Moondance was Singapore's first disco to cater mainly to lesbians. However, on most nights, there was an almost equal number of male gay patrons, mostly from the young, edgy set. It opened around 2007 and was quite large, occupying 4 units, from numbers 60 to 64, at Tanjong Pagar Road. Its telephone number was +65 324-2911.
The location of Moondance along Tanjong Pagar Road.
Prior to its establishment, lesbians who wanted to dance in a club had to contend with gay discos attracting a mainly male clientele. Some even tried out the lesbian nights at Singapore's first gay sauna, Spartacus, which had a disco on its ground floor. While dancing here, the lesbians were often shocked to see men walking around on the second level clad only in towels as there was a large rectangular gap in the ceiling separating the ground and first floors of the sauna.
Realising the unmet demand and not wanting to be outdone by their male counterparts, lesbian entrepreneurs opened Moondance. When offering directions to its location along Tanjong Pagar Road, regulars would facetiously say that Moondance was sandwiched midway between Babylon (at no. 52) and Inner Circle (at no. 78), two iconic gay karaoke bars which were overwhelmingly patronised by gay men.
The eatery today occupying the same unit as Moondance.
Moondance was managed by a lesbian who later went on to become an acting icon and the CEO of a successful artiste and event management company. The shophouse unit that Moondance was at is currently occupied by Wa Bar (as at 2018).
On Saturday nights, one could witness the remarkable sight of a long line of lesbians queueing up along the walkway to get into Moondance while on the other side of Tanjong Pagar Road, there was an even longer queue of gay men waiting to gain entry into Play disco.
The density of gay discos and karaoke bars in Tanjong Pagar in the 2000s earned the district the reputation of being Singapore's Castro after its famous counterpart in San Francisco, USA.
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This article was written by Roy Tan.