House of Yes

Overview

Bushwick circus-theatre nightclub founded in 2007 by Kae Burke and Anya Sapozhnikova (three locations, one fire) now a converted warehouse at 2 Wyckoff where aerial silk, drag, house music, and an institutionalized consent culture share the same floor.

House of Yes traces its roots to April 2007, when childhood friends and trained aerialists Kae Burke and Anya Sapozhnikova opened a 2,500-square-foot second-floor loft at 19–49 Troutman Street in East Williamsburg as a live-work creative space for the artists, musicians, and dancers they called family, aerial classes by day, monthly parties by night. A kitchen fire on April 22, 2008 destroyed the first iteration; within two months they had relocated to a derelict former ice-house near the Grand Street L, where they rebuilt a 30-foot-ceiling circus theatre that ran until June 2013, when escalating rents forced them out. The third and current iteration, opened on New Year's Eve 2015 with the 'Beginning of Everything' party, Sapozhnikova emerging from a flaming bathtub and soaring to the rafters as confetti fell, occupies a converted warehouse one minute from the Jefferson Street L at 2 Wyckoff Avenue, co-founded this time with partners Justin Ahiyon and Ilan Telmont. The room holds roughly 475–550 and features theatrical atrium drapery, video installations, an outdoor patio with fire pit, and gender-neutral restrooms. Programming at the current House of Yes is a curated hybrid: theatrical variety shows in the early evening segue into DJ-driven dance parties on most weekends. Recurring parties include Discotechnique, a rotating disco-and-house themed night that has hosted DJ Spen, Marshall Jefferson, and Dimitri From Paris, and collaborations with New York promoter series Caravan Gitane. The resident DJ series, documented via the venue's SoundCloud, features selectors like DJ Bruce. The dancefloor is deliberately eclectic: house, disco, and mixed programming dominate, but the venue books across electronic and dance genres depending on the night. A long-running outdoor festival extension, Summer of Love, has run at offsite Brooklyn locations including Under the K Bridge Park. What distinguishes House of Yes institutionally is the Consenticorns program, trained staff wearing unicorn horns stationed on the dancefloor to monitor for and intervene in non-consensual contact. The venue's consent policy, codified at houseofyes.org/consent, defines enthusiastic verbal affirmation as the only valid yes, and requires every event ticket to display the policy. The ethos grew organically from Burke and Sapozhnikova's Burning Man and DIY-Brooklyn community roots, but has been operationalized into staff training in de-escalation and bystander intervention. The waiting list for Consenticorn training has reportedly exceeded 70 people, and outside promoters have contracted the team for freelance work at other venues. The venue has drawn mainstream recognition, Time Out named it the #2 thing to do globally in 2018; DJ Mag placed it in its Top 100 Clubs that same year (ranked 91st in 2019), while maintaining roots in queer, sex-positive, and performance-art subcultures that resist easy categorization. In 2019 House of Yes expanded beyond Brooklyn, producing 'The Devouring: A Marriage of Heaven and Hell,' a William Blake-inspired dinner-theatre production with Michelin-starred chef John Fraser at the Paradise Club inside the Times Square EDITION Hotel. The Wyckoff warehouse continues to operate.

Oral histories & archival media

Archive plates

Plates fill in as scans clear rights

Sonic profile

Cultural role

DJs, promoters & people

Follow a name to see other rooms they connect to

Parties & residencies

Tags

Related rooms