LAST NIGHT A DJ SAVED MY LIFE:

DANCE MUSIC, SPACE, AND

RITUAL EXPERIENCE

Peter Kaufmann

April 2020
ANTH453: Senior Seminar in Anthropology
American University, Anthropology BA
Faculty Advisor: C. Anne Claus

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Acknowledgements

This project would not have been possible without the help of a number of my friends,

family, faculty, and of course, my collaborators. As they say, it takes a village, and this was

undoubtedly the case for this research. First and foremost, I would like to thank my two capstone

professors, Dr. Rachel Watkins and Professor Anne Claus, for encouraging me to pursue this

topic, pointing me in novel directions for investigation, and generally providing a wealth of

support, critical feedback, and camaraderie. Your assistance was absolutely invaluable and I am

so grateful I was fortunate enough to have had you two in particular to steer me throughout this

process and help me grow as an anthropologist. Next I would like to thank all who consented to

participate in this research. You were my collaborators at every level and this project is just as

much yours as it is mine. I am grateful for your time, your willingness to share your stories, and

your vast knowledge of this rich community. Finally, I would like to thank my fellow

anthropology classmates who sat along with me for the entirety of this ride. Your feedback in our

Research Methods and Senior Seminar classes these last two semesters was indispensable to my

research and writing process. I drew much inspiration from hearing about your own research

projects, and was comforted by knowing I had a community of peers with whom I could share

ideas, anxieties, and ambitions.

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Table of Contents
Research Question and Context ................................................................................ 4
Theoretical Framework and Literature Review ........................................................ 8
Methodology ........................................................................................................... 15
Positionality & Ethical Concerns ........................................................................... 17
Findings .................................................................................................................. 20
Analysis & Interpretation ....................................................................................... 31
Conclusion .............................................................................................................. 38
Works Cited............................................................................................................. 40
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Research Question and Context

Introduction

New York post-disco trio Indeep are best known for their 1983 hit, “Last Night A DJ

Saved My Life”, a club-floor filler in its time with a fat, funky bassline and an earworm of a

chorus. The song takes its name from the repeated refrain sung by vocalists Réjane Magloire and

Rose Marie Ramsey. That phrase in particular has been cut, sampled, and re-used in a plethora of

hits that came years after Indeep’s single. It’s easy to see why — many a clubgoer have left a

dancefloor feeling blissful and revitalized because of the work of the DJ in the booth. For

listeners of dance music in particular, the idea of a DJ “saving their life” is particularly salient.

Dance music vernacular is littered with allusions to the redemptive and spiritually enriching

powers of the dancefloor experience. For this community, being “saved” by the powerful and

encompassing beat of the DJ’s records is less a cute and catchy turn of phrase and more a

mantra, even a guiding principle. For this community, the words “Last night a DJ saved my life”

speak to something incredibly real and potent, and indeed, a phenomenon that continues to drive

them as active participants in the dance music scene.

Research Question

So it is that my research explores how dance music spaces1 today, particularly those

spaces who purport to provide the experience of “underground”, “real”, or “authentic” electronic

music, operate as arenas of ritual, spiritual significance. How can we see that these sites, be they

more traditional, accessible nightclubs and concert venues or more DIY, nontraditional

1
I define dance music spaces as those spaces wherein it is understood that dance music is
explicitly the focus.
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warehouses and abandoned lots, function as places where communal, transcendent experience

can be had? Further, how does the nature of such spaces define their ability to provide “spiritual

healing” and imprint themselves into the lasting memory of the dancers on the floor? With the

D.C. electronic music scene as my research site, I hope to investigate both why it is people come

to dance music spaces in the year 2020 and what it is they’re looking for.

Context

This research is firmly rooted within the context of the American electronic dance music

culture. In particular, it deals with a subcultural movement and community that is far more

insular and certainly less visible than the more popularly represented features of electronic music

writ large, itself a pervasive and global phenomenon. I struggle to avoid using the loosely

defined and well-worn term “underground” as a descriptor for this music and scene I hold so

dear as, for me, it conveys a sense of self-important smugness and judgmental arrogance; but

there is no doubt that for this project, “the field” as it may be generally conceptualized is far

removed from the setting most conjure up when thrown words like “rave”, “house music”,

“techno”, or “EDM”. Thus, it is essential that I do the work of situating this investigation in its

proper context and provide a brief exposition to foreground this largely misunderstood,

indisputably American-born phenomenon so as to ensure that reader and researcher are all on the

same page. I will invariably and necessarily be blurring together, even skipping over entirely,

some particulars of this history in the interest of time, but what follows is hopefully a functional

primer on this music’s deep roots.

Electronic dance music, often simply called “dance music” for short, is a catch-all term

referring to a diverse and abundant variety of electronically produced music with strong
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rhythmic elements. House, techno, drum and bass, dubstep, trance, and hundreds of other genres

that are simultaneously independent of one another and interrelated are all considered a part of

this same family. It’s music generally typified by a 4/4 beat (colloquially known as a “four on the

floor” beat) produced by a drum machine, with additional elements coming from synthesizers

and other electronically operated instruments. In America, it is typically seen as a frivolous,

white, European product. It’s a disposable soundtrack to late nights, illegal “raves”, and

excessive partying. It’s also frequently associated with reckless recreational drug use,

particularly substances like LSD and MDMA. For many, it’s a source of surface-level

entertainment, devoid of any real substance or poignancy. These assumptions are tragically and

unfortunately misguided.

House, techno, and its many permutations we collectively call dance music were borne of

hyper-specific contexts. Disco is inarguably their common ancestor. In the wake of the “Disco

Sucks” backlash began in the 1970’s, a community of DJs, producers, and nightlife characters, a

significant portion of whom were black and Latino gay men, began experimenting with and

pushing a new sound that highlighted the mechanical, repetitive beat and bassline of disco and

synth-pop while adding novel elements the result of innovative editing techniques and suddenly

affordable access to a variety of drum machines, synthesizers, and other electronic instruments.

House and techno were and are the most prominent children of this experimentation, two similar

but nonetheless distinct movements pioneered by queer people of color in urban centers like

Detroit, Chicago, and New York during the late 80’s and early 90’s. Those drawn into this

fledgling scene were people who lived and operated at the fringes of society, who endured the

effects of a normative political and social culture that sought to make them illegible, and for

whom this music provided solidarity, community, and refuge. House music, for instance, takes
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its name from the mythical Chicago nightclub “The Warehouse” which was patronized primarily

by black and Latino gay men, as it offered a space in which they were able to openly express

their sexuality without fear of reprisal.

Though the culture around early house and techno was undoubtedly niche, even hyper-

localized to particular American cities, it eventually made its way across the Atlantic2 where

both the music and the Black, American pioneers making it were welcomed far more warmly. It

is because of the cross-country import of songs from legendary acts like Detroit Techno group

Underground Resistance that the UK saw the rise of the so-called “Second Summer of Love”

from 1988 to 1989, where acid-house3 fueled raves and club nights resulted in an explosion of

youth culture that became best known for illicit partying, hedonism, and liberal drug use. As

critical scholar Prasad Bidaye notes in his chapter of Transnationalism, Activism, Art, “history

would have it that this movement would come full circle and criss-cross back to North America,

though redesigned as a British invasion import” (141). It was on the backs of UK and European

super-acts like The Chemical Brothers, 808 State, The Prodigy, and Daft Punk, artists who were

no doubt indebted to the sounds of those early American innovators, that electronic dance music

crawled out of the “underground” and firmly embedded itself into mainstream culture, creating a

multibillion dollar industry (recent reports value it around 7.2 billion USD) in the process. So it

is that electronic music today is commonly associated with the vapid and formulaic fodder

peddled by superstar DJs at high production festivals and nightclubs, a front-facing façade that is

whiter, straighter, and sonically far removed from those first forays into new musical territory in

2
Most notably, this took the form of major label compilations that compiled several of house’s,
and particularly techno’s, best known hits.
3
Acid house is a Chicago-bred permutation of house music defined by the use of a Roland TB-
303 bass line synthesizer.
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the 80’s and 90’s. But make no mistake, the traditions of that original “underground” are kept

alive by less visible, and less marketable, figures all across the country. There is still a side to the

scene wherein the idea of the dancefloor as a special, if not sacred, refuge, a sanctuary space with

the power to heal and reinvigorate, boldly lives on. In the following section, I walk through

much of the past scholarship on this particular topic and outline the theoretical underpinnings of

my research.

Theoretical Framework and Literature Review

Core Theoretical Concepts

My research builds upon a growing understanding of ritual, spirituality, and communal

experience within the specific context of electronic dance music. Generally speaking,

anthropology’s concern with “ritual” has been explored and picked over as far back as the

1800’s. It is no doubt well-trodden territory. A few scholars are important to note here as being

foundational to not only this study of ritual within anthropology more generally, but also

specifically to recent theoretical and ethnographic ventures that situate it within a dance music

cultural framework. First is Émile Durkheim, who famously asserted that ritual and religion were

processes in which culture itself was enacted. He spoke of religious (which I use interchangeably

with ritual here) experience as a means by which certain mental states, beliefs, and ideas were

socially imposed and imprinted upon a community. His concept of “collective effervescence”, of

a communal, ecstatic ritual experience, is particularly relevant both to my research and many of

the scholars whom I draw into conversation in this project. Victor Turner is another seminal

figure here. His exploration of “liminality”, these spaces, experiences, and personae that exist

“betwixt and between”, continues to hold water in this arena of cultural anthropology. So too
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does his “communitas”, very much related to the idea of liminality. The construction of an

intensely felt, transient cohesion, a step beyond simple “community” that unites a group of

people in their procession through liminality via an overriding, ego-destroying sense of

togetherness, is an idea practically universal in its presence within the literature I draw from for

this research. Perhaps Turner puts his continued relevance best himself: “Is there any one of us

who has not known this moment when compatible people—friends, congeners—obtain a flash of

lucid mutual understanding on the existential level, when they feel that all problems, not just

their problems, could be resolved…” (Turner 48). Indeed, both for me, and the work of many

before me that occupy this same territory, the pioneering work of Durkheim and Turner serve as

a theoretical bedrock.

The Postmodern Perspective and Response

The idea that house and techno spaces can function as sites wherein deeply personal and

significant meaning is generated is not new. It is a particular school of thought that grew

explicitly in response to even older interpretations of the rave experience through a postmodern

lens. According to Sarah Thornton in her Club Cultures: Music, Media, and Subcultural Capital,

French sociologist and postmodern theorist Jean Baudrillard dismissed the discotheque as “the

lowest form of contemporary entertainment” (Thornton 12). The ideas borne out in his Simulacra

and Simulation helped inform a perspective pushed for years by authoritative figures like British

journalist-cum-cultural critic Simon Reynolds that honed in on the “extermination of meaning”

within the rave experience, maintaining that “the joy of…raves…lies not in their intellectual

stimulation, but in their ability to satisfy, on a purely sensory level, our voracious appetite for

surfaces” (Hutson 38). Researchers at CCCS (Birmingham’s Centre for Contemporary Cultural
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Studies) in the 70’s and 80’s further contributed to an understanding of dance music as merely an

avenue for escapist, hedonist pleasure-seeking, an “implosion of meaning”, and indeed, nothing

more than an “ecstatic simulacra” (St. John 2). Academia’s sweeping stroke painted raves,

dancefloors, discotheques, and dance music as frivolous, and indeed, unworthy of critical

attention. Beginning in the 90’s and continuing on today, the work of several anthropologists,

ethnomusicologists, and sociologists took direct aim at these assumptions and attempted to link

the rave experience to those famously spiritual, transcendent, and transformative experiences that

have been so well documented in scholarly explorations of ritual and religion. For these

academics, oft-uttered phrases like “last night a DJ saved my life” carry a specific significance;

they are indicators of the power of these spaces to provide, as Hutson terms it, “spiritual

healing”. They contend that the postmodernist lens is inherently limiting in its scope, and that by

focusing on the purported escapism and hedonism of dance music culture, we “neglect to address

the subjective and beneficial aspects of EDM participation” (Redfield and Savard 52).

Experienced and Embodied Nature

Even in the context of consumption, as Ben Malbon argues in his Clubbing: Dancing,

Ecstasy, and Vitality, it is the very “experiential consuming” of club culture that makes it so

poignant, and that assuredly keeps dancers coming back for more. Takashi and Olaveson suggest

that raves and club dancefloors are spaces where people traverse through intense, ecstatic states

and join together in a bodily experience, that is “inherently meaningful for some participants”

(74). Even further, they link the very success of the rave movement to its somatic nature, as

illustrated here:
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A major reason for the astronomical growth of the rave phenomenon is its fundamentally

embodied nature…people generally do not go to raves to engage in verbal socialization

or to pursue sexual encounters…they rave to have a fundamentally embodied, ecstatic

experience. (Takahashi and Olaveson 82)

This “embodied nature” of the rave experience is a common feature in the recent literature of

dance music culture. “Textual ‘armchair’ orientations have dominated the scholarly literature”

(26) of the past, Takahashi argues, whereas the work of figures like Hutson, St. John, Malbon,

Fritz, Thornton, Fikentscher, and many others explicitly derives from personal participation in

(and passion for) the scene. These academics have felt firsthand the visceral, transformative

power of the dancefloor. Bryan Rill maintains that “a problem that all theorists face is that our

discourses rely principally on theoretical interpretations of participant narratives combined with

direct observation and, sometimes, personal experience” (140). Thus, “understanding the [rave]

experience requires immersion in the act of dancing”. One cannot see the substance that lies at

the core of dance music culture from a distant vantage point. Ethnographic authority is

traditionally understood to largely come from field experience itself. Commenting on Brian

Given’s notion of “thick participation” (itself an expansion of Geertz “thick description”)

Melanie Takahashi suggests the “ethnographer…becomes her own informant and her own

experience should be treated as primary data” (57) when applying this framework, though of

course the distorting effects of their own biases must be always at the front of their mind. For

these scholars, their work in the field has crucially involved being amongst those bodies moving

to the DJ’s all-encompassing beat.

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Neo-tribes

French sociologist Michel Maffesoli coined the term “neo-tribes” in the mid 1990’s as an

extension of postmodern theory that found society to be crumbling evermore rapidly, and whose

traditional modes of community and interpersonal connection were disintegrating. Neo-tribes

then, were transient, flexible communities of interest (as opposed to more rigid groupings based

on say, class or ethnic lines). They are communities marked by a lack of permanence and their

members’ voluntary participation. Maffesoli’s work has been a frequent point of reference in

academic literature concerning dance music culture and the rave experience, and particularly, its

relation to other relevant concepts like Turner’s communitas. Dance music culture is what

Thornton calls a “taste culture”, one based around these less fixed affinities for “taste in

music…consumption of common media and, most importantly…preference for people with

similar tastes to themselves” (15). Nonetheless, as many in the literature are quick to point out,

the rave experience breeds a powerful and perhaps addictive sense of togetherness. Jimi Fritz

describes it aptly in his Rave Culture: An Insider’s Overview: “[Ravers] experience deep feelings

of unlimited compassion and love for every-one around them . . . for a few hours they are able to

leave behind a world full of contradiction, conflict and confusion, and enter a universal realm

where every-one is truly equal, a place where peace, love, unity and respect are the laws of the

land. (43). Critical scholars engaging in this line of thought are near unanimous in their assertion

that these neo-tribes may come to the dancefloor a loosely connected, even fragmented, group of

individual bodies, but their experiences once on the floor are a powerful kind of generative

phenomenon that constructs “communitas in the present” (St. John 16). Some, like

ethnomusicologist Kai Fikentscher, refer to this feeling and its source as “the vibe”. The vibe is

“a collective energy” which “collapses the boundaries between individual and collective” and
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wherein “the music transcends the acoustic realm and becomes physical” (151). How can we

interpret this as anything but communitas? Ben Malbon, along with many of these

aforementioned scholars, asserts that the dancefloor is indeed a liminal space where individuals

are “momentarily displaced, lost between the community and the isolation of the dancing

crowd”, thus becoming “unified and inseparable” (103). He calls this sensation of being betwixt

and between, as Turner might refer to it, “oceanic experience”, but regardless of the terminology

used, it is doubtlessly something the critical literature of today is explicit in highlighting, and that

the literature of the past was either entirely oblivious to or deliberately unconcerned with.

New Contributions

The vast majority of the work I have laid out above came about in the late nineties and

early aughts. Recognizing this, my research intends to contribute a much-needed chronological

refresher to this still largely underexplored arena of music and subcultural scholarship. Further,

I’m opening up this ongoing conversation into what I see as untraveled territory. The analysis of

space has been glaringly absent from almost all of the literature I have reviewed for this research.

When it does manage to rear its head, it is only for a brief moment. Most distinguish a “rave” as

being popularly understood to involve non-traditional, even illicit spaces. Raves are underground

or “semi-underground” as Takahashi puts it, whereas “above-ground events are held in

legitimate club, hotel, or restaurant facilities where alcohol and rave permits have been obtained”

(68). Historically, raves happened in abandoned warehouses or empty lots that were far away

from the prying eyes of the police and secluded enough that noise complaints weren’t a concern.

Surveillance is key to this distinction. Melanie Takahashi’s informants reported “feeling self-

conscious or guarded at clubs” (69), particularly women, who prioritized “the feeling of not
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having to worry about being approached by males who are interested in ‘picking up’” (70). Many

in other dance music communities across the globe relay similar concerns in related studies. Still,

beyond these brief forays into the nature of rave spaces, the vast majority of the literature deals

with the experiential phenomena provided by the dancefloor. Thus, with this project, I’m

explicitly adding a new dimension to this ongoing conversation through a critical investigation of

dance music spaces in the D.C. area. Not only am I interested in seeing how they operate as

arenas of ritual experience, but also in observing to what extent that power is influenced by their

being a traditional (club) or non-traditional space (warehouse). In our current socio-political

context, one dominated by free-market economics and neoliberal ideology (by which I mean one

in which profit is often the only, and surely the most important, objective of any individual or

joint business venture), how has the incentive to sell drinks and the glitz and glam of a nightclub

(which I take as a given) affected their potential to offer these kinds of transformative

experiences, particularly when juxtaposed with a non-traditional venue? Quite simply, why do

people come to clubs, or a warehouse on city’s fringes, and what exactly are they looking for?

By beginning to do the work of answering these questions and others, I am both reinvigorating

and supplementing a thick description of the rave experience and of electronic dance music

culture that fully reckons with these no doubt powerful and significant phenomena. How I

accomplished this was no small part of my overall design for this project, and so I detail my

methodology in the following section.

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Methodology

Interviews

My research drew upon a variety of ethnographic data-collection methods. These were

primarily qualitative in nature. I sourced data over a period of four months, beginning in January

of 2020 and continuing on into the following April. I conducted formal and informal interviews

with several members of the DC dance music community. They ranged from veterans of the

scene with years of involvement to younger participants who have only earnestly attended such

events in the past few years. They are all informants who expressed an interest in participating in

this research, and who hold a wealth of knowledge to explore for a variety of reasons. My

interviews were long-form (45 minutes to an hour) and substantive, with descriptive, grand-tour,

native-language, and experience questions that allowed me the opportunity to get at the heart, in

their own words, of how they conceive of dance music spaces and the experiences they have

within them. In total, I recorded three formal interviews with a personal field recorder and then

transcribed them to text. I also drew from a number of more informal interviews and

conversations I have had at dance music events and outside them via social media and text

communication where these topics are also probed. In these cases, nothing was recorded, but I

made notes and observations in a field-note journal either during or immediately following the

conversation. Many were, naturally, held very late at night, but I made a concerted effort to

retain an analytical and observant frame of mind. As these were informal, I did not keep tally of

them, but they were numerous.

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Participant Observation

I also conducted fieldwork through participant observation at some key DC dance music

sites. Namely, these were a fully legal and liquor-licensed nightclub (hereafter referred to simply

as “the club”) known in the DC community writ large as one of two most prominent venues for

attending underground dance music events in the area, and a semi-legal afterhours warehouse

space (hereafter referred to simply as “the warehouse”) on the outskirts of the city. I say semi-

legal as its exact status as a legal venue for music events specifically is ambiguous at best. There

is no doubt a degree of assumed risk by its proprietors in its use. Attendance at events in these

authentic spaces allowed me to see collaborators in their element, and thus how their behavior

betrays what exactly they deem significant or insignificant, what rules or other norms they

follow or ignore, and how they identify themselves in relationship to other individuals and the

space itself. I visited each of these spaces once on different nights, both on a weekend, and spent

three to four hours there at a minimum. I recorded field-notes and observations primarily on my

phone so as to be as inconspicuous as possible.

Proxemics and Personal History

Finally, throughout this participant observation, I also used what (little) I know about

proxemics and applied it to my notetaking, paying particular attention to how people moved

throughout the space they inhabited, where people tended to congregate, and how long they

stayed in particular spots. I should make an important note here. This research project

unfortunately coincided with the global COVID-19 pandemic of 2020. As such, a large part of

the participant observation I had been planning to do had to be called off, as nightclubs,

entertainment venues, and spaces where people socialize and congregate more generally were
 Kaufmann 17

systematically shut-down for the purposes of virus containment and social distancing hygiene.

To make up for this, I also draw from observations made from years of personal experience as a

member of the DC dance music community, both as an eager attendee of events and member of

the dancefloor, as well as a working DJ playing behind the booth. I first ventured out to what I

consider a real dancefloor when I was a junior in high school (10 years ago) and have not

stopped since. I discuss more of my personal involvement in the scene and positionality below.

Positionality & Ethical Concerns

Personal Background

I come into this research as a Senior Undergraduate Anthropology major with almost no

fieldwork experience. That said, I sincerely believe I have received ample education in

ethnographic methodology and in anthropological theory throughout the course of my collegiate

education that I utilized specifically in this project. Though my applied anthropological

experience is no doubt limited, I also came into this particular research setting with a great deal

of knowledge gained outside the classroom. I have been a dance music aficionado for most of

my young adult life. I am an ardent consumer of this music, as well as a purveyor, and have been

for many years. I play this music as a DJ regularly throughout the DC area, a side-career, if you

could call it that, that I began more than a decade ago. I self-identify as someone hugely

passionate about and committed to the flourishing of underground (which I use to differentiate it

from mass-consumed, mainstream culture) electronic dance music, particularly house and

techno. I have schooled myself, as a consequence of this years-long interest (if not obsession) in

much of the history and rich lore of these relatively young genres. Even further, I have actively

sought and found employment in parts of the music industry directly relating to the American
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dance music scene. Most recently, I worked for perhaps the foremost underground dance music

centered venue in the entire D.C. area as their head of marketing, promotions and PR, as well as

an assistant talent buyer. I worked there for two years, and in the process developed relationships

with a number of the staff that continue to be a part of its operations. Without identifying it too

explicitly, this is hugely important for me to state, as I relied heavily on this space in particular as

a field site for my ethnographic research, given its centrality to the DC dance music scene. I

recognize that I came into that space not as your typical outsider or average customer, but rather

as a privileged guest, and one with pre-established ties to many of those who are actively

employed there.

Privilege and Access

The dance music community in the DC area is not particularly large, and so throughout

my years of being involved in some form or another with it, I have in fact developed many

relationships with others of its members. I count several as extremely close friends, and many

more as people whom I care about on some level and am always glad to connect with. Again, I

believe it is important that I make my preexisting relationship to such individuals clear, as it is

this community that is the explicit focus of my research. That relationship allowed me a high

level of access to people and to space that is simply not afforded to everyone. Underground

communities are perhaps infamously insular and wary of anyone not in the know. In the case of

underground dance music, this is largely a safety mechanism intended to preserve the secrecy of

its less legal (or culturally accepted) components.

My positionality extends beyond my personal history with dance music and into how I

self-identify and am identified by others. I am a white, upper middle-class, heterosexual, cis-

 Kaufmann 19

gendered, college-educated male, and thus distinctly not a member of those communities who

pioneered these genres, and who created spaces for its consumption that operated as safe havens

and sites of refuge from a society that kept them on its fringes. Though the DC community is

incredibly diverse in a variety of ways in this sense, I am an outsider to sub-communities within

the DC scene that value dance music spaces as particularly sacred places of protection and

personal liberation.

Ethics

My research no doubt contended with a number of ethical issues. I shall attempt to

address them as completely as I can here. Historically, spaces where dance music is played,

consumed, and otherwise propagated have been at best semi-legal and at worst, actively targeted

by state agents like local and federal police. The reasons for this are many, and I shall not

address them here, but what is important is a recognition that the mere act of being within such

spaces (particularly for historically marginalized communities) can constitute a serious risk in

terms of one’s safety and privacy from the surveilling eyes of state enforcement. In addition,

many who come to these spaces engage in explicitly illegal behavior, most notably, the taking of

drugs or other illicit substances. As a researcher who came to these spaces for the express

purpose of observation, and who then recorded those observations, protection of identity and

anonymity was of paramount significance. It was critical that I do everything in my power to not

harm members of this community or the spaces they value themselves, and thus I refrained from

explicitly identifying any individual or any location in this paper. Everyone is referred to either

by initials I have chosen at random (they do not match their legal names) or simply as

“anonymous”. Informed consent was also critical to this aim. I made a point of establishing a
 Kaufmann 20

reciprocal relationship built upon trust with anyone who became a part of this research. That

involved being direct, clear, and fully transparent about what I saw as potential dangers to them,

and explaining that they could cease their involvement at any point in the research process. I

intended from the outset to make this project one of active collaboration, where all parties

involved were clear about their stakes process, objectives, and outcomes, and one in which all

involved could ultimately look upon with pride. With my methodology laid out and my ethical

concerns addressed, I explore the data this research yielded in the following section.

Findings

In the Field: The Club

I begin with data from my participant observation and subsequent fieldnotes. The club is

a fully licensed, legal music venue. Sitting in the heart of D.C.’s entertainment district, as was

confirmed to me by several of its attendees, it’s well known around and outside of the city for its

impressive soundsystem and strict focus on showcasing “authentic”, “underground” talent. It’s a

three-floored club, each with a bar or two prominently placed in the room. The night I visited, I

noted that patrons seemed anchored to the bar itself, almost hesitant to venture out onto the

dancefloor. This was particularly apparent on the 2nd or main-floor, which houses the club’s

famous soundsystem and in which all headlining acts perform. The crowd on the dancefloor was

diffuse early on in the night (early in this setting meaning before 1:00AM, generally regarded as

any club’s “peaktime”), and nearly everyone sported a drink in their hand. As the night

progressed, more and more people packed into the room, which could hold around two hundred

at a time. Once quite spread, it was quite thick and lively by 1:00 or 1:30AM, and all seemed to
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be locked onto the sounds emanating from the DJ booth. Indeed, the attention of the crowd on

the dancefloor was very much directed at the DJ, who in their elevated booth presented not much

more than a bouncing silhouette. In many ways, as I noted on my phone that night, it was the

kind of focus you’d see at any rock or pop concert, with a definitive focus on the star artist of the

night. Those not on the dancefloor itself leaned into the bar located towards the front of the room

(the booth was located in the back on the opposite end, so you’re greeted with the bar when you

first walk in). Their attention was far less focused on the DJ and seemingly the music itself; most

everyone was facing their neighbor in conversation, looking at a cellphone, or conversing with

the bartender. People here were laughing and talking. On the dancefloor, conversations seemed

to be a feature, but far more sporadic in nature, perhaps due to the increased volume of being

closer to the DJ. My key takeaway from my time spent at the club was the movement I observed

of attendees through the space itself. The dancefloor appeared, even on this main floor where I

spent most of my time, as a transient space that people constantly moved in and out of, many

seemingly in search of a friend to find amongst the throes, and many simply traversing through

to reach the bar for a drink. Though the attention of the dancers seemed largely focused on the

DJ, the act of dancing and listening seemed to me not to be the focus of those in the crowd.

Instead, socializing and drinking were the activity of choice; the music was a pleasurable

background attraction. My findings at the warehouse space, however, were quite different.

In the Field: The Warehouse

The warehouse was located far away from the heart of the city, in a part of town where

large storage facilities seemed to be everywhere. It was very much a non-residential, non-

entertainment neighborhood that the DC metro cut right through, a perfect spot, in other words,
 Kaufmann 22

for a loud party to avoid unwanted attention. You had to walk a little way up a straight, dead-end

road to reach it, whereupon it sat in the middle of a row of seemingly identical such units. It was

totally nondescript and unassuming on the outside; you’d have no idea you were even in the right

spot were it not for people congregating in small groups right outside its front door or for the

muffled sound of music emanating from inside the walls. Within those walls, it was just as

sparsely adorned. This was, as I understood it, purely a functional space. A worn leather couch

sat in the corner for people to fall into if they needed a breather, a set of bathrooms lined one of

the room’s far corners, and the only other door led to a janitor’s closet which had been

appropriated by the bartender for the night to sling alcoholic beverages, energy drinks, and

water. The only features of the room other than these were the DJ booth, constructed of wood, at

floor height, and up against the right side-wall with the DJ facing out onto the concrete

“dancefloor” and the giant, hand-built speaker stacks that bordered it on both sides. The room

was completely dark save for the most minimal of lighting (no effects or LEDs dancing across

the walls) and a single disco ball which hung from the center of the ceiling.

The night I attended, the party started at midnight, and it was made clear to me that that

was very much the norm. Warehouse parties here and elsewhere were explicitly understood to be

all night affairs, going all the way into the post-sunrise hours of the morning. This was a

significant point of departure I observed between the warehouse and the club. Attendees at the

warehouse party stayed for far longer than their club counterparts, some from the moment I got

there at midnight all the way through to the bitter end at 7 or 8 in the morning. Further, people

were rooted to their “spot” on the dancefloor once things got going, moving rhythmically to the

heavy beat of the music for hours on end. Attention was directed at the DJ booth to be sure, but

also seemed to me to be more inwardly focused. I jotted down in my notes that many seemed
 Kaufmann 23

“lost in their own little world” with their eyes closed or heads down. That is not to say that

people weren’t socializing, for indeed they were. In fact, everyone seemed to know just about

everyone else, and they would greet each other warmly and spark up the occasional conversation,

particularly on the couch or near the bathroom. People were drinking here too, but far less

uniformly. Many on the dancefloor had nothing in their hand except a bottle of water or a Red

Bull. Though alcohol may not have been a prominent feature, drug use was liberal and

completely out in the open. Surveillance was obviously not a concern, and people snorted,

swallowed, and drank a litany of assuredly illegal substances, normally sharing with a neighbor

in the crowd or a friend on the couch. Still, dancing and consuming the music seemed to be

everyone’s primary focus, and though the crowd was far smaller than the night I had been at the

club, their attention span was far greater and more committed. Whereas at the club, dancers

would regularly cycle in and out of dancing and the dancefloor itself, those at the warehouse

were in it for the long haul.

Interviews

My interviews produced a mass of data which would be impossible for me to fit in its

entirety within this paper. They were also the source of the most poignant and compelling pieces

of information this research produced. As a reminder, all individuals quoted or referenced here

are identified via initials I have chosen at random that have no connection to their legal names.

My informants came from a variety of different background and histories of involvement in the

local scene. For example, GR, a scene veteran, first sparked his passion for the music and

surrounding culture after venturing to nightclubs in Japan, where he spent some of his youth
 Kaufmann 24

growing up, well over two decades ago. He was drawn in by the sight of Japanese youth

seemingly immersed in the music, commenting on a trip to a particular club:

This club called Precious Hall…and it was just a basement with a banging soundsystem,

and dark, and I’d just be down there and like watching all these Japanese kids like heads

down, head-banging almost, to some pounding techno, just like losing it and being able to

express themselves in a way that otherwise they couldn’t, and having this cathartic

experience, and it really resonated with me…this is it.4

Conversely, BM, now in her late 20’s, got her start attending hip hop and bass music events in

Los Angeles, but really got involved when she went to college and joined its radio station. There

she found her love for playing “whatever IDM and glitch hop or house and disco stuff I could get

my hands on”. LM’s interest in dance music was initially piqued online through his visits to the

celebrated Flash website, Ishkur’s Guide to Electronic Music. A South Carolina native, he

moved to the DC area in 2014 and was eventually drawn into attending events at DC nightclubs

and Baltimore’s legendary Paradox (which has since closed). Though he had been listening and

consuming electronic music casually for several years, it was his time spent on the dancefloor at

Paradox that showed him “that this is what it’s supposed to be…that’s when it began to click”.

Though representing a variety of different age groups, genders, ethnicities, and roles

inhabited within the DC scene, all my informants shared similar tales of being sucked in by the

overriding, visceral power of the dancefloor experience. RK noted that after being frustrated by

“seeing live bands and not really enjoying myself because the shows would be over quickly and

everybody was just kind of standing around”, dance music events offered a space where “you

barely had to even think”, and where “you would just start dancing”. Here, he described a

4
GR, personal communication, March 2020.
 Kaufmann 25

particularly powerful moment that came at the tail-end of a marathon set, wherein the DJ

unexpectedly dropped the italo-disco anthem “Dancing Therapy” by International Music System:

At that point almost everybody in the room (me and my partner included) were crying

because we were having the same experience with regard to the lyrics:

“Dancing to beat/Makes me feel so free/In reality/That’s the cure for me/It’s not

heresy/To feel wild and free/Dancing therapy is so good you see/Moving to the

beat/Keeps me up till 3/It’s my therapy for anxiety/Groovin’ in the heat/Feel so good and

high/Fusion to the beat/Really clears my mind”. I was dancing my heart out ‘til she ended

around 10:30 and was so at peace. I had just had the most emotional dancefloor moment

of my life and didn’t want it to end. I seriously felt like I could have danced for another

twelve hours without stopping.5

LM described having an experience so intense that in his first trips to Baltimore’s Paradox club

that he felt “overwhelmed”. As he told me:

What stuck with me about that [was that] I remember being overwhelmed by everything

that was going on to the point that I was scared or intimidated I guess. The music was so

loud and like emotionally intense and the crowd was so into it, folks would go and dance

for hours and hours. It felt weird to be there but you couldn’t leave. It was one of those

nights where time ceased to matter, you know we weren’t checking our phone or watch.

We don’t want to leave because the music is so good and people are so into it, this is a

thing that we want to lose ourselves in.6

5
RK, personal communication, April 2020.
6
LM, personal communication, April 2020.
 Kaufmann 26

A sense of togetherness or community was a near universal component of my informants’

responses, particularly when asked to describe a particularly profound personal experience on the

dancefloor. BM noted that indeed, this is the common thread linking such moments for her,

highlighting the importance of “the right sense of community in the air” and “seeing your friends

pull off a really great night”. GR pointed to how he has always been affected by the feeling that

“we’re forming these bonds in non-traditional ways” when joined together on the dancefloor, and

that you’re “creating an environment with them”. Also a common feature of the tales of profound

dancefloor moments was a sense that the experience provided healing, restoration, or

transformation of some other kind. GR describes it beautifully here:

Being on the dancefloor, losing myself, closing my eyes and either moving or not moving

and having both the sound from the stacks reverberating around me as well as these other

people and just letting it kind of cleanse me, invigorate me, wash over me, and you know,

going through a whole range of experience that can be exhausting, can be uplifting,

emotional, but you know, I don’t like talking! I don’t like talking on the dancefloor.7

If any part of the data from my interviews surprised me, it was the distinctions people were clear

in drawing (when asked) between traditional spaces like a nightclub or legal concert venue and

the non-traditional spaces offered by a warehouse. BM, remarked that “while clubs are fun, [she]

prefer[s] if the crowd and space foster some sense of community rather than being the hot spot to

walk into”. For her, that sense of community was something only nontraditional spaces could

offer in earnest. She added that although it “doesn’t always happen”, spaces of this kind that

“foster community tend to been less predatory [or] oozing with sexual tension…in those cases

[she] can really feel safe and free to dance and express [her]self most freely”. GR identified

7
GR, personal communication, March 2020.
 Kaufmann 27

several fundamental differences between club and warehouse spaces. First among them was the

accessibility of the venue and event. Here, “going to a party on U Street where anybody can kind

of like ruck up and walk in the door once you pay your 10 dollars” was juxtaposed with

“throwing a warehouse jam in NE down some dark alley, the fortitude it takes for somebody to

get to that as opposed to any major club”. The gap in their accessibility leads to a subsequent gap

in the intention of the event’s attendees, which GR describes here:

You go to a warehouse party, your intention is pretty much to be there all night, and to be

with those people all night, and to be creating an environment with them. You bring your

backpack, and that backpack has some snacks, it may have a flask, it may have some

party favors to get you going, you don’t get to do that at a normal club.8

Accessibility for GR did not just refer to being able to physically navigate oneself to the venue,

but also to the consumption of the music once inside. He insisted that warehouse spaces have the

capacity to provide “a sound that isn’t necessarily for everybody [and that] doesn’t necessarily

have the commercial appeal that club feels beholden to”. Thus, the kinds of dance music being

played within these spaces served as another mechanism of self-selective crowd control. LM too

alluded to this insular sense of community that was the byproduct of the inaccessibility they saw

characterizing non-traditional spaces. He made this clear here:

The element of it being at a weird time sort of….there’s also sort of like a community

element with both like the place and time part because the people who are going to be out

at that place at like 7, 8AM, they’re like supposed to be either weird or cool to be able to

do that in the first place.9

8
GR, personal communication, March 2020.
9
LM, personal communication, April 2020.
 Kaufmann 28

Nontraditional spaces, according to these informants, offered the chance to consume deeper,

realer, more “underground” shades of dance music than the nightclubs who relied on mass-

appeal to pay the bills. Further, they provided a sense of belonging to a group of likeminded

people who were, like them, very much “in the know". The intention of the attendees of these

events seemed to be critical to these distinctions. Why were they there, after all? GR noted that

in a club there is “more of a voyeuristic aspect where it’s like ‘ah we’re here!’ and we’re

snapping pics and we’re dancing for 10 or 15 minutes and then…what’s next?”. RK was explicit

in his separating of the two kinds of spaces. Describing the profound dancefloor moments he’s

had in the past, he noted that “he’s never had an experience like [that] at a traditional nightclub

or bar”. LM, however, offered a different perspective on the potential for powerful experiences

in traditional spaces, proclaiming that “there’s nothing that prevents a club from being able to

offer that”. He added that “just being a rave isn’t necessarily going to increase the chance that

[you’re] going to have one of those nights”.

I specifically asked my collaborators to define what exactly a “rave” was to them, as it is

has become a nebulous catch-all term with a variety of different meanings and interpretations

depending on the individual, but one that is almost always used to define an event or space an

abstract mainstream. GR, for instance, declared that the term isn’t really applicable in today’s

environment where large, strictly illegal spaces are nowhere near as plentiful as they were in

dance music’s early history. Traditionally, he noted, a rave was understood to be something that

“goes all night, into the morning, and ideally [had] an illegal aspect to it”. It was further typified

by having “a big DIY element to it”. RK echoed the sentiment that the word is no longer

relevant, illustrating how, for him, it carried a very specific historical and cultural connotation

that made him loathe to use it: “I don’t really use the word ‘rave’ that often, to me it has a
 Kaufmann 29

connotation of like, ginormous parties in the 90s with crazy light shows, people wearing big

baggy clothes and sucking on pacifiers and stuff”. Still, he differentiated raves from traditional

club experiences by clarifying that “the point of the rave isn’t to sell alcohol or run a business,

but just to enjoy good music” and that a rave always happens “outside of an established [or]

licensed venue”. LM shared this understanding of a rave as an alternative sort of atmosphere.

Though he remarked that in a modern climate where “dance music has become so

commercialized” that “you can have a rave that is indistinguishable from a club night”, he was

quite clear in explicating what, ideally, defined the former:

For me a rave…has to have the following things: first, it can’t be at a dedicated club

space. It needs to be at a location that’s relatively unknown or off the beaten path. It

could be a huge field or warehouse or basically like anywhere [where] a big thing with

loud music and dancing and drugs and all that crap is not supposed to be. You’re doing

something kind of subversive. Space is really critical for what makes a rave a rave.10

I was also surprised by the qualities in a space my informants expressed a preference for when

asked what they, in particular, look for when attending a dance music event. Both GR and RK

listed the need for a “dance floor that’s big enough”, so that there’s “space to be able to move

freely” and not a “sardine environment”, or one where you “have people constantly going

through it to go the bathroom or the bar”. Also an oft-repeated trait was the presence of a proper

soundsystem. GR maintained that it had to be one that could provide a “visceral sound, not

necessarily loud”, but one that you could “feel in your chest”. RK highlighted the importance of

sound similarly, claiming that “there could be a DJ who’s killing it technically but there could be

not enough bass or a lot of distortion or the music could be way too loud, and in those times I

10
LM, personal communication, April 2020.
 Kaufmann 30

can’t really enjoy myself”. RK additionally noted that it’s not even the character of the space

itself that he’s most interested in, but rather the environment, as illustrated here:

I look for the environment matters as much as the DJ’s performance. I want there to be

people enjoying themselves and dancing hard, and I want everyone to be in a good mood.

At the best parties I’ve been to I felt like the DJ and the crowd were kind of in sync and

were feeding off of each others’ energies. The DJ will change the music up in terms of

speed, intensity, genre, or whatever when they can tell the crowd is getting bored or tired.

When the DJ does this right people can dance for hours on end without the need for

substances. Basically I want to stay longer than I originally planned because the energy at

the party is so strong.11

LM placed a similar emphasis on the importance of the crowd’s energy and intention. For him,

this was in fact the most critical component to the dancefloor experience, trumping sound and

space. He illustrated this here:

It doesn’t necessarily need to be people you know, but it should be a crowd that believes

in what’s going on and is you know like, there for, first and foremost, the music, not just

there to hang out, do drugs and hit on girls. That’s what helps the vibe the most.12

As I have shown in this section, the products of my participant observation, informal and formal

interviews, and of my own personal history as a part of the DC dance music community provided

me with a wealth of information. In the following section, I will move on to interpreting and

analyzing my findings.

11
RK, personal communication, April 2020.
12
LM, personal communication, April 2020.
 Kaufmann 31

Analysis & Interpretation

Spirituality, Shamanism, and Healing

A great deal of my findings ties into the notion explored in recent literature of the rave as

a phenomenon capable of providing profound ritual experiences or Hutson’s “spiritual healing”.

With his research he found that “for many people, the rave is spiritual and highly meaningful”,

and that it was clear based on his data that “raves increase self-esteem, release fears and

anxieties, bring inner peace, and improve consciousness, among other things” (46). It is hard not

to draw a line between Hutson’s conclusions and GR’s description of the “cathartic experience”

he observed Japanese clubbers immersing themselves within or the sensation that through raves

he was “cleanse[d]” and “invigorate[d]”. Takahashi and Olaveson in their 2003 ethnography of

the Canadian rave scene found that 43% of their participants “characterized the rave experience

as religious or spiritual” (84). Though the terminology my informants used did not reference

religion or spirituality specifically, the sensations they described feeling echo the results of these

earlier research projects. Goulding and Shankar, Takahashi, and others ascribe DJs the ancient

role of the shaman or spiritual healer. “In the context of clubbing,” Goulding and Shankar write,

“the DJs are the ‘postmodern’ shamans or pseudo spiritual leaders…the DJ’s role is to whip up

the crowd, heal their anxieties, and exorcise their demons” (1445). This is evident in RK’s

description of a particularly meaningful dancefloor experience wherein he was so affected by the

DJ’s control of the dancefloor that he and his partner were reduced to tears, feeling “so at peace”

that they didn’t want and couldn’t imagine the party would ever stop. Indeed, many in the

contemporary literature are clear in underscoring this power to guide the dancefloor as a

communal body through a progression of altered states as one of the most critical functions of

the DJ-turned-neoshaman. Melanie Takahashi describes it here:

 Kaufmann 32

The DJ’s ability to interact with, read, and take the dancers on what is often referred to as

an “ecstatic” journey has also been recognized and his influence has expanded to include

the spiritual sphere. Once an anonymous figure hidden away behind the DJ booth, with

his status being elevated to such monumental heights, the DJ has seen his role expanded

beyond the traditional role of music selector to include technician, performer, artist,

producer, musician, and most recently “technoshaman” (Takahashi 4).

Clearly, the DJ remains a crucial component of the rave experience, and still assumes the

position of healer for members of this community.

Communitas and Collective Effervescence

My research reveals the continued relevance of Turner’s “communitas” and Durkheim’s

“collective effervescence” to the rave experience. As many of my informants’ responses reveal,

the rave experience seems to be, at its best, a generative phenomenon wherein communities are

actively constructed by the participants. GR’s claim that, when going to a warehouse party,

“your intention is pretty much to be there all night, and to be with those people all night, and to

be creating an environment with them”, or his assertion that the experience provided the

opportunity to “form bonds in non-traditional ways” bears no small resemblance to Graham St.

John’s reference to the rave’s latent ability to construct “communitas in the present” (16). Many

scholars, like Kai Fikentscher, relate such claims to the loosely defined “vibe” of a party. In his

ethnography of UDM (underground dance music) culture in New York, he argued that once

“inside an underground dance venue, it matters less whether the individual dancer is female or

male, gay or straight, as long as the collective spirit, ‘the vibe in the house,’ is one of mutual

tolerance and goodwill” (118). BM observed that the common thread in her most meaningful
 Kaufmann 33

experiences on the dancefloor was the “right sense of community in the air”. RK similarly

explained that ideally, “everybody at a rave is really friendly and very open and non-judgmental

in terms of sexuality”. Is this not what Jimi Fritz alludes to when he writes that ravers “for a few

hours [are] able to leave behind a world full of contradiction, conflict and confusion, and enter a

universal realm where every-one is truly equal, a place where peace, love, unity and respect are

the laws of the land” (43)? They are, to my mind, depictions of very much the same

phenomenon. It would seem, then, that the rave continues to hold the power to dissolve

traditionally stratifying social boundaries and join a group of individuals in an, albeit temporary

or “neo-tribal”, intense, ritualized, and communal sense of togetherness that calls Durkheim and

Turner immediately to mind.

Embodied Nature

A recurring motif in the data I procured through this project is the embodied nature of the

rave or dancefloor experience. GR described the mind-altering sensation of “having…the sound

from the [speaker] stacks reverberating around [him]” and allowing them to “wash over [him]”

and the need for “visceral sound”, in the ideal rave space, sound that “you can feel in your

chest”. SN alluded to feeling connected to dancers who were “going as hard as [she] was”, and

the intense feeling of happiness she got from seeing “people dance in a primal manner”. LM

noted how he remembered being completely “overwhelmed by everything that was going on to

the point that I was scared or intimidated” the night he fully “got” dance music on the dancefloor

of the Paradox club. He argued that a memorable rave experience needs to, in fact, “overwhelm

you to the point that you’re kind of scared”. Clearly, active participation on the dancefloor,

stimulation of the senses, and the feeling of the music physically through the body, are
 Kaufmann 34

fundamental parts of what make these experiences so meaningful for participants. This is

essential to highlight, as it is here that many of the first critical analyses of the rave experience

and of clubbing culture fell woefully short. As Takahashi notes, the reticence of these early

postmodernists in discussing the actual experience of dance music can only be assumed to result

from the inherent “limitations of [their] “armchair” approach”, and further, that “it is obvious

that many scholars of rave and club culture have never physically participated in the contexts

they are writing about” (7). Any scholarly analysis of dance music culture (or any music

subculture for that matter) must necessarily involve phenomenology and a methodology that

“explores the position of each sense”. After all, “clubbing isn’t just about listening, it’s very

much about doing” (Malbon 11). This has been my personal experience as well. Though I had

been listening to it on my own for years, I didn’t truly “get” dance music until I stood amidst the

crowd at my first concert and allowed the music to erode my overriding feeling of awkwardness

and self-consciously derived anxiety so that I became, to borrow a common refrain, “one with

the beat”. It was then that it all clicked. I continue to maintain that no one truly becomes a

member of this community until you’ve had this critical experience firsthand. Jimi Fritz puts it

aptly in the introduction to his book: “if you want the real thing…you will have to try it for

yourself” (8).

The Nature of Space

A few of my questions in my formal interviews with collaborators as well as topics

broached in my more informal conversations dealt specifically with the nature of dance music

spaces themselves, and in particular, the differences (if any) between traditional and non-

traditional venues as perceived by the individual. As I noted in my literature review, this is an

 Kaufmann 35

area of contemporary scholarship in the EDM context that is quite lacking. My participant

observation and discussions with informants both formal and informal reveal the stark divide for

many between the dancefloor experience in the club and warehouse setting. Beginning with my

own fieldwork observations, I noted that the club seemed to be built around the consumption of

alcohol just as much as the consumption of dance music. Every floor had at least one bar, and

few walked amongst the crowd at any moment without a drink in hand. Conversely, though the

warehouse offered alcohol throughout the night (illegally, to be clear), attendees, by in large,

were far less interested in the act of drinking. Takahashi asserted that her study’s informants

“reported that the presence of alcohol destroys the vibe by attracting the wrong type of crowd”.

For them, it was the very “absence of alcohol that separates the rave crowd from the club

crowd”, for “the availability of alcohol tends to attract ‘clubbers” and ‘thugs’ who would

otherwise avoid these events” (69). My observations at the warehouse and club support her

argument, and seem to make the case that the centrality of alcohol is very much a limiting factor

in the ability of traditional, for-profit dance music venues to foster the most compelling possible

environment. I should not that not every one of my informants agreed on this point. LM, who

had recently quit drinking when I interviewed him, maintained that, in fact, “it was easier for

[him] to be at a nightclub than at a rave”, for at a rave “you feel out of place because everyone

else will be on drugs”. It seems further investigation is warranted here.

Returning to my personal observations, I noted the transient nature of the crowd at the

club as compared to the crowd at the warehouse party. At the club, people moved throughout the

dancefloor freely, always seemingly in search of something. As a result, it felt very much like a

transitional space. Conversely, the warehouse crowd was largely rooted to the dancefloor. Many

stayed in one spot for hours at a time, only leaving for the necessary water, beer, or bathroom
 Kaufmann 36

break. This difference in behavior relates very much, I maintain, to my informants’ references to

differences in intention. As LM remarked, a proper rave in a non-traditional space should have

“a crowd that believes in what’s going on and is…there for, first and foremost, the music, not

just hang out, do drugs, and hit on girls”. DB echoed this sentiment here:

Warehouse events are centered around the music…creating a barrier to entry to casual

partiers who may not discover the event unless they have a friend who is in-the-know or

is part of the community. The niche nature of the music creates a sense of inclusivity

within exclusivity where the people who gather feel closer for their shared appreciation of

music that is often dismissed by the masses as unappealing.13

The inaccessibility, the result of either its physical location or musical offerings, associated with

non-traditional spaces is in fact a boon to their ability to construct a sense of community

(communitas), and certainly a mechanism that generally keeps all attendees on the same page. In

other words, you don’t expend the effort necessary to make it to the warehouse rave unless your

object is that dancefloor experience. The openness of the traditional club (at least by comparison)

results in, as GR put it, a “more of a voyeuristic aspect where it’s like ‘ah we’re here!’ and we’re

snapping pics and we’re dancing for 10 or 15 minutes and then…what’s next?”. In a 1999

analysis of underground dance music culture and rave spaces in Sydney, Australia, Chris Gibson

posits that “the idealized ‘rave’ occupies space momentarily”. Indeed, he argues that “a central

tenet of the ‘mythology’ of rave culture involves fluid, transient appropriations of material

space” (22). The non-traditional, outsider, and ephemeral nature of the prototypical rave space

tucked away in the far reaches of the urban landscape is critical to the rave experience as a

whole. Gibson situates this in the context of a rapidly commercializing, “highly capitalist music

13
DB, personal communication, April 2020.
 Kaufmann 37

industry” in Sydney that, at the time of his writing, had produced more regulated, controlled and,

conversely, less radical environments for the broadcasting of dance/techno music to large

audiences”. Continuing this train of thought, he makes an essential point with continued

relevance, even outside of his Sydney context, here:

These nightclubs, often inscribed with different names on different nights to give the

appearance of heterogeneous spaces, utilize a standardized floorplan of rave events, with

a main dancefloor, lasers, chill-out rooms, facilities and so on, whilst remaining a highly

controlled, legal space-constructed in opposition to, yet being wholly legitimized by,

wider society. (Gibson 27)

By nature, commercial nightclubs engage in a process of normalizing the components of a rave

that takes all the trappings of the non-traditional space, seeks to replicate it, but ultimately

standardizes it, and as a consequence defies the very ephemerality and transitory nature that is

intrinsic to the true “rave” experience and which lies at the root of its appeal. This is very much

the crux of what distinguishes the warehouse from the nightclub, and it’s a major reason why my

informants expressed difficulty in being able to completely “lose themselves” in more traditional

settings. It’s here that I think my research makes the biggest strides in contributing to the

ongoing conversation within critical social fields about the nature of dance music culture and the

dancefloor experience. It became clear early on in this research that members of the DC scene

place a huge emphasis on the nature of the spaces they visit in search of that memorable moment

spent amongst the crowd in front of the DJ’s booth. Though fundamentally more visible,

legitimate, and accessible, it is certainly not a given that traditional venues like nightclubs can

foster these kinds of environments for participants.

 Kaufmann 38

Conclusion

Areas for Further Research

This research opens up a number of potential avenues for further investigation and

analysis. As this study was specific to a hyper-localized community, additional studies of this

kind are warranted in developing a broader comparative understanding of dance music culture

and space. It also underscores the nature of physical space in the context of dance music culture

as a worthy site of critical scholarship. Further, it begs questions relating to the effects of mass-

commercialization and commodification of these spaces and traditions. Is it perhaps an over

simplification to divide spaces into a binary of “traditional”, for-profit clubs and “non-

traditional” venues like a warehouse? To what extent are non-traditional spaces where dance

music is consumed influenced by a need to sell alcohol or stay in the green so as to continue on

operating? Are poignant moments on the dancefloor possible in these more accessible and visible

locales, and are they any less meaningful for participants? Can we see that these differences

translate across geographic and cultural boundaries and into other contexts? These are all worthy

questions of further, detailed exploration. I believe this research provides ample material for

future academic engagement of many kinds.

Significance, or So What?

Beyond giving voice to a culture that a particular community of DC area residents,

myself included, obviously hold quite dearly, this research is significant for several reasons.

Firstly, it supports the work of recent scholars in the fields of anthropology, sociology, cultural

studies, and ethnomusicology who repudiate the postmodern perspective that first turned its

attention towards dance music culture, and reifies the notion that these lasting moments on the
 Kaufmann 39

dancefloor are frequently deeply personal, profound, transformative, and healing experiences for

members of this community. Secondly, as a contemporary contribution to these fields more

generally, it adds to an understanding that people everywhere create communities of all kinds in

novel and unique ways to achieve that eternally-salient sense of togetherness. Thirdly, it reveals

the importance for many of dance music spaces as significant cultural sites. These are spaces

which have historically been and remain frequent targets of municipal or federal legislation,

restriction, and state surveillance. They are spaces which, in many parts of the world, face

unprecedented pressure, both legal and economic, to shutter their doors permanently. The

District of Columbia is no different in this respect, and so this project highlights just how

essential a significant number of local residents consider such spaces to be. Along these lines,

this research also helps develop a greater understanding of the differences between dance music

spaces themselves and their impact on the experiences of members of this community. It points

to, I would argue, a series of potential problems with a mass-commercialization and

normalization of a historically underground subculture that sees the erection of for-profit

nightclubs and limits access to more non-traditional venues. Ultimately, it contributes to a

“thicker description” of dance music culture, space, and ritual experience.

 Kaufmann 40

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