Nine years ago, Elsie Firth went to her first No Light No Lycra (NLNL) dance night.
Her sister Trish Potts had seen an advertisement for the night in a local paper and encouraged Ms Firth to tag along with her.
Now the sisters run weekly NLNL sessions in Kingston. Elsie has run the Kingston branch for the past six years.
At the dance nights, held every Monday from 5:30pm at Gould Adams Park Aquatic Centre, people are free to dance without distractions or worry of judgment.
“When you go to No Lights, No Lycra, the room is darkish, it’s not so pitch black that you’ll fall over, but it’s darkish enough that you feel comfortable and relaxed, that nobody’s watching you or anything,” Ms Firth said.
“We turn all the lights off, we put the music on really loud, and we just play the music, and you just dance and move any way you want.
“If you want to exercise to the music, then you exercise. If you want to dance, you can dance if you want to. We’ve had people come and just sit and listen to the music, and it’s just good for you.”
“It’s good for your heart, it’s good for your brain, it’s good for your stress levels.”
Participant numbers vary each session. Sometimes four or five people will turn up; other weeks will see a turnout of twelve or thirteen.
Ms Firth said they had room for many more people to attend, and are actively trying to recruit more participants, but that it was hard to get the word out, with their most frequent advertising channel being word of mouth.
This year, the Kingston dance nights didn’t receive a grant from the Council to cover the cost of renting the hall and insuring the sessions.
As a result, entry on the dance nights will now cost participants $10 instead of $5. Ms Firth said she hoped council funding would resume in January 2026.
“I think everybody deserves to have that hour once a week to just chill out and do nothing except just listen to some really good music and dance,” Ms Firth said.
“Nobody judges you, nobody cares what you’re doing because they’re too much in their own little space, doing their own little thing.”
Ms Firth said the dance nights were a social opportunity as well as for fitness purposes. At the end of each quarter, the Kingston group goes out for dinner or to a trivia night.
“I’ve made some really good friends [at the NLNL dance nights],” Ms Firth said.
NLNL began sixteen years ago in 2009, at St Mark’s Church Hall in Fitzroy, Melbourne, and now the organisation facilitates dance nights in 75 locations all over the world.
