ETHNOGRAPHIK

POST-RAVE POLYCULTURE
ORIENTING A PLANETARY DANCE MUSIC COMMUNITY

In the 80’s and 90’s the dance cultures met in an international expression of the
electronic music revolution called the ‘rave movement’. Emerging from the youth
communities, rave parties embodied the shamanic qualities of the early trance
environments. These modern collective ecstatic dance experiences were
technologically enhanced by image projections, high bpm digitized music, glow
sticks and smart bars. Rave music like house, breaks and techno spread across
the world initiating djs and party promoters where ever it went.

As the ‘rave movement’ began to shift and transform due to legal pressures, super
clubs, coke commercials, stadium parties and the mainstreaming of underground
music, even newer cultural forms are beginning to take shape. The planetary
dance music culture has been liberated by the internet and airplanes, the local
has gone global and gatherings now often feature djs, performers, presenters and
artists from all over the world.

At earthdance, hundreds of thousands of people in 50 countries and over 130

different cities gather together to share sinchronic space. At a predesigned time
the same single track is played and the dancefloors are united in a global dance
meditation for world peace and healing. A panplanetary network of local
production teams, linked through the worldwideweb, produce these gatherings
every year and it is becoming an imbedded cultural expression of the planetary
dance music community.

Burning Man sees tens of thousands create a whole city in the middle of the deep
desert where almost no life can survive. Countless stages, soundsystems, art
installations and interactive areas are set up as a living community of culture.
This gathering has become a mecca for the tribal dance communities and is a
template for the tribal cultures of the post-civilization.

The boom festival, a 20,000 person nomadic art-culture lifestyles gathering in

Portugal, has its own currency, daily newspaper, cinema, art gallery, email cafes,
and conference zone. It features international performers, musicians, djs and vjs
from countries spanning the globe, acting as a polycultural representation of the
emerging global dance music community. One of the largest psytrance gatherings
in Europe, the festival sets up a temporary autonymous zone with intersecting
customs, cultures and dance forms.

And here we are, a present moment shifting rapidly towards the future. Our
collective dancefloors fresh for exploration, dappled in the streaming media
feeds, interactive video streams, and live prayerformance that combine to form a
force that can only really be experienced in the collective spirit of the dance.

A global dance music culture is emerging. Now ‘its all the rave’ and where we go
from here is up for grabs. By using the global dance music culture as a template
for change we are creating communities through communication networks, and
organizing collective experiences where large groups of people share spaces that
speak across languages, cultures, genders and ages. The transcendent future
culture could look like a retribalized gaian society or a high technology urban-
forest superculture. What kind of a future are you building?