RAVE REVIEWS

Study of all-night dance clubs offers insight into a different culture

Raves and all-night dance clubs, far from being loud disruptive places of
dangerous drug use, are open, creative, "soundscape" environments for young
people into the dance music scene.

That's part of what Rob Kelly, who spoke to Grande Prairie Regional College
students as part of the Music Art Drama speakers series Wednesday,
discovered in his four years of research into the dance club and rave music
and culture in Edmonton.

Kelly studied enthno-musicology, which, "is basically a mix of anthropology
and musicology," he said.

Enthno-musicology started out as a study of the music of different cultures
but eventually people started to look at their own culture's music, he
explained.

Kelly decided to explore dance music for a term paper.

"I was not really into nightclubs at all," he said. "I thought that seemed
like an interesting group." He went to a variety of night clubs in Edmonton
before ending up at a club called Therapy.

The club's entrance, down a back alley, is marked only with a piece of
paper on the door with the name on it. It didn't open until 2 a.m. and
there's no alcohol.

"I went down there late one Saturday night, and they were playing this
electronic dance music freakin' loud, you just couldn't hear yourself think
and it was packed full of these kids dancing like crazy. I was totally
blown away by that," he said.

That led him to study the music and the experiences of people who go to
clubs and raves. He eventually did his master's thesis on the topic.

"When I first started I just thought this is such a bizarre experience.
It's at night, it's a weird time, it's weird music, it's really different.
I got interested in looking at that as a physical experience and what it
means to go in and experience that. I really got interested in the sounds
of the music," he said.

Kelly is generally positive about what happens in dance clubs.

"Unlike a lot of places - like a country bar where there are very strict
codes and very aggressive drugs involved, that being alcohol - in dance
cultures there is a huge ethos of respect and acceptance," he said.

"You get everything from 16-year-old kids to 30-year-old married guys like
me out there dancing. It's very different experience for people who don't
hang out ever, but go for the same kind of dance experience."

Kelly is realistic about the negative side of the dance subculture. Part of
his research had him attending City of Edmonton meetings about residents'
concerns with dance clubs.

The City of Grande Prairie is also in the process of drafting a bylaw that
will regulate all-night dance clubs restricting things such as where they
can be located and when they can be open.

The concerns all boiled down to two issues - drugs and noise, he said.

"A lot of these issues that are brought up are issues that can be dealt
with as themselves," he said.

There are legal issues that surround drugs already in place and he doesn't
think drugs are any more part of that night life scene than others.

"Where would country music be without beer?" he asked. "The drug community
does quite well regardless of nightclubs.

"If you want to focus on drugs you can focus on the negative aspect of any
night life and get to the drugs thing."

As for the noise from the loud clubs, Kelly said there are noise bylaws in
place and it's a matter of the right building or the right location to
resolve that issue.

"I don't think it's a reflection at all of a kind of lifestyle or a kind of
dance experience," he said.