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A few weekends ago, I went to a dance party at Seafood City, a Filipino grocery store, and it was an outrageously fun experience that I just have to tell you all about it.
Yes, you read that correctly!
I went to a dance party at a grocery store and had the best time ever. And now I’m writing to you about it after months of silence.
If we’re on a similar kind of algorithm, you may have already caught glimpses of this party taking place in locations across Canada and the US. It’s a viral sensation online, and a site of pure and wholesome joy IRL.
For those of you who have no idea what I’m talking about, allow me to explain! Seafood City is a Filipino grocery store with locations across North America. Back in September, its newest location in Daly City, California, marked its opening by throwing a “Late Night Madness” party – an all-ages, alcohol-free celebration complete with a Filipino DJ and dance floor, Filipino street food, giveaways of Filipino treats filled with nostalgia, and, basically, all things Filipino.
It was so much fun that Seafood City decided to expand the series to locations across the US throughout October to celebrate Filipino American History Month. It just kept on growing, eventually crossing the border with events in Winnipeg, Calgary, and the Greater Toronto Area.
The events run from 8 p.m. to midnight, and the food hall and grocery store stay open while the DJ spins mainstream Western tunes from ABBA to Sabrina Carpenter, from Usher to Taylor Swift, as well as many Filipino hits. There are all kinds of classic street food to enjoy, including fish ball skewers, lumpia, pandesal sliders, turon, and so much more. Throughout the night, there are giveaways thrown across the room causing pandemonium on the dancefloor. To add to the “madness,” party-goers crank up the silliness by doing “shots” of suka (vinegar) and patis (fish sauce). And of course, people in grocery carts are lifted into the air and passed around like in a mosh pit. I kid you not.
It is truly an experience unlike anything else, and words simply cannot do it justice. So to give you an idea of what the heck I’m talking about, I’ll share this with you:
An Unlikely Site of Pleasure Activism
It is absolutely ridiculous, I know.
And that’s the point. It was a gathering of unbridled and unserious fun celebrating our culture and our community. I spent all night dancing til my knees hurt and singing at the top of my lungs with lolas, lolos, titas, titos, and so many littles rejoicing in this communal space for the sole purpose of having fun together.
Where do we get to do that these days?
You’d be hard pressed to find spaces of gathering that do not centre around alcohol, that do not require or expect you to buy anything, and that welcomes everyone (actually!). Where are our third spaces? Where do we gather outside of our home or work/school? Where do we gather to be with people to socialize, to relax, to just be?
Apparently that place is the Filipino grocery store.
At the beginning of the year, I read adrienne maree brown’s Pleasure Activism: The Politics of Feeling Good, which centres around the idea that “pleasure – embodied, connected pleasure – is one of the ways we know when we are free…Pleasure activism is the work we do to reclaim our whole, satisfiable selves from the impacts of oppression and supremacy.” That night felt like a beautiful example of that.
When we think about pleasure, I think it’s often miscontrued as a shorthand for sex or drugs, but it’s far more expansive than just that. It can include sex and drugs, yes, but it also includes humour and laughing til our sides hurt, deep and meaningful connection that shifts something inside of us, cooking and eating delicious and delectable food, reading and writing, music and art and dancing and singing. Anything pleasurable, anything enjoyable.
Now, I don’t want to oversell this or give too much credit. After all, Seafood City is still a business with a bottom line and a profit motive, and I recognize that these parties began as a (brilliant!) marketing campaign to drive people into the grocery store. But there is something here.
I am curious about the lessons we can learn from this experiment and this experience.
Burlesque performer, writer, and educator, Una Osato writes, “it’s not just about rehearsing the revolution, it’s about creating cracks that show our bodies that we can experience freedom.”
The joy I felt that night – being in community, dancing and singing with elders and young ones alike, celebrating my culture, all without any cost – and the viral hit it has become, reveal a crack into a world that we are all yearning for, a kind of freedom from the crushing destruction of our hypercapitalist and hyperindividualistic world.
How can we continue to replicate gatherings, spaces, and experiences like this? How else can we activate spaces of pleasure and enjoyment detached from the oppressive structures of capitalism? How else can we create these cracks that show our bodies what freedom really feels like? How can we keep chipping away at these systems that do not serve us?
Serving Up Some Delicious Invitations
As with most things, I think the journey begins with us. “How we are on the small scale is how we are on the large scale,” after all.
At the start of 2025, I wrote down some questions and curiosities for myself, tender little invitations that I wanted to lean into. I’ll share it with you here in case you find something that unlocks something for you on the threshold of another year.
How do we create more moments of joy and delight in the struggle for collective liberation and justice?
What makes me feel most alive? What makes me feel the most connected to myself? How do I practice doing more of that?
How will I make more space for budding connections that bring me into closer alignment to my values and dreams?
How do I play and how does that change with the seasons? Can I remind myself to move with the patterns of the natural world?
How does my grief open me up to wonder and awe? What lays there?
How do I continue to embrace abundance and reject the scarcity mindset that is so ingrained in me? What can I turn to for reminders?
What does my body want? How do I practice ‘embodiment’ and not just talk about it?
What do I want to give my attention to?
adrienne maree brown writes, “Pleasure is the point. Feeling good is not frivolous; it is freedom. We can gift it to each other in 1 million ways: with authentic presence, with care, and honesty; with boundaries that keep us from overextending; with slower kisses; with foot massages in the evening; with baby hugs and elder hugs; with delicious food; with supported solitude and listening to our bodies, our shameless desire, and coordinated longing.”
And sometimes, with dancing in the grocery store with your people.
Cheers to a new year of discovery, my friends.
In loving solidarity,
Justine