How Mariah Hanson Turned The Dinah Into A Humanitarian Event For Queer Women
I first heard of the Club Skirts Dinah Shore Weekend on the iconic television show, The L Word, which followed the fictional lives of Los Angeles’ favorite queer female figures. The episode gave me the only knowledge of what the internationally famous Palm Springs festival for queer women. To be completely honest, The Dinah scared me. I could only picture a wild weekend of drunk lesbians everywhere. As the character, Jenny says on the show, “I’ve just never seen such debauchery in my whole life…And then I had to, like, step over all these women bodies in order to get to this room, which is sort of crazy.” However, Jenny’s description of The Dinah may not be completely correct.
Twenty-nine years ago, Mariah Hanson, founder of The Dinah, was a club promoter in San Francisco, CA. It was during a time when the idea of club promoters was a relatively new concept, which made her one of the pioneers of the field as the idea took off. She became aware of the events that were happening in Palm Springs in The Dinah Shore Golf Tournament and ended up attending one of their annual events.
“They were very expensive for very little,” Mariah Hanson said of the golf tournament. “It was like tying a balloon to a speaker and calling it a production, and I thought, ‘Wow, this is an incredible city. People are coming to the golf tournament. This could be so much more.’ I went in, and I gave it so much more. I booked the Palm Springs Museum, and I booked an entire hotel. That wasn’t happening. This was at a time when our social acceptance wasn’t quite as high as it is now. So, I kind of when out on a limb and took some big risks, and it worked. It was what people needed.”
The Dinah has definitely evolved over the years and has become a place where people can do more than just have a really good time in Palm Springs, CA. It has become more than a party, according to Hanson. Although the event changes with time, the essence of The Dinah remains the same. “A safe space for women-identified people and their friends.”
“I’ve been doing this for 29 years,” said Hanson. “So, as a human being, we evolve. When I was in my early thirties, and probably the entire decade of my thirties I pretty much thought I had the coolest job in the world for different reasons than I do now. I got to throw this huge party, and I loved parties. So, it was so great to be able to plan parties and to have people enjoy it, but fast forward another 18 years or 19 years, and I see the Dinah as way more than just this amazing party.”
Mariah Hanson grew up in Mill Valley, California, in a single mom household during the 1960s. She credits her activism and the evolution of The Dinah to the members of her family who were heavily involved in the Civil Rights movement during that time.
“She was an incredible role model,” Hanson said, describing her mother. “She really worked so hard to create a home for seven kids, said Hanson. “I’m very lucky that I had some who could model hard work, love for family, being consistent, and also having high ideals. She was a really powerful civil rights activist. When she wasn’t working, we were on Freedom Marches. Just really an amazing woman. My oldest sister dropped out of college to go to Birmingham to work under the Dr. King administration to help sign people up to vote. So, I’m from a family of activists. We grew up very poor, but we grew up with the idea of how important it is to serve.”
Hanson brings this sense of service and the drive to be an activist when she plans The Dinah. She books women who model how it's really “possible to break through the male patriarchal paradigm.” Her goal to continue to help create a safe space where queer women can connect with other queer women, feel empowered, and inspired to continue breaking glass ceilings. For Hanson, and the many other queer women who have attended the festival in the past, The Dinah has become a humanitarian event on a very essential level.
“So, a lot of the people are going to The Dinah thinking that’s the best party they’ve ever been to, but that’s not how they feel when they leave,” Hanson explained. “They leave saying, ‘Oh my God the energy in here is amazing. I met so many different people, and I’ve met so many different people from all over the world. I’ve also heard so many inspiring stories all weekend long. This weekend was incredible. I can’t wait to go back next year.’ That’s why I do what I do. It’s so much more than a party. It’s such an experience of empowerment and celebration and modeling women who break glass ceilings. Almost all of our artists have a back story to them. I look for that now when I’m booking.
I see the Dinah as this platform to remind young women, and really all women that, a: we are strong as our weakest link, b: we have much more in common than we do differences, and that when we lift each other up and support each other that power is false, but empowerment is mighty,” Hanson continued. “And I get to, with all the intention I have inside of me, create a mindset for the weekend that translates into a very powerful experience for people that attended.”
Mariah Hanson has even compared The Dinah to practicing yoga. She explains that something happens when you attend the event that you weren’t initially expecting to occur.
“It’s the essence of humanitarianism through the stories we tell all weekend, and if people are paying attention even slightly, they’ll get it,” Hanson explained. “It’s kind of like doing yoga. You start doing yoga, and you like it. You start doing yoga two or three times a week and then the next thing you know it’s six or eight months later, and it’s not yoga for exercise anymore. Something starts happening to you energetically. But nobody told you when you started doing yoga that you were just working out, but then something happens, and I liken The Dinah to that.
It is a party, it’s a huge party. People drink too much at this party, and that’s all true,” said Hanson. “It’s also true that it’s a really amazing social experience. I concentrate on the part where we’re lifting people’s spirits and creating community. It’s the people who think that it’s just a party, those are the people I want to experience it just once. To see how a community can come together and transcend race, transcend religion, transcend economics, and transcend any ‘ism’ you can imagine, and really act as a group of people who are with a moment that is collective and cohesive and empowering and supportive. The moment is community and that community is all-embracing.”
When discussing what she wanted attendees to take away, she stressed the importance of community and carrying that same care and acceptance that is seen at The Dinah with them when after the weekend ends.
“I want people to take away from The Dinah, the belief that all of our preconceptions about how life is, how other people are the possibilities of the most diverse group of people imaginable coming together and creating something really positive, then it’s possible,” said Hanson. “That if you can spend five days at The Dinah in an environment where people are very open and caring and supportive, even in the face of having a really celebratory time. Even in the face of drinking and even just dancing on the dance floor. Everyone’s there with the idea that we created a community for five days, and that there is no one here that shouldn’t be here, that everyone’s invited to this table because it’s The Dinah table. If people can leave with that idea, then I would pose them a question as they leave. If you can do it here, you can do it wherever you are.”
The 2019 Club Skirts Dinah Shore Weekend will take place in Palm Springs, CA Wednesday, April 3rd through Sunday, April 7th. Visit TheDinah.com for more information on the five-day music festival and how to buy tickets for the event.