Bass shakes the floor of the warehouse. Blocks away, in the nearly empty street of downtown Phoenix, the music rumbles and echoes in the deserted office building. Inside, event-goers of all ages reach their hands up toward the ceiling, their arms weighed down with brightly beaded bracelets. Hips and legs collide as the group dances and lights flash and flicker, exposing them for brief moments in the dark. This is Earthdance, the Global Dance Festival for Peace. In over 300 locations across the world this same scene is taking place: an around-the-world rave for peace, meant to bring people together to dance for harmony and unity.
At the stage inside the warehouse, a large crowd vibrates in time to the pounding music.
Many of the young women are dressed in homemade, multi-colored mini tutus and only bras on top. The men’s outfits vary from ordinary to elaborate — one man has large, drooping archangel wings trailing behind him as he smokes and walks through the crowd outside. Many of the rave goers are smoking, most of whom look to be under 18. They huddle together to hear over the music, sharing hugs and their lighters dug out of Pokémon-shaped backpacks and purses. Tibetan prayer flags wind along the outer fence, entangled after a long night of releasing the happiness, long life and prosperity they’re supposed to bring to those around them.
Raves like these are commonplace in Phoenix, yet remain invisible to much of the population. Often promoted online or by word of mouth, one has to search them out. And even then they can be difficult to find. Some raves don’t release their location until the day of the event, urging hopeful event goers to call an info line set up for the rave where a recorded message reveals the spot.
But for some ASU students, raves are neither mysterious nor unusual — it’s a part of their lives. Students such as Roman*, an ASU sophomore dressed in a purple Buddha shirt and hemp pants, attended Earthdance and raves like it before.
PLUR-ality
Roman has been attending raves for about a year. He followed a friend to a rave one night and never looked back. Roman says he was skeptical of raves at first, but the friendliness of the people, the music, dancing and atmosphere kept him coming back.
“I love the ideals of the scene,” Roman says. “PLUR is really what it’s all about.”
PLUR, an acronym for Peace, Love, Unity, and Respect, the tenants of a raver, appears regularly and frequently across the clothing and bracelets found at raves. The bracelets, or “kandi,” can sometimes extend all the way to the upper arm and represent friends and memories to ravers; with every introduction a bracelet is exchanged as a memento. And there are many introductions, as raves are known for their friendliness.
“You can just go and immediately talk to people,” Roman says. “Everyone is so friendly and they just put their insecurities and barriers behind them.”
Raves give people the ability to be themselves, Roman says, while in the “real world” people are told how to look, dress and conform, whereas at raves you can dress, act and be whoever you want.
This applies to dancing as well. Ravers dance with seemingly no abandon.
“Honestly, the dark helps,” Roman says. “Also, it’s hard to feel self-conscious when everyone’s dressed like fairies and you’re standing next to a guy dressed like Peter Pan.”
Being at raves means being free of the outside world’s expectations of you. “It’s like having an alter ego,” Roman says. “[Raves are] one of the more genuine things I’ve ever experienced.”
For some, the alter ego is more than just an idea, it has a name. Chelsea Palles, an ASU psychology junior with a small wrist tattoo reading “No Regrets,” goes by the raver name Rainbow.
She obtained the name when she went to Kandi, a rave in 2006, with a few rainbow pieces of attire on and another attendee she met found out she didn’t have a raver name.
“In my group of friends there were two Chelseas, “ Palles says. “[The other Chelsea’s] name was Red Chelsea, and I was Rainbow Chelsea, because I am actually a lesbian. So it fit perfectly.”
Palles got into raving completely by chance. She was buying glow sticks for a dance party in 2006 and another customer at the store asked her if she was going to Unity, an upcoming rave. He gave her the address to the site http://azedm.com, an online Arizona rave community, for more information. Palles attended the second Unity rave of the year soon after that and has been going to raves ever since.
Palles, like Roman, feels raves are very freeing.
“Raves make you feel like nothing else matters,” Palles says. “[Raves] mean a break from reality. I don’t really like going to parties that often, bad music, bad vibes, violence, etc. Raves are places I can go to hear some really good music that I enjoy, meet some really cool people, and have most people treat everyone with respect. It’s refreshing.”
The Drug Connection
At the entrance to Earthdance, next to the booth where all entrants are patted down by security and searched with a drug-sniffing-dog kind of intensity, is a hand-written sign declaring contraband. The list consists of such things as the seemingly mundane marker and whistle, to the more malicious violence and bad vibes, and, of course, drugs.
Typically, the image of vibrantly dressed, drug-wielding dancers is evoked when hearing the word “rave.” And while participants admit there are drugs in the scene, they feel they’ve been unfairly portrayed in pop culture.
Roman points out there are drugs involved in many scenes, but especially within every musical genre.
“The jazz music all the 60 and 70-year-olds are listening to was made by all these musicians who were heroin addicts,” Roman says. “It’s unfair to just focus on raves.”
Palles also acknowledges drugs within the culture, but agrees with Roman that drugs are no more prevalent than you would find anywhere else.
“[People who assume it is a drug-filled activity] are the people that tend to get into that scene,” Palles says. “I have been involved with [drugs and raving] before, but the thing is, everywhere is full of drugs. If this 15-year-old kid can’t find stuff there, they can probably find it at their high school or from their friends.“
Roman says whether he goes to raves under the influence or not just depends on his mood.
“I can go in any state,” Roman says, “I just like the scene.”
Raves aren’t made fun by the drugs themselves Palles says. “I have gone to a few raves under the influence, but that doesn’t make the rave fun. It’s the rave itself that makes it a good time.”
According to Palles, there’s a movement within the community toward raving without the use of drugs or alcohol (another popular choice for ravers who wish to go under the influence) — sober raving.
“There is a huge group of people that I know that rave a lot and are DJs and promoters, and they rave sober,” Palles says. “The whole rave sober thing is passing along to everyone.”
The appeal of sober raving, Palles says, is that ravers have a natural high just from the music and dancing and don’t need anything else. Also, by not taking any kind of enhancement, ravers aren’t harming themselves in any way.
“Also you don’t have a nasty hangover,” Palles says.
The Music Life
“It’s all about the music,” Andreas Olivas, an ASU accounting senior, says about ASU’s Trance Society. Olivas, a co-founder and president of the club with a slight New York accent shaping his words, a leftover from a childhood spent in the state, is sitting on the patio of the Memorial Union. He proudly wears the club’s new t-shirt, black with the club’s name and icon, a silhouette of DJ headphones with tiny protruding devil horns.
Olivas has been listening to trance since he was 12 years old — his older brother introduced it to him.
As Olivas discusses the club, which he started last year, he interrupts himself to shout across the sidewalk to Omar Khalid, the vice-president of the Trance Club. Khalid, a political science senior, immediately crosses over, clapping Olivas on the shoulder in greeting and drops down next to him in a chair. They happily discuss the shirt, which Khalid had not yet seen, and share cigarettes.
Khalid is passionate about the music as well. “It’s not a genre of music, it’s a part of life,” Khalid says. “When I’m walking, I’m listening [to trance] on my iPod. When I’m working out, I’m listening to [trance]. When I’m writing papers, I listen to trance music and I just write and write and write.”
Khalid says electronic music is unlike any other genre of music because of the positivity of the music and people involved with it.
“There are no explicit lyrics that convey a negative connotation or dehumanize another person, “ Khalid says. “Ravers or people who listen to trance music go out for a purpose — to not harm others or be the cause of trouble, but solely to spread peace, love, unity and respect through trance music.”
Khalid only really started listening to the music last year, when he attended Monster Massive, a rave held annually in Los Angeles.
“It wasn’t until Monster Massive last year that I saw my calling from trance music,” Khalid says. “Ever since, it has become a part of my life that will stay with me till the day I die. I know it might sound exaggerated, but that is truly how I feel.”
Khalid and Olivas explain that last year, while driving after a particularly good show, they decided to begin an outreach on campus to share the music with people.
“I was like, ‘people need to know [this music],’ ” Olivas says. “ ‘We need to do a better job than just driving around with our windows down to get it out there.’ ”
After finding out they would need to be sponsored by a club to have a concert on campus, their original idea, Olivas and Khalid decided to start a club of their own to bring people together who wanted to share the gospel of the music.
Olivas and Khalid don’t attend raves that much in Phoenix — the venues are too small, and the production value is too low for their taste. They prefer attending events local clubs hold with prominent DJs and traveling to larger, well-known raves like this year’s upcoming Monster Massive, which normally draws a crowd within the tens of thousands. But whether at a club listening to trance or at an actual rave, Olivas says he’s still a raver.
“I can wear a polo shirt and jeans and go to a club to listen to house music and still call myself a raver, because I’m listening to that kind of music,” he says. “That’s what raver means.”
Olivas has gotten discounts for ASU Trance Society members to shows with prominent DJs around the Valley, often at club Myst in Scottsdale. Recently, the club has gotten a residency at The Library bar on Mill Avenue, where every Sunday they hold an electronic music night dubbed Evolution Sundays.
The Trance Society itself has been fairly successful, though Olivas says the club hasn’t been terribly good about meeting in person; they typically communicate on Facebook. The Facebook group boasts over 250 members, though Olivas says that may be overestimating the membership since many of the “members” are simply his friends and acquaintances.
Soon, Gabe Rowe, a trance society member and ASU housing and urban development junior with a delicate tangle of dreadlocks, is spotted walking by and joins Olivas and Khalid. Rowe has recently started DJing, and like Olivas and Khalid, and Roman and Palles as well, he says what appeals to him about raves are the music and friendship of the scene.
“A good way of describing ravers, and rave culture in general, is digital hippie,” says Rowe.
“Totally, a new generation of hippie,” Olivas exclaims, “The values are really similar.”
Roman is of a similar mind. “Ravers are like hippies with glow sticks,” he says.
Rowe, Olivas and Khalid discuss upcoming events and DJs, cigarette smoke wafting between them, and the friendship is clear. They’re connected through their shared love of the music and the rave freedom and values of being a raver. A new generation of hippies that dance in the dark, but instead of the moonlight, they have lasers and warehouse rocking beats.
Rowe smiles as he talks about the scene.
“Everyone is into the sound and into the music and you’ll feel this really good vibe. You’ll look at everybody and they’re dancing however the hell they want, they’re free to do whatever they want, look however they want and it’s a space for people to just be themselves. That’s a pretty good feeling.”
Where to find the music
The Library Bar & Grill — Sunday Nights
501 S Mill Ave
Tempe, AZ 85282
http://thelibraryusa.com
Myst Nightclub/House 7340 — Friday Nights
7340 East Shoeman Lane
Scottsdale, AZ 85251
http://Mystaz.com
Zuma Grill — Wednesday Nights
605 S Mill Ave
Tempe, AZ 85281
http://Zumagrill.com
E4 — Resident DJ most nights
4282 N Drinkwater Blvd.
Scottsdale, AZ 85281
http://E4-az.com
Pussycat Lounge — Wednesday Nights
4426 N Saddlebag Trail
Scottsdale, AZ 85251
http://Pclaz.com
Martini Ranch — Thursday Nights
7295 E Stetson Dr
Scottsdale, AZ 85251
http://Martiniranchaz.net
-lana.burke@asu.edu
