Moulin Rouge Las Vegas ... NIGHT: INSURGENCIES unincorporated townships Never Tires of, ‘What’s Your are a designation “originally Sign?’” Las Vegas Weekly, authorized to assist in the 9 June 2008, http://www. conveyance of land and are lasvegasweekly.com/blogs/ commonly thought of as a the-playground/2008/jun/09/ rural form of government willis-never-tires-whats-your- Dance Dance with limited power.” This sign. designation is typically 19 The Misunderstood reserved for rural areas Legend, dir. Armstrong and where a governing body Lipsman. cannot adequately provide 20 Earnest Bracey, “Moulin municipal services like garbage Rouge,” interview by Joe Revolution collection, sewage, and Schoenmann, KNPR’s State of electricity. According to the Nevada, Nevada Public Radio, 2010 U.S. Census, Paradise 20 July 2009. has grown to become the 21 “Lido at the Stardust,” most populous unincorporated UNLV Digital Collections, township in the United States, http://digital.library.unlv. continually challenging its edu/collections/showgirls/ DJ Zhao aggressively to shut off the music. I switched status as an informal city. lido-stardust. off the sound and threw my arms around my Clark and Sharp also note that 22 Eugene P. Moehring and “unincorporated townships Michael S. Green, Las Vegas: “If I Can’t Dance, I Don’t Want to Be equipment, because it looked like they were have grown so large that they A Centennial History (Reno: Part of Your Revolution” about to smash everything. Protestors tried to are functional equivalents University of Nevada Press, of cities, providing a broad 2005), 137. –Attributed to Emma Goldman stop them, a few fights broke out, and some range of services beyond their 23 The Misunderstood were arrested, as I packed up and got the hell original ‘rural’ responsibilities.” Legend, dir. Armstrong and The unincorporated township, Lipsman. “Music is a weapon, a real weapon, in a out of there. once a state of economic and 24 Ibid. concrete sense.” This experience made one thing very political exception, has since 25 Rem Koolhaas, Delirious morphed into an acceptable New York: A Retroactive –Desmond Tutu1 clear to me: the most dangerous thing in the form of city building with Manifesto for Manhattan (New eyes of the police was dancing. But why? essential services offloaded to York: The Monacelli Press), 135. the county level of governance. 26 Moehring, Resort City, “Dancing is the remedy of resistance, In 186 B.C., 7,000 members of the cult Modelling themselves after 184. the art of the marginalized and of Dionysus were imprisoned, tortured, and Paradise as a precedent of 27 Ibid., 180. smaller government and greater 28 Keller Easterling, dispossessed.” executed in Rome for challenging “Roman corporate influence, several Enduring Innocence: Global –Marc de la Maison2 values” with sex, psychoactive substances, and adjacent communities have Architecture and its Political since claimed unincorporated Masquerades (Cambridge, dancing.3 The Bacchic Mysteries were infamous status, including Summerlin, Mass.: MIT Press, 2005), 162. In the summer of 2014, a ten-block area in for the blurring of boundaries between genders Sunrise Manor, Spring Valley, 29 Moehring, Resort City, and Enterprise, effectively 193. the middle of Kreuzberg was cordoned off and classes, promoting dangerous ideas such resisting annexation by the 30 Ibid., 200. around a school in which some refugees as rights for women, children, and foreigners, municipality of the City of Las 31 Jamie Peck and Adam Vegas. Residents generally Tickell, “Neoliberalizing Space,” had barricaded themselves in defiance of and giving slaves a taste of what freedom feels prefer the absence of a Antipode 34, no. 3 (2002): 386. deportation orders. Next to the school, at like. Justification for the crackdown was the municipal level of government, 32 Angela Davis, as property taxes are typically “Recognizing Racism in the the centre of an intersection, a mobile sound claim of criminal activities during the all-night, much lower. Jill S. Clark and Era of Neoliberalism,” in The system was set up, around which hundreds all-day ecstatic orgiastic rites. But even such Jeff K. Sharp, “Between the Meaning of Freedom and Other Country and the Concrete: Difficult Dialogues, ed. Angela of people sat in the streets in solidarity with large-scale suppression failed to eradicate the Rediscovering the Rural-Urban Davis (San Francisco: City refugees. Around them were about eight movement, and Rome eventually gave the cult Fringe,” City & Community 7, Lights Books, 2012), 173. no. 1 (2008): 61–79. or nine police vans, with dozens of police official status, making it a state-sanctioned 17 Moehring, Resort City, standing around, watchful. religion, helping to curtail its vitality and reduce 182–183. 18 Betty Willis is the Before me was a one-man/woman its influence on the population. designer of the signature electro-punk band, who screamed into the This should sound familiar to us, because “Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas Nevada” sign located at mic above pummeling beats and abrasive it is no different from the passing of many the southern end of the Las slabs of synth noise at a high volume. People versions of Anti-Rave legislation during recent Vegas Strip. For the design of the Moulin Rouge sign, listened, and the police stood around, doing decades in the UK, US, and elsewhere, based Willis stated that she wanted nothing. Afterwards, I began my set, at a on allegations of criminal activities during to “wanted to make it as impressive and as happy and as lower volume, with groovy African music. the events (usually involving psychoactive good as I could,” in an attempt Smiles immediately appeared all around, as substances). Under these new laws, voluntary to capture the brazen ambition of the first integrated hotel in people stood up and began to dance. Chaos dance gatherings outside of the structures America. John Katsilometes, erupted suddenly only three minutes later, as a of consumerism were strictly forbidden, “Famed Designer Willis dozen police rushed the sound system, yelling and police in the UK now have the power to 80 SCAPEGOAT 10 81 Dance Dance Revolution NIGHT: INSURGENCIES remove people from events at which music groups always more extensively engage in vast periphery of forests and islands promote groups, often forming the proverbial circles “characterized by the emission of a succession participatory dancing, preserving remnants more joyful, freeform dancing, in contrast in the center of which people take turns of repetitive beats”4 was played. As a result, of age-old practices. It is not accidental that to the large-ensemble court gamelans that showing off their skills, to the enthusiastic dancing together is often today largely only the Irish, with their rich indigenous cultural play stately, majestic, and monumental cries of approval from others. And at informal allowed within the confines of commercialized history abused and exploited by the processes compositions where dance is pure spectacle. gatherings without a DJ, someone would and licensed club spaces, restrained by codes of modernization and colonialism, are known Compared to other places, traditional often start playing music on a cell phone, and of conduct, and limited within the span of a to be the most ardent dancers in all of Europe. ways of life survived much better on the nearly everyone would jump up to boogie. few hours per night. Another example of the Many other examples exist, such as Polka, African continent, as many cultures were only Meanwhile, in perfectly designed European prohibition of social dancing was the cabaret a music and dance form almost exclusively recently conquered by sovereign powers and clubs with the best sound systems people license required of bars and clubs in NYC in belonging to the underclasses of many thoroughly subjected to the homogenizing usually need to drink until 1 or 2 am to finally the 1990s for the permission of “moving in European societies. and destructive forces of imperialism, which overcome deeply seated embarrassment and time to music”5 on the premises: on multiple In place of music for voluntary and occurred much earlier in most of Asia and start self-consciously half moving to the beat, occasions I have seen police storm venues and spontaneous communal participation, the Europe. Large African states such as the Mali rigidly, like stick figures without hip joints— shut down concerts under this pretext. upper-class nobility developed cerebral and Empire also somewhat differed from their and always alone. Normalized attitudes toward In the Roman Empire, the Dionysian passive musical frameworks that are divorced counterparts in absorbing the cultures of the participatory dance always follow similar cult and other similar mystery religions of the from the body. These forms champion top- groups they conquered, rather than eradicating patterns as the above two examples in other last few centuries B.C. were already forming down hierarchical roles and structures, them wholesale. This is why the culture of societies around the world, depending on a revival movement that sought to bring back enforce a rigid separation between artists rhythm and dance in Africa survives and the degree to which and amount of time it indigenous Eurasian and European practices, and audience, and restrict dance to the thrives to a greater extent than elsewhere. has existed with or without the effects of pre-Abrahamic animist spiritual systems— narrow sphere of performance and spectacle. Ever since the advent of colonialism, hierarchical authority and centralized political ancient methods of worship, rituals, and The attitudes cultivated by this specialized rhythmically focused music from Africa has power. modes of being which by then were nearing aristocratic culture undoubtedly persist today: been regarded by the European establishment Beat-driven music and social dance extinction at the hands of successions of the Wikipedia entry for “dance” first defines as primitive and subhuman, its guttural noises was central in the evolutionary process of conquering armies. After going underground it as a performative art form, only mentioning and beats seen as belonging much more to Homo Sapiens, both in terms of biology and again since the fall of Rome, secret Bacchanals participatory dance later. the animal kingdom than polite society. In sociology. Biologically speaking, bipedalism, or went on in the forests of Europe until as late But this general historical process particular, hip movements were (and still the ability to walk upright, is only possible with as the 1700s, before being eventually stamped of erasing aboriginal cultures by dominant are, as seen in the recent controversies over cognitive processes such as “beat induction,” out by government and religious institutions empires, and the resultant institutionalized twerking) a huge taboo among domesticated the ability to anticipate the next beat as part (only to resurface in the West a couple of negative attitudes toward social dancing, are Western subjects. Unbroken connection with of a syncopated pattern. Rhythm in Africa and hundred years later, as twentieth-century not confined to Europe. Without exception, the body and guilt-free expression of sensual elsewhere is built around this basic principle: counter-cultural movements). legacies of participatory dancing around energy was (and is) considered “improper” the placement of some of the beats in the Another surviving example of pre- the world always exist in the cultures of the and “lewd” to people conditioned by millennia rhythm off the grid, a little bit before or after modern pagan traditions is the May Day fertility systematically oppressed, under-privileged, of body-shame and sexual repression. when the pattern-recognition part of our festival, in which young men and women dance and marginalized. On the flip side, the official This is why Africans had to be demonized, brains tells us it should drop, and the resultant to celebrate the beginning of summer on music of kingdoms, states, and their elites is humiliated, brutalized, subjugated, “civilized,” tension is what makes us want to move to the the first of May, around the May Pole, a ritual typified by grandiose, courtly, self-important, and Christianized, because their supreme music. If dance music is the design of sonic banned by the church for many centuries. It is reserved, and restrictively cerebral “classical” dignity, and lack of shame and inhibition were patterns in time according to the proportions— surely no coincidence that 300,000 workers in forms that dictate docile and passive modes of greatly intimidating to the prohibitive cultures and the joyful, healing movements—of the Chicago chose this day—due to its associations enjoyment. In China, the thousands of ethnic of Europe. human body, it is a science that has been with folk culture in opposition to authority—to minorities (such as the Uyghur) have exquisite Anyone not convinced of this only needs perfected in the land of Africa, perhaps more go on strike in 1866, protesting long hours and and flamboyant customs of social dance to compare the contemporary dance floor of than elsewhere. horrible work conditions, organized by socialist music, compared to the inert, lethargic, and any club in Africa with those in Europe, on any In terms of sociology, drumming, and anarchist unions. solemn music of the dominant Han culture. In given night: The difference is immense. In my singing, and dancing together (along with The cultural establishment in Europe India, the smaller tribal and religious groups experience of the motherland, it is typical for ritualized orgiastic practices in conjunction has always regarded social dancing to belong have much more raw, funky, and danceable people to walk into a party and immediately with the imbibing of sacred entheogens) builds to the realm of the poor, uneducated, and tunes than those in the highly refined, start getting jiggy, shaking and gyrating to the group cohesion, develops trust, encourages brutish, essentially an indecent activity fit specialized, and formal Indian Classical music joyfully, artfully, with unique creativity cooperation, and forges strong bonds between only for drunken fools.6 And this is largely canon. In Indonesia, the smaller gamelans and individualized movements. Dancing members of society. Participatory dance is a true, as the lower classes and marginalized that play human-scaled music found in the also almost always takes place together in deeply ingrained, centrally important social 82 SCAPEGOAT 10 83 Dance Dance Revolution NIGHT: PASSAGES trait, an essential organizing principle common part of liberation struggles (such as the PRAYER to human communities around the world prior Freedom Songs and dances of Anti-Apartheid to the advent of class and hierarchy roughly South Africa). Despite the effects of Come, 12,000 years ago. Because it brings people commercialization, and even within the co- Night, together voluntarily, and creates ecstatic opted space of the club, consumerist codes erase Day, group consciousness via collective trance can break down and borders can dissolve, with its states, communal dancing reveals divisions, as ecstatic dancers experience extraordinary grievous categories, inequalities, and laws to be states anathema to normalized dehumanizing errors. arbitrary and meaningless, and is a convivial and exploitative relations. After all, dancing activity inherently corrosive of top-down has the potential to take us beyond ego- authority. As David Hesmondhalgh writes, identification, and break up impediments [R]ave confirmed the subversive to libidinal flow. Perhaps in some ways, the populism of dance. Its dangerous 12,000-year-old oppressive walls of reputation was sealed by a “moral hierarchical civilization can be dismantled, panic" in the national press about the and the structural cancer that is capitalism can drugs associated with the scene. […] be cured simply by joyful hip-shaking. Accompanying this panic, though, was an especially strong Utopian discourse NOTES of collectivism and equality within club 1 Desmond Tutu, Power of culture, which stressed the breaking- Freedom Songs (Making Music, 2002). down of ethnic, class and gender 2 Marc de la Maison, differences. Dance events had long been Facebook comment (Facebook, 2016). viewed as rituals of togetherness and 3 Daniele Bolelli, The Slave inclusion, but the new dance culture Wars (History On Fire, 2015). 4 Criminal Justice and went further, and the rhetoric at least Public Order Act, (HMSO was genuinely democratizing: “No Publications, 1994). 5 NYC Cabaret License, performers, no VIPs, we are all special," (NYC Department of Consumer was one typical slogan from a club flyer.7 Affairs, 1997) 6 Piero Scaruffi, A History of Popular Music before Rock The popular notion today that dance music Music (Omniware, 2007). 7 David Hesmondhalgh, and its “unreflective hedonism” is apathetic “The Cultural Politics of Dance and apolitical needs to be turned on its Music,” (Soundings 5, 1997). 8 Robert Hood, Electronic head: participatory dance itself is inherently Warfare: The Political Legacy anarchic, democratic, and revolutionary. Re- of Detroit Techno (Pitchfork, 2015) connection to both the flows of our own and other bodies can be insurrectionary; and an Listen to soundtrack: https://soundcloud.com/ embrace of communal, orgiastic sexuality on djzhao/dance-dance-revolution the dance floor, even if only symbolically, is itself a radical gesture caustic to authority and its enforced repression and alienation. House music, for example, came from the queer Black spaces that marginalized people had carved out for themselves, and Techno was “a reaction to inner-city decay, as by-product of African-American struggle, as a form of protest.”8 We may have much work to do concerning the utilization of the emancipatory power of dance in specific revolutionary praxis, but around the world it is already a central 84 SCAPEGOAT 10 85