Planet Amor Believes It’s Time Dance Floors Welcomed More of the Girls

The dolls behind Planet Amor want people to party more.

The newly minted party collective is run by multiple organizers, including Jake Ulan, Danielle Quintos, Venus Roxas, Honda Gervacio, Juana Cardano, Aira de Dios, Dev Kuramoto (a.k.a DJ and songwriter D Waviee), Lucia Narca, Elijah Gundran, and Angel Cordova, all of whom were regular partygoers before officially starting Planet Amor. 

“We were driven to create our own party kasi wala kaming mapuntahan,” Narca tells Rolling Stone Philippines. “It was this lack of happenings, events… parang walang ganap!” For months, the young party organizers had been thinking about creating a party centered around women, both cis and trans, that encouraged partygoers to dress up, be themselves, and have fun on a welcoming dance floor. 

In March, Planet Amor made their nightlife debut with The Lady of the Night, a gathering at Apotheka for women and by women. Beyond making a “cosmic space” that honored women of all forms, shapes, and backgrounds, Planet Amor’s first-ever party brought together key figures in Manila’s dance music culture, including Pette Shabu, Christal, and Xtina Superstar, for an evening of dancing till your heels break.

Planet Amor’s co-founders sat down with Rolling Stone Philippines to talk about how partying builds community, what type of planning goes into throwing a good party, and what they hope to achieve in the next one.

This interview has been edited for brevity and clarity.

How would you describe Planet Amor to a first-timer?

Elijah: Planet Amor is a group of friends — a group of girls, mostly, who just have our own creative pursuits. We wanted to create together and invite people who share the same views with us. The core of it is fashion, for sure, but also to make a woman-empowered face.

Lucia: Planet Amor is a party. I think our vision for it is a party where everyone can just be extravagant. Be really extra. It’s fashion-centered — as much as possible, we want to highlight the fashion of it all. We want to bring back dressing up again! Planet Amor is a party where you can pull up in your most extravagant outfit and you know it won’t get weird.

Angel: Planet Amor is a bunch of individuals who share the same denominator, which is a love for the arts.

As partygoers yourselves, do you feel like there’s a specific reason why you party?

Lucia: I think partying is about community and being with your friends, because the main reason why I go to parties is because we’re together. Just to have fun together with the girls.

Dev: I go to these parties to kind of unwind. To get my mind off of work and what’s going on. You know, it’s just one night off, and I think that’s one of the reasons why people go to parties.

What makes a party feel safe, especially for the dolls?

Dev: I think with trans women and gendered women, parang wala pinagkaiba naman to make us feel safe. What all women want, kahit trans or biologically born, is pretty similar: to feel safe in a party where everything or everyone is mixed. 

Lucia: I think pinaka-main talaga is…If I go into a party and feel like I’m getting stared at, then that’s my first impression of like, “Oh, I may not belong in this crowd.” It’s those very small details that matter.

Elijah: The community [needs] to be more open to us. The admission, the ticketing… sometimes it’s not feasible for us girls to access these. Accessibility to the community, that’s what we want for us to feel safe.

Angel: It’s the clear acceptance from the organizer of the party itself. Kunwari, prior to the event, the party sets rules and posts them on their Instagram. With that, the tone is clear, and it shapes how everyone behaves.

What can organizers do better to support the girls at their parties?

Dev: I think the very first impression [matters] talaga. I know this is gonna be a good party as soon as I enter it. It’s how people welcome you inside, affirming who you are as a partygoer. These [are] people I can trust my experience to. It’s also very important sa akin how everything is laid out, planned out, and managed. The rest of it is very unpredictable, of course.

Angel: Rooted in my last answer, there always needs to be house rules. Those will be a reminder for everyone in the party of what they should be mindful of in order for a space to be safe. 

Elijah: So, I’m gonna be blatant and I say na when [we] go to parties, we’re overpowered by guys. It’s very rare to see a cluster of girls, and it’s mostly going to be just us girls, because some don’t have access to these parties due to high admission prices. [Venues] need to prioritize the girls more. If you already have the guys there, why wouldn’t you want more of us there, too?

Lucia: Honestly, same. I don’t think we’re being entitled if we ask to be prioritized. Hindi lang naman kami, e. When you go to parties, you’ll really see na[the dolls] are surrounded by guys.

What do you have planned next for Planet Amor?

Elijah: Well, [with] our first party, we didn’t really know what we were doing. We just wanted to have a night where we could dress up, where all the girls could come dress up with us, too. We have a lot of plans for Planet Amor, but right now, we’re still taking our time to really cultivate ano yung gusto namin talaga gawin. 

Kasi, this is for us. It’s our thing. And we want to share our own gifts, our own view on things. The next one is for sure going to take more for us to put out there. If we’re making this our own thing, it should be something significant to us.

Dev: Planet Amor is  a child that we created, all of us, on our own time, in our own bedrooms. And we wanted to share it with everyone. That first party, we took everyone on for that party — we gave everything, tapos hindi namin masyadong nabigyan ng pansin yung other things that needed to be planned out as well. I think that should be our next priority. But you know, when you ride a bike, it’s not like, “Oh, you ride it and you’re good at it right away.” There will always be training wheels sa start, and then you take them out. By then, you’ll be good at it na. It’s not overnight! [Laughs] 

And it’s part of a bigger [community]. If not everyone is willing to participate and make the party safer, then we’re back to square one ulit. Lahat yan may role to play — you’re not going to be able to have a safe home if not everyone is willing to make it a good home.

Lucia: I think it’s just a matter of us streamlining ‘yung mga kailangan talaga na ayusin. But the group is definitely dedicated to work towards that.

Dev, you’ve spoken before about this idea of having a feminine touch when it comes to organizing parties. How do you know if a party has that touch?

Lucia: Sobrang chance ng term, pero there’s a level of puss to it, sis. Parang there’s just that “ooh la la” sensation. [Laughs]

Dev: It’s hard to verbalize it. It’s really close to home, because [that touch] is practically why I started doing music [outside of Planet Amor]… to make sounds that sound more feminine, not too rough around the edges, and to have a little bit of a twinkle, of sass, to it. 

A party has a feminine touch when you see everyone is meticulous. It’s being handled by someone with feminine intentions, feminine background, feminine personality. Even the sound, the lineup they’re curating, and the production design. It’s like a feminine utopia, pero it’s not always pink and stuff associated with femininity — but it’s those touches that only a woman could think of. A trans woman expresses her culture, her mannerisms, her identity through the art that she makes, and of course, [you can see that] in our events.

Elijah: If you see the girls having fun, then you’ll see a feminine touch on the dance floor. Once you enter the room, it will exude femininity. 

Dev: The energy doesn’t lie! It’ll just ooze femme. You’ll feel it. 

One of the things that was sort of a red thread through everyone’s answers was this idea of making the girls feel welcome, and that it’s Planet Amor’s mission to give the girls a sense of that belonging. But do you feel like a level of gatekeeping or safeguarding is necessary to protect these spaces?

Dev: What you said literally just flashbacked me to what happened to me and [my friend] Winona at this bar in BGC. It was a wine bar, and they didn’t let us in because we’re trans. It wasn’t the first time I’d gone there. I’d gone with my friends before, and I was with a cisgendered woman so we got in, and it was fine. But when it was just [me] and Winona, it was like, “Oh, we’re not welcome here.” 

That’s basically what we’re fighting here. This literal sense of not feeling welcome. So we have this space now where we can reclaim ourselves and be like, “Oh, if we can’t get into a restaurant, then [at least] we’re welcome here.”

Angel: I think gatekeeping is necessary, but at the same time we still want to people in, you know. For that to happen, again, we need to be direct with a clear set of rules.

Lucia: For me, we 100 percent need to gatekeep. Gatekeeping is one of the ways you can ensure that a space will cater to the people na target niyo. For [Planet Amor], it’s the girls and the kids who like to dress up. As much as possible, we want them to have access to it.