as a deep part of L.A.’s queer history.

Lina’s article on Stud Country, which appeared in the Los Angeles Times, however, made Sean and the community more willing to entrust Lina and Alexandra with telling this important story.

We hope viewers enjoy the beautiful dancing in the film. Equally important, we hope they see the importance of having spaces that create and sustain communities. The uncertain future of Club Bahia, which is under pressure from gentrification and the push for new development, makes it more urgent than ever to preserve this history and places where queer culture is nurtured.

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