INFORMATION TO USERS

This manuscript has been reproduced from the microfilm master. UMI films the text directly from the original or copy submitted. Thus, sorne thesis and dissertation copies are in typewriter face, while others may be trom any type of computer printer.

The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. Broken or indistinct print, colored or poor quality illustrations and photographs, print bleedthrough, substandard margins, and improper alignment can adversely affect reproduction. ln the unlikely event that the author did not send UMI a complete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if unauthorized copyright material had ta be removed, a note will indicate the deletion.

Oversize materials (e.g., maps, drawings, charts) are reproduced by

sectioning the original t beginning at the upper left-hand corner and continuing trom left ta right in equal sections with small overfaps.

ProQuest Information and Leaming

300 North Zeeb Road t Ann Arbor, MI 48106-1346 USA 800-521-0600

• Barbiers wearing "phat" pants: rave culture, emergence to convergence

\D 99 each

Barbie® or Ken 1. Happenin' Haïr Barbie. Her hair changes colour when weI. 50-0651 ·0. Reg 17.99 2. Cool Lookin' Ken. • 50-0655-2. Reg 18.99

T..McCalI Graduate Program in Communications McGili University, Montreal August 2000

A thesis submitted to the Faculty of Graduate Studies and Research in partial fulfilment of the requirements of the degree of Master of Arts. • © Tara McCall2000 National Library BibliothèQue nationale 1+1 of Canada du canada Acquisitions and Acquisitions et Bibliographie Services services bibliographiques 395 WIIingIDn Street 385. rue WI5ngeDn oea-ON K1A0N4 oaa-ON K1A0N4 CMIdI c.na

The author bas granted a non­ L'auteur a accordé une licence non exclusive licence allowing the exclusive pennettant à la National Library ofCanada ta Bibliothèque nationale du Canada de reproduce, loan, distnbute or sell reproduire, prêter, distribuer ou copies ofthis thesis in microfonn, vendre des copies de cette thèse sous paper or electronic formats. la forme de microfiche/film, de reproduction sm papier ou sur format électronique.

The author retains ownership ofthe L'auteur conserve la propriété du copyright in this thesis. Neither the droit d'auteur qui protège cette thèse. thesis nor substantial extracts from it Ni la thèse ni des extraits substantiels may he printed or otherwise de celle-ci ne doivent être imprimés reproduced without the author's ou autrement reproduits sans son pemusslon. autorisation.

0-612-70298-7

Canadrl • Acknowledgements Thanks to everyone who collectively made this thesis possible. My advisor: Will Straw. My editors for this and associated essays: Majero Bournan, Juliana Hodgson, Mark Bryan, Robin Dwarka, Paul Cairns and Kevin McCall. The ravers and promoters who kindly allowed me to interview them: Beverly May, Jacques Chamberlain, Karl Borst, Max Izod, Natasha McDowell, Anton Belov, Paul Cairns, Kevin McCall, Robin Dwarka, John Crossley and Monique Bergeron.

Special mention goes to the ravers, promoters, DJs and producers in Toronto, Montreal and Los Angeles whose participation and involvement in raves inspired my interest and maintained my dedication ta this important project.

•

Caver illustration: Canadian Tire Flyer tram Dec. 1999 Caver design: Catalyst Design • 2 • Abstract Since its beginnings a decade ago, the mass media, niche media, subculturalists and

participants alike have fumbled around cumbersome descriptions and depictions of the

essence of rave. For outsiders, rave may symbolize difference, defiance, escapism and

meaningless hedonism. For insiders, rave can mean transgression, transcendence,

treedom, unity and meaningfulfun.

Ali rave elements, such as the lights, lasers, stomping teet, raised arms in ecstatic bliss,

the DJ and the ceaseless beats seem to synchronize in a unifying pulse. As communal

as rave's tacade may seem, the experience is wholly personal. Rave has been

disseminated to undeveloped nations, and remote towns; as it grows in one area it • decays in another and morphs into another sub-scene, dress code, venue, and soundscape. As an insider stepping outward, 1 peer into my memories of rave and

catalogue of blissful moments in an attempt to articulate its essence and its cyclical

perpetuation.

• 3 • Résumé français Les soirées rave ont débuté il y a une dizaine d'années. Depuis ce temps,les médias de

masse, les médias spécialisés, les subculturalistes et les participants ont élaboré

diverses descriptions et analyses concernant l'essence même d'un rave. Pour ceux nly

ont jamais pris part, le rave symbolise la différence. Clest un geste de défi, une évasion

de la réalité et un hédonisme dénué de sens. Pour les amateurs de ces soirées, le rave

revêt un sens de transgression, de transcendance, de liberté, d'unité et d'amusement.

Tous les éléments d'un rave, tels que les lumières, les lasers, les lourds bruits des pas,

les mains en l'air, les signes de bonheur suprême, le dise-jockey et le rythme continuel

semblent être synchronisés dans une même unité rythmique. Au premier abord, le rave • ressemble avant tout à un phénomène collectif. L'expérience est toutefois totalement personnelle. Le rave a sa place partout, que ce soit dans les pays en voie de

développement ou dans des villes isolées des grands centres urbains. S'il perd en

popularité dans une région, le rave en gagne dans une autre. Il peut aussi se

transformer en une sous-scène, en un style vestimentaire différent, en un autre décor

ou en un autre son. Du point de vue d'une ancienne participante aux soirées rave, je

garde ces précieux moments dans ma mémoire dans le but d'en articuler l'essence

même et la perpétuation cyclique. • Contents

Acknowledgements 1 • Abstracts 2 Introduction 5

phase 1 Rave's beginnings 8 Honeymoon of "e" love 10 Toronto starts ta rave 13 The role ofthe media 15 Media, myth and drugs 15 Drugs for hedonism 21 Stagnant discourses 22 19305 Marijuana 23 1960s LSD 25 19905 Ecstasy 27 The "kid next door'i starts ta rave 30 PerpetuaI life of myth in the media 36 pance 38 A rationale for dance 38 Rational views vs. non-rational views of dance 41 Dancehalls 43 Discos 44 Raves 45 Marginilization of dance 47 Dance as an inscription of social values 49 African dance 55 • Dance as it exists within the rave setting 59 Get lost in sound 60 The function of dance 64 phase Il Rave flourishes 66 Mainstream rave vs. underground rave 67 Constant change 70 Toronto's big divide 72 Competition mounts 74 The darkside 78 phase III Rave is commodified 82 Style 83 Growing industries 90 Rave is everywhere 94 Hippy ys. Raye 97 Relationship to drugs 98 Sounds of a subculture 99 Reactionary politis vs. the polîtics of partying 102 Different drugs for different times 109 The hippy disco 110 Coclusjon: raye's last days 112 • BjbUgraphy 115 5 •

Something magica/ happens to me during those twilight hours early Sunday moming. l've never been ta church. / didn't think / be/ieved in a higher power. But it is on the Sabbath moming that / a/ways find my gode 1am as nomadic a fol1ower as the others wandering from warehouse ta warehouse ta have our soufs awakened in these earliest of hours. The music thunders through our flesh, the notes swim within our veins. DJ's spin their scriptures with eloquence, zest and assurance. The bass ratt/es my lungs and beats in unison with my heart. If you close your eyes you can watch your flesh melt away and your soul rise between the spaces ofsound.

•

• 6

November, 22, 1997. Los Angeles. A rave called "Oz". 1pick up my tickets at a "hip" clothing store in Santa Monica where we are given a map to the whereabouts of the party (the promoters final anempt at maintaining an "underground, n "old-schoor charm). • The location is a decrepit downtown hotel. Hundreds of colourful teens wait outside as the music pumps through the walls, ran/es the windows and escapes into the street, they are bobbing and swaying anxiously on the sidewalk needing so much to get inside, needing so much to dance. Amongst the kids on the sidewalk a man lies bel/y up, no one's really sure what to do, is he dead, passed-out, should we shake him? A woman walks by in f1uffy, pink slippers carrying her baby. A ghostlike apparition ofpoverty and decay she is bare/y noticed. Ravers on the inside doing "en. Homeless people on the outside doing "crack". 1guess we ail enjoy the euphoria we can afford.

My first stop at the party is the bathroom. The only one is upstairs. This, however, seems like mission impossible as the stairs are jam packed with ra vers. Crazy ta say the least. They squish by one another on the staircase full ofbodies, sweat, colour and energy. Sorne are travelling up the stairs, sorne are going down, but somehow those going up are simultaneously pushing the others down...the only way ta move is ta catch the momentum of everyone else. Everyone does a whole lot of squeezing and squishing, and the feat of getting to the bathroom seems an unattainable joumey. And as awful as it may seem, it's lovely. You just don't get this close without having sexe n Total strangers, boys, girls and "undescribables , squeezing their way together in the pursuit of music, inebriation, liberation and dance. Everyone has the appearance of Technicolor; every cartoon character in existence seems ta be squished together in one frame. As we pass by one another we radiate our colours, only ta suck back the energy • we just projected with a smile. After the party ends at about six in the moming, we are ail ushered outside Iike canle. Some sing, most still bob to the music once so loud it is now imprinted in our brains. Two teens are delicately pushed into a police car, most of us watch in horror realizing, that too, could be us...the il/icit substances still surging through our blood. We watch as the colour seems to drain out of their childlike ensembles. Before getting into our car and admitting surrender to the impending moming, 1 dance on the top floor of an outdoor parking lot. There are a few colourlulleftovers clinging on to the remains of the night as music pumps out of the cars. 1 watch the sun come up through the nasty downtown core. In the distance there are mountains trying their damndest ta remain beautiful amongst the picture ofsmog and concrete. Ifs here in the epitome ofAmerica, 1witness the epitome of rave. Handfuls of teens not sure how ta cape with the decaying world araund them. Simultaneously a "fuck you", and yet a rejoice in life itself. It may be called a celebration of music, a celebration of drugs, or even the "celebration of celebration", but for me ifs a celebration of dance. As 1 continued that dance in the refreshing twilight air, 1realized that the feeling of rave could transcend borders; it didn't always matter if the music wasn't ideal, if the space was dingy, and there were "dodgy" characters lurking in the corner. What mattered was that 1 was at a rave 3000 miles • from Toronto and yet somehow 1felt as though 1was.. .home. 7

For myself, and no doubt thousands of others worldwide, rave has almost sacred • connotations. Yet since its beginnings over a decade ago, the mass media, niche media, subculturalists and participants alike have fumbled around cumbersome

descriptions and depictions of the essence of rave. For outsiders rave may symbolize

difference, defiance, escapism and meaningless hedonism. For insiders rave can mean

transgression, transcendence, freedom, unity and meaningful fun.

Ali rave elements, such as the lights, lasers, stomping feet, raised arms in ecstatic bliss, the DJ and the ceaseless beats seem ta synchronize in a unifying pulse. Mysteriously as communal as rave's facade may seem, the experience is whofly personal. As an insider stepping outward, 1 peer into my memories of rave and catalogue of blissful moments in an attempt to articulate its essence and its cyclical perpetuation.

Typically, subcultures follow a formulaic pattern of existence within discourse. They are • met with moral panic, as the media and regulating institutions catch wind of "deviant" activity. Usually absent within this discourse is the active "meaning" found by subcultural

participants; what they seek and how they seek it, is transparent to outside culture. Why they are involved is secondary to how they look and what deviant acts they participate in such as drug taking. The subculture will eventually evolve and be quietly infused into mainstream cultural industries. Once the cultural artifacts within the subculture become commodified the subculture as it once existed dies: mutating into a number of different

forms and sub-scenes.

The only thing that makes rave atypical of this formula is its global dimensions and cyclical renewal, and in Toronto specifically, the very delayed reaction from the media and goveming bodies. Rave has been disseminated to undeveloped nations, and • remote towns; as it grows in one area it decays in another and morphs inta another sub- 8

• scene, dress code, venue, and soundscape. With each cycle rave's old-timers proclaim its death as the new recruits rejoice their discovery; this cycle has repeated since its

birth in England eleven years ago.

Phase 1

Rave's beginnings

"In early 1988, acid house was little more than an imported type of music with drug associations. It didn't have a definite crowd, a tell-tale wardrobe or a unique blend of dance styles" (Thomton: 158).

Rave started as a very amorphous collection of people in Britain with its precursors

arguably being Britain's Northem Soull starting in the late 1960s and New York's gay

disco scene in the 1970s.2 Northem Soul was the tirst scene to revere the DJ who would

spin rare American soul music at all-night dance events often fuelled by amphetamines

• and acrobatie dancing. New York's Disco scene helped pioneer the idea of mixing one

record into another for a seamless night of dancing in lofts and later in warehouses Iike

the renowned Paradise Garage, offering a haven where blacks and gays could be tree

trom public scrutiny. Not unlike Northem Soul, drugs played a raie at these disco

events, typically amphetamines, Ecstasy and LSO. After disco had mainstream success

the culture went back underground where in "Chicago's gay community, it evolved into

'music without singers or conventional instruments...an exciting, relatively new idea'"

(Beadle quoted in Tomlinson: 196). DJ Frankie Knuckles' career originated in New

York's disco scene moved to Chicago and he became a regular act at The Warehouse,

where disco mutated into house music. In Detroit, also in the early eighties, three other • black DJs were experimenting with more revolutionary science fiction..esque beats. 9

Obsessed with technology and inspired by the cold-bleak ambience of Detroit, three • producerl DJs Kevin Saunderson, Juan Atkins and Derrick May, are said to be the Godfathers of techno, an underground dance music that borrowed the energy of disco

and the more "senous" electronic sounds of New Wave European bands. According to

music writer Stuart Cosgrove, these three DJ/ producers created a sound that was a

"...hybrid of post-punk, funkadelia and electro-disco" (Cosgrove: 86). The genre was

initially referred to as "acid disco".3 This highly repetitive, Iyricless and strangely hypnotic

new music was largely disregarded in its birthplace, but found support in Chicago and

Northem England.

It was American house and techno music that were imported to the English vacation

hot-spot of Ibiza off the cost of Spain in the summer of 1987 and coupled with Ecstasy

or MDMA. "E" was originally synthesized in 1912 by Merck pharmaceuticals but only became a popular social drug, and psychotherapy and weightloss tool, in the 1970s and • 1980s. By the late 180s ecstasy use had reached a climax in Ibiza where many English vacationers were enraptured by its effects when coupled with the islandls Balearic blend

of music. One vacationer Danny Rampling, attempted to recreate his Ibizan holiday

bliss by opening a small after-hours club in London called Shoom with his wife Jenny. With only enough room for a few hundred people, those going had either been to Ibiza

or were friends with those who had. After the regular clubs closed, those "in the know'

piled inside, indulged in their Ecstasy piUs, danced and hugged the night away.

ln the less trendy, more dangerous west end of London, there was another burgeoning

underground scene. Free all-night parties under the name Hedonism were taking place

1 see Katie Milestone 2 see Matthew Collin • 3 see Lori Tomlinson, 196 10

• in an empty warehouse. These promoters were not inspired by Ibiza, but New York's Paradise Garage.4 Unlike the happy, "huggy" nature of Shoom inspired clubs, Hedonism was raw, dari< and had a more rebellious air. Together these two scenes in Britain were the beginning of "acid house" and the embryonic stage of rave.

Honeymoon of "e" love

IIEcstasy - bad for your health, good for your soulu - R. Dwarka

Most raves offer a milieu of contrasting individua/s. Their dancing seems childlike in its freedom of movement while their faces are radiant with smiles. Rave's hero drug, ecstasy, diminishes the constraints of a culture repressed by societal norms. It allows those who indulge to experience the freedom necessary to transcend their insecurities and self-consciousness. One pill can erase for four hours the need to conform to normalized gender roles and the socially constructed rules of interaction. Typically, as the drug wears off so do the insights, /eaving ravers searching for more e,ation often only found with more "en.

ln his critical account of rave, Generation Ecstasy, Simon Reynolds caUs ecstasy, Il •••a

• remedy for the alienation caused by an atomized societyIl (Reynolds 1998: 81). Similarly, Sheryl Garrett's Adventures in Wonder/and, explores a decade of rave and club culture and suggests that both are a solution to the feelings of exclusion,

"When times get tougher, people tend to escape down the rabbit hale, through the K-hole, past the doorman, down the corridor and into wonderland....the acid house and rave scenes were about a generation denied a place in society as a whole creating a space in which they could express themselves" (Garrett: 321).

The combined effects of ecstasy and acid house were remarkably obvious; sexual, racial and class based stereotypes and barriers were immediately being challenged while reservations and feelings of intimidation were being eased. Sorne have even argued that ecstasy was the catalyst in dissolving disputes between, Protestant and

• " see Sheryl Garrett, 122 Il

• Catholic ravers in Northem Ireland who united in the rave arena every weekend.5 MDMA also seems to deplete sexual aggression, allowing dance to tree itself of sexuality and participants ta exhibit sexual indifference. The atmosphere initiated by "e" is in contrast to the codified environment of clubs. In his book Cyberia, Douglas Rushkoff notes the effect of "e" on club goers, "E tums a room of normal, paranoid

nightclubbers into a teaming mass of ecstatic Global Villagers" (Rushkoff: 113). A Toronto raver elaborates,

"The thing 1noticed was that it (rave) was the antithesis of the club scene. 1 had been so used to going to clubs where it is 50 about meeting the opposite sex, then youlre around ail these sweaty bodies presses up against one another and it doesn't matter, youlre not into that vibe at ail, and that's so amazing" (Dwarka).

Ecstasy seemed ta give people a renewed outlook on life. Toronto rayer Karl explains that he considered the first time he did "e", the tirst time he really "raved", even though it wasn1t the first rave he attended, "When 1 did 'e', 1 started seeing everyone coming

• together and wide eyed. 1 got home and realized that evervthing had changed. Everything was different. This has changed my life" (Borst). Ecstasy assists the elimination of socialized barriers and allows partakers ta believe they ean talk to anyone and love everyone. The drug helped to foster an environment that was open and indiseriminate, and much like the disco scene a deeade previous, gays were weleomed

and often prominent within the seene. Another Toronto raver qualifies, IIWhat 1 was attracted ta raves for was that 1eould be whoever 1 wanted, there was no bullshit or

false pretences. 1 think that's what eestasy really allows people ta do, ta get past the socialization and let them be whoever they wanf' (Caims).

• S see Nicholas Saunders. Chapter 1 12

Acid house and ecstasy were allowing people to "disappear" trom daily, mundane • rituals. By inducing a more relaxed empathie state, the drug permitted participants to teel comtortable and free enough with theïr surroundings, to express emotions to

strangers. According to Simon Reynolds ecstasy was a cure for "emotional constipation"

(Reynolds 1998: 65). Straight males felt uninhibited enough to hug and message one

another openly without fear of public scrutiny, while for females ecstasy had created an

environment so unfettered by ritualized gender raies that they could hug males and

even wear nothing but a bra without worrying about being objectified and solicited for

dates. It seems that joumalists however, misunderstood this public uopenness" and

assumed that sweaty boys who felt comfortable enough to take their tops off were

rampant "sex fiends." The 1989 British Sun article incorrectly sighted Ecstasy as an

"opium-based" drug which could uboost sex-drive" (Kellaway 1989b: 5), while a • Canadian article sighted Ecstasy as "an aphrodisiac capable of transforming staid wall­ flowers into sex fiends" (Cunningham).

ln her comparison of disco and rave, Lori Tomlinson claims that discos were "pick-up

joints" while raves are asexual and non-threatening, "...a hug from a fellow raver is not

usually a sexual advance as much as a show of platonic affection, much like grade­

schoolers holding hands..." (Tomlinson: 200). Although she links this "asexual"

behaviour to the AlOS threat of this decade, it may be more accurately linked ta the

physiological effects of Ecstasy compared to disco's alleged ego-based drug: cocaine. • 13

Ecstasy coupled with the repetitive tribal-like rhythms of techno and house encouraged • people to dance in an unbridled, trance-like fashion. In her essay, "living the Dream," Hillegonda Rietveld suggests that raving is much Iike a vacation, Il •••the rave offered a

release from day ta day realities, a temporary escapist disappearance like the weekend

or holiday...A Dionysian ritual of dance and hedonism evolved, whereby the established

'self' was undonell (Rietveld: 58). Toronto raver Max speaks similarly but attributes

drugs directly,

IIWhen you push yourself ta an edge in that setting, when you do enough drugs that you're just sa far removed from your normal function, you can discover yourself...So when you go back to it, you're much more comfortable with your natural forme It's Iike taking a vacation from your normal conscious self' (Izod).

Raving can allow a participant ta escape reality in two manners. An intense drug trip • can alter one's usual perception through chemical brain changes; by boosting unconscious activity and suppressing conscious activity ta cause a waking-dream sensation. Acute concentration on the hypnotic, repetitive drone of rave-electronica such as house and techno can also cause an unconscious trance state; this meditative concentration is facilitated by intense dance, drugs or bath.

Toronto starts to rave The initial stage of rave in Toronto began with a minute club crowd much Iike Brifain

had. Exodus was a night in a small semi-underground club initiated by two of Toronto's original techno DJs, and two British techno fans who had heard about raves in the U.K. While this after-hours rave-night lasted five months, Toronto's tirst official one..off rave appropriately named "Rave On", happened in August 1991 at the same club. Saon

after, a company called Chemistry became their competition and held events in varying • venues and were responsible for Canada's first outdoor rave. Nitrous started in 1992, •

Raves provide a place of free transgression from standardized gender roles. Participants at a rave at Toronto's "Warehouse" in 1998. • Photo: Tara McCall

Ali rave elements, such as the lights, lasers, stamping feet, raised arms in ecstatic bliss, the DJ and the ceaseless beats seem ta synchronize in a unifying pulse. • Photo: Kevin McCall

'" 14

• and also blatantly advertised as an "all-night rave" on their fliers. They were critieized by many for their mainstream appeal by showeasing large international aets like "2unlimited"; undoubtedly they were responsible for expanding Toronto's seene. Not unlike the seene in Britain, the initiators in Toronto resented outside "money grabbing" infiltrators on "their" seene. Chemist,ys Alex Clive explained in 1993 why he left the

seene while it was still relatively new in Toronto, "Basieally 1 wanted ta quit while we were ahead...the events are getting larger and larger and everyone is trying to outdo eaeh other on production and who can spend the Inost money" (Applegath: 17).

As in the early days of British acid house, knowledge of events was strictly word of mouth and typically limited to those "in the know". Toronto rayer John explains that he found out about his first rave simply because he was in an underground record store buying techno singles when the salesperson handed him a small flyer from under the • counter and recommended that he attend. This particular rave event was held in a parking garage and aceording to John, "...there was no style back then, it was just jeans and T-shirts, people were just going because it was this new thing... there was about 500 people which was big back then" (Crosley).

Toronto promoter Beverly May talks sagely of rave's initial stages in Toronto and expresses a need to maintain its underground lure, "There was a real sense of fleeting

urgency and imminence that was 50 strong in the initial experiences, for we ail had, collectively, a feeling that what we had wouldn't last, and we were ail so thankful to experience it then, while it was reaL." (May 1999b: 1). • 15

The raie of the media

"...in tuming youth into news, the tabloids both frame subcultures as major • events and also disseminate them" (Thomton: 132).

With the influx of "Acid House" clubs and inevitably the increase in young people dancing ail night long and indulging in controlled substances, the media bagan to take notice. According to Dick Hebdige, a subculture is formed "...at the interface between surveillance and the evasion of surveillance" (Hebdige 1997: 403). This couldn't be more acute in the case of acid house and rave, a culture that has enraged the authorities from the onset. The more raves tried to hide from the downtown cores, seeking refuge in disused warehouses and obscure countryside locals, the more watchful the police and media became.

The media attention that rave culture gamered was not unlike previous moral panics of

this century. Spectacular subcultures are generally noticed by the media because they • break established societal codes, either by their appearance, their activities or their drug taking. This section will underline some of the discourse that surrounds three separate eras and cultures that concem drug consumption: the youths associated with marijuana in the 1930s; the hippies associated with LSD in the 1960s; and the most poignant drug fear of today, ecstasy which has come to be synonymous in the media with rave culture.

Media, myth and drugs Drugs saturate ail facets of Western civilization. They are used to improve health, for relaxation, to assist in cultural rituals, and for hedonistic purposes such as enlightenment. Although, as much as drugs are sought after and even worshipped for curing iIIs and alleviating ailments, they are feared and condemned; Western society • has been fighting a war against drugs. The majority of media discourse around 16

• subcultural drug consumption informs its public that drugs are "killing our youth", "infecting our veins" and "dirtying our streets". Headlines taken from three decades conceming different drugs and subcultures, reiterate old fears with the use of new symbols of deviance. By recycling the discourses perpetuating the myth of "evil" drugs, and ensuing a moral panic, the media are responsible for the maintenance of social order.

The media is tantamount in helping decipher society's moral parameters. Within his extensive analysis of the 1960s panic of the "mods" and "rockers" in England, Stanley Cohen outlines the function of the media's use of myth,

Il ••the mass media are in the business of manufacturing and reproducing images. They provide the guiding myths which shape our conception of the world and serve as important instruments of social controlll (Cohen 1973: 11).

• By framing villains and victims, we come to understand a status quo and the definition of "normality". It is only through a "naturalized" definition of good that deviance can exist, for without "good" there is obviously no referent for evil to be judged against. The Other or ''the deviant" helps control a populace by determining the status quo, acting as a model for morality, and inadvertently outlining the essential basis for right and wrong. ln "A lot of people like if' Clinton Sanders explains the tasks accomplished by exemplifying deviance, "Images of deviant behaviour and the deviant actor provide object lessons which define and reinforce the consensual boundaries of social arder" (Sanders: 7).

By positing a drug as evil, the drug taker and/or pusher/subculture that brings the drug to the public sphere is considered the deviant or Other. Stanley Cohen examines the • moral panics that disseminate out of media discourse, "Societies appear to be subject, 17

• every now and then, ta periods of moral panic. A condition, episode, persan or group of persans emerges ta beeome defined as a threat to societal values and interests" (Cohen 1980: 9). Society positions deviants against the status quo as a constant reminder of what not to be. According ta Hal Foster, "...it is precisely as a "scandai" that the other is structurally necessary, for it defines the limits of the bourgeois social text­ what is (a)social, (ab)normal, (sub)cultural" (quoted in Rietveld: 45). By bringing hippies, ravers, drug-takers and delinquents into the public's eye and hitting the panic button, the media inadvertently aets as a referent and basis for morality. An established existence of deviants within society provides a vehicle and mechanism for public fear. In an effort to free society of these deviants and delinquents, those in power take control via policing, laws and rules.

ln an effort to understand how the historical and present myth of "evil" drug consumption • came ta be, it is important ta understand why myth in itself exists, what function it has always served and will continue to serve. In Subculture: the meaning of Style Dick Hebdige adopts Barthes' semiological methodology to better understand what meanings lie beneath the style within speetacular subcultures sueh as punk in the late '70's. He states, "Our task becomes, like Barthes', to discem the hidden messages inscribed in code on the glossy surfaces of style, to trace them out as 'maps of meaning'..." (Hebdige 1979:18). Similarly, an adolescent with pig-tails and a baby soother in the 1990s has come to signity a teen who likes ta rave ail night and ingest eontrolled substances. The discourse surrounding the rave subculture is impregnated with mythe Simple symbols sueh as a baby's soother are embraeed by a subeulture and therefore ripped from their regular context, resignified and filled with meaning. This resignification is adopted not only by the subculture itself, but by the media that points us ta these • symbols. This suggests a semiologieal system at work, proving myth existent within 18

• these discourses. Barthes caUs this resignification a "taise nature". It is assumed ta be natural but is only natural because of myth and signification.

Barthes suggests that readers consume myth easily and innocently because they confuse it with an inductive system and do not see it for the semiological one that it is. Instead of myth being read as a system of values, it is inaccurately read as a system of facts. 6 That is not ta say that those facts are based on lies, but rather subject to signification and meaning. Myth has no beginning and end; it is in a continuai process of reiteration and renewal. This can be seen when analysing the historical discourses surrounding drug consumption. For the most part they remain stagnant, being bound in myth, which as Barthes says is not a finished language.

Claude Levi-Strauss indicates that myths are used as a mechanism for understanding • at a particular time. Reporters can be interpreted as "mythologists" in that they use the messages at hand ta construct their stories, hence the recycling of old fear tactics and themes within drug discourses. John Clarke helps explain how Levi-Strauss' intellectual bricoleur gives object and meaning re-signification,

"Together, object and meaning constitute a sign, and, within any one culture, such signs are assembled, repeatedly, into characteristic forms of discourse. Howevert when the bricoleur re-Iocates the signifieant abject in a different position within that discourse, using the same overaIl repertoire of signs, or when that object is placed within a different total ensemble, a new discourse is constituted, a different message conveyedll (quoted in Hebdige 1979: 104).

This helps explain why a drug whose first signification was a treatment for alcoholism

and a CIA interrogation tool could acquire its second more poignant signification as "drop-out" hippie drug. SimilarlYt ecstasyts first signification was use for psychotherapy

• 6 see Barthes, 131 19

• and the 1980s yuppie drug. Finally in the 1990s ecstasy has new resignification and meaning. Today it is best known to be the fuel for the rave generation.

ln Archeo/ogy of Knowledge Michel Foucault points to unities within discourses and hints at the invisible histories which saturate statements. Foucault's understanding of "the book" can be applied to other forms of discourse,

''The Frontiers of a book are never clear-cut: beyond the title, the first lines, and the last full stop, beyond its internai configuration and its autonomous form, it is caught up in a system of references to other books, other texts, other sentences: it is anode within a network" (Foucault: 23).

One news or magazine article doesn't stand solitary, it is one "node" in a network growing out of an accumulation of discourses. This can be understood when reading an article about the drug ecstasy, as it is impossible for that article to exist in isolation. One • article systemically grows out of society's historical fear of controlled substances, prior media and societal treatment of drugs, and meanings and significations which have developed out of comparative articles.

Much like the myth which Barthes talked about, Foucault reasons that in the "order of discourse", there is a lost or secret origin. In very simple tarms, a statement cannot arrive in a paragraph on its own. Within every discourse there is a starting point which should be sought before accepting a particular discourse. Foucault suggests that we question the origins of statements which appear as "ready-made-synthesis", ''These pre-existing forms of continuity, ail these syntheses that are accepted without question, must remain in suspense" (Foucault: 25). These statements do not evolve in isolation, but have been quietly infused with historical meanings, thoughts and interpretations that • are inseparable from the author's consciousness. Foucault doesn't inter that we 20

• discount ail the discourses we come across, but instead understand the rules which

have guided them and allowed one statement to appear instead of another.

Foucault eloquently tells readers to read between the lines,

"...rediscover the silent murmuring, the inexhaustible speech that animates from within the voice that one hears, re-establish the tiny, invisible text that runs between and sometimes coUides with them. The analysis of thought is always allegorical in relation to the discourse that it employs. Its question is unfailingly: what was being said in what was said?" (Ibid: 27).

Foucault maintains there are meanings and significations Iying beneath the surface of

statements. If an article outlines the case of a child who dies while on the drug ecstasy,

it inherently says more than the details of the death which are scrolled across the page.

Framing one death can whisper a number of victims and villains: the child who is dead can signify that ail children are at risk. In tum, ait of these hidden significations can • silently tell parents ta take part in the war against drugs.

Within much of the discourse that surrounds iIIegal drug consumption there is evidence

of poor research and inaccuracies. That is not ta say, however, that ail of the discourse

is based on lies and bad reporting. Instead, Foucault's theory would suggest that a

reader should understand the origins of the story, the size and time restraints of the

article and the framing provided by the writer/reporter. In addition ta scrutinizing the

statements that are made, one should ask, what statements are not made and why.

• 21

Drugs for hedonism

"...The predominant American view of mind-and mood-changing drugs has • always been paradoxical. On the one hand, Americans drink more alcohol and down more pep and sleeping piUs per capita than any other people in the world. On the other hand, anything that smacks of mystical changes or visions or lack of complete mind control is as anti-American as Communism....Madness was selling for $5 a dose. The headlines were big and black. Everybody hit the panic button at once" (Cashman :115).

ln the LSD Story, John Cashman outlines the mainstream panic associated with LSD in the 1960s. He contrasts this panic with "naturalized" acceptance of the other drugs that infiltrate ail aspects of life. Cashman and many others7 suggest it isn't drugs that are condemned in our society, but drugs that are used for hedonistic purposes that are denounced and blacklisted.

Jock Young suggests that only drugs which relate to societal productivity are eulturally • accepted. Drugs that calm and relax after a hard days work such as alcohol and tobacco are non-threatening to productivity.8 Clinton Sanders outlines that a soldier who ingests an amphetamine tablet to optimize alertness is in fact "conforming," yet when a teenager ingests the same amphetamine tablet in order to have amplified fun at a party, the aet is seen as "deviant." Similarly, a CNN news story concluded that teenagers were increasingly using Ritalin, the prescription drug to control Attention Deficit Disorder or ADD, recreationally. This recreational use was framed in the media as "bad" while the constant use of the identical drug by young ehildren as a means of controlling hyperactivity is framed as "good". Patricia Erickson goes a step further by providing statistics which help to substantiate the elaim that sorne of the most "damaging" drugs are those that are culturally accepted,

7 see Young (1973), Erickson (1996), and Sanders (1990) • 8 see Young (1973), 10 22

Il •••an estimated 15,000 people now die annually in Canada from alcohol­ related causes and 35,000 trom tobacco..related caused. Nor are medically prescribed drugs immune from excessive or inappropriate use. • ln contrast, the deaths attributable each year to ail the illicit drugs combined number in the hundreds; Such figures are the basis for the conclusion that the drugs carrying the greatest health and safety risks are not, in tact, iIIegal ll (Addiction Research Foundation quoted in Erickson: 66).

Steve Redhead suggests that, IIlt is discourses on drugs which produce drugs as a

problem not the other way aroundll (Redhead 1993b: 7). Whether drugs that are "bad" become iIIegal, or whether drugs that are iIIegal become "bad", is an unsolvable dispute.

Stagnant discourses

"Every sub..culture breeds its own moral panic, every moral panic IS stereotyped by its own devil drug" (i-D magazine quoted in Thomton: 134).

• Moral panics and folk devils will continue to recur. This is not because such developments have an inexorable inner logic, but because our society as presently structured will continue to generate problems for sorne of its members- like working­ class adolescents- and then condemn whatever solution these groups find. 9 Approximately sixteen years after Cohen's "mods" and "rockers", a new breed of deviants have arrived with the globally proliferated rave culture. The discourses surrounding rave in the U.S., Canada and the U.K, are virtually interchangeable. The rave space itself was immediately denounced as being the arena for evil drug consumption of the "new" and dangerous drug: ecstasy.

To provide a context for the present discourses surrounding "rave" drug consumption and to show that the drug myths within rave discourse have origins previous to the 19905, 1 will look at two different eras and the drugs that were "atlached" to the • 9 see Cohen (1980), 204 23

• subsequent periods. The thirty year span between each discourse hints at a cycle of seemingly "necessary" social control and perhaps as Cohen has suggested, social discontent. In each case 1 will look at the most poignant articles found with similar language and fear tactics etc.

19308 Marijuana

"...After chain-smoking reefers for weeks, Ralph flips out, kills one of the pushers, and is sent off to an insane asylum. One of the women is sent up river, and the other is so shamed by pleading guilty to ''fostering moral delinquency" that she leaps out a window" (Starks: 102).

The above quote recounts the episodes in the propagandistic, pseudo-documentary "Reefer Madness." Made in 1937, the film was a cry ta parents ta protect their children from the perils of marijuana. The drug had an extremely threatened existence in the mid-to-Iate '30s; whether or not marijuana's name was deliberately or ignorantly • tamished, it was seen as an, "unspeakable scourge-the Real Public Enemy" (Gasnier) in the popular discourse of the time.

The forward of "Reefer Madness" explains the events are intended ta startle the audience in effort ta emphasize, "the frightful toll of the new drug menace which is destroying the youth of America" (ibid). The film stresses the raie of parents at this most crucial of times, "It must be stopped. You and ail the school parent groups about the country, Vou must stand united on this and stamp out this frightful assassin of our youth." "Reefer Madness" was not the first of an influx of marijuana scare films, the same year saw the making of "Assassin of Youth" and "Marijuana- Weed with Roots in Hell"; ail of which were preceded by "Marijuana -The Devil's Weed" in 1936. • 24

The movie titles, messages and language were not unlike any of the newspaper and • magazine articles also written around the time. Countless articles in the late '30s wamed of marijuana's wicked affects on youth. The Scientific American article, "Marihuana More Dangerous than Heroin or Cocaine" suggests the drug adhered, IIto its Old World traditions of murder, assault, rape, physical demoralization, and mental breakdown." The "Old World Traditions" ta which the article alludes are the mythical roots that associate the ward "assassin" with marijuana. The Oxford dictionary defines assasin as, "any group of Muslim fanatics sent on murder missions in the time of the Crusades" (1990). It is derived from the Arabie word, hassas meaning hashish-eater.

ln "Marijuana Menace" the Attorney General of Kansas notes that many scientists had minimized its harmfulness. Regardless of scientific opinion this Attomey knew the truth, "records olfer ample evidence that it has a disastrous effect on many of its users" (Scientific American). The article "Assassin of Youth" asserts that Marijuana was, • "Founded by the military and religious arder of the Assassins" in "Persia", adopted by the "Mexicans", brought north by the jazz "musicians" and finally unleashed like a "coiled rattlesnake" on America's youth (Aslinger). This article provides a waming not unlike that of "Reefer Madness," ''There must be constant enforcement and constant education against this enemy, which has a record of murder and terror running through the centuries" (ibid). Not only is the myth of the evil drug apparent in this article but the drug itself is compared to the mythologically evil serpent.

ln his essay IIYouth Subcultures, Deviancy and the Media," Paul Walton explains the phenomenon of difference, "Among the myriad codes and conventions which give form and story structure to the mass media's accounts are those basic appeals-often written off as popular -which deduce difterence ta simple evil" (Walton: 71). This exemplification • of difference is evident in the article, "Youth Gone Loco", which underlines "...eighty per 25

• cent of ail the murders committed by Mexicans are done while the killers are drugged by

marijuana," and that in areas inhabited by U.S. immigrants such as "Latin Americans,

Filipinos, Spaniards and Negroes", half of the violent crimes are committed because of

marijuana (Gard). This article helps confer that in America in the 1930s, foreigners'

difference was interpreted as deviance, and any alignment towards marijuana justified

this difference. The term marijuana spelled with a Spanish "j" instead of the English

spelling marihuana, filled the word with meaning and signification, associating the drug

with the Other: the Mexicans.

The language of the 1930s discourses surrounding marijuana was very reflective of the

general messages. Words such as, "Killer narcotic," "assassin," "menace," ''frightful,''

and "demoralization," were found consistently and abundantly.

19605 LSO

• Thirty years after marijuana threatened to invade America's population of youth, another peril arrived with the headline "LSD: New Menace ta Youth." Reminiscent of 19305

articles like "One more Peril for Youth," the language and structure of 1960s di5course

echoed the fears of 30 years before; marijuana was still being smoked, but a new drug

posed a more serious threat: LSO. While marijuana smoking in the '30s was targeted as

a youth invasion, it wasn't aligned with a particular youth subculture; the idea of a ''youth

culture" didn't exist until the 1950s with the advent of excess leisure time and rock'n'roll.

By the 1960s LSD pointed to a hazardous and oft-misunderstood subculture, the

hippies: long-haired, unwashed, "misfits", who enjoyed free love, peaee and of course,

iIIicit substances. Although LSO had been used since the 1950s it was its association

with a youth subeulture that brought it to the public eye, acting as the new "public • scurgell driving fear into the minds of the mainstream. The aforementioned LSD article 26

• suggests that when drugs inhibit one's function and role in society t the domino effect will

in tum hurt society itself, not just the drug taker,

"The tragedy is that psychedelic drugs find their adepts...among a portion of the youth of today...who are our hope for the future and could work ta build a better world for tomorrow that the one we have today" (Evang).

Within the article, pictures from a Czech public service commercial show a young girf going insane and jumping out of a window after taking a pill which is assumed ta be LSD. This fictional account of an LSD user is not unlike the traumatic end of the 1930s fictional documentary "Reefer Madness". The article reinforces the status quo by telling readers that it's not safe to know tao much, that many who take psychedelic drugs claim

"ta be liberated from social convention" which will incur nothing more than "alienation and "renunciation".

"My son is on LSD" pleads ta parents in a similar tone to the fictitious "Reefer

ll • Madness • The article details how the author's son was introduced to LSD by hippies who helped perpetuate his alleged LSD addiction. The article claims that hippies are, "...Iargely lasers, misfits who have not had notable success at anything in their earlier lives" (Roberts: 93). He rationalizes this by suggesting teens have diminishing avenues ot success, because unlike earlier generations when a person gradually went trom childhood ta adulthood, teenagers are uheld in reserve", waiting to go into the labour market. It is this teenage-void that causes their curiosity and drug-taking.

ln April of 1966, two extreme LSD cases hit the media circuits which helped epitomize the tears surrounding LSD, and increased the volume of panic sirens. Accidentally, a

five-year old girl "Donna" ingested a sugar cube impregnated with LSD that her eighteen

• year old uncle had left in the fridge. A couple of weeks Ister a Time article entitled l'the 27

• Dangers of LSD" reiterated the Donna case and added a murder to the list of possible effects of LSO. Stephen Kessler slashed his mother-in-Iaw to death after tripping on aeid for three days. The article admitted that Kessler had reeently been admitted to a psychiatrie hospital but instead of emphasizing that he was a psychiatrie patient, who dabbled in LSD, the article suggested it was the LSD that caused his psychosis. As in the aforementioned article, the typical "devianf personality type of the LSO user was spelled out, "young, direetionless and more confused misfits, with different problems"

(Time). The unfortunate case of "Donnall was now an integral figure in the campaign against Acid.

Even though the chemical make up of marijuana and LSD are completely different, with both affecting different parts of the brain, the discourses would assume that results are similar...jumping out of windows, murder and a "taIl" from society. The LSD articles were • saturated with epithets of fear, echoing the cries of 30 years before: "Danger", "threat", "menace", "horror", "suicide", l'murder".

1990s Ecstasy

The discourse surrounding the drug ecstasy has been wrapped in a slightly different package than the drug discourse of the '30s and '60s. A distinctly recognizable youth culture was non-existent in the 1930s, which may explain why marijuana wasn't symbolically linked to any phenomenon or youth culture in the 130s. By the 1960s, Timothy Leary helped bring LSD into the public eye, aligning most acid stories with the ''Tune in, Tum on, Drop out," college hippie movement. The drug use of these two eras was not hidden, confined or aligned to a social arena. Although a subculture, and arguablya "Iifestyle," the drug use synonymous with rave culture typically happens in • the culture's weekend arena: the rave. Unlike the two preceding drug phenomena, 28

ecstasy use as it relates to rave provided the media with a physical space to denounce; • not only was the drug itself blacklisted, but by implication sa too were raves. It is a rave's seemingly secret, underworld nature that helps fuel investigation and fear. Like

marijuana and LSO, Ecstasy was not new when it tirst appeared in public discourse. Extreme cases of death and identifiable subcultural usage opened the camera's eyes ta

this seemingly "new" youth killer. Rave contained the ingredients for a tabloid's dream story: youth, sexuality, after-hours, secrecy and "new" iIIicit substances, ail wrapped up in a pictorial spectacle of lights and music.

ln Clubcultures: Music, Media...and Subcultural capital, Sarah Thomton discusses the media's role in distorting subcultural activity and its contribution to subcultural development as it namas, describes and places discursive parameters around il. Thomton attributes this development not only to mass media such as newspapers, TV and tabloïds but to niche media such as the music and style press. Media involvement • with acid house certainly began with the niche press such as i-O magazine in January of 1988 while the scene was only in its earliest stage with only a couple of clubs in operation. Arguably, it is exposure of this kind in style and music based magazines that peaked interest in likely followers and began initiating a crowd. Sy the summer of that year after the scene had blossomed into larger locales, the tabloid press commenced an ongoing moral panic which often adorned the front page.

The Sun tabloid in England found rave in its embryonic stage when the event was still

named an acid-party. The front page heralded their discovery, "Spaced Out! 11,000 youngsters go drug crazy at Sritain's biggest-ever Acid partY' (Keflaway 1989a: 1). The

message under the picture of dancing youths read, "Night of Ecstasy...thrill-seeking

youngsters in a dance frenzy at the secret party," the secret of rave had been "busted" • and so had the next drug villain: Ecstasy. 29

• According to Sarah Thomton, stories of moral panic help certify difference and legitimize subcultures, while media stories that speak positively towards subcultures are the, "kiss of death." Either kind of coverage, however, will likely cause the, "...abandonment of the key insignia of the culture" (Thomton: 116). As soon as the press got hold of the "smiley" logo and the key word "acid," both were dropped by the culture. This couId help explain why "acid house" quietly morphed into rave after the media caught on ta the term Acid House, then later rave would be dropped for the same reason simply to become the more ambiguous term "party" or "evenf'. Toronto promoter Beverly May eludes to the importance of being unaccepted by mainstream culture, "If your whole stance is anti and then you're accepted what are Vou then?" (May 1999a). Once a culture has been accepted by the media and has been saturated by mainstream influences the culture is no longer subversive enough to adom the prefix "sub".

• Niche media such as music and style magazines and subcultural participants themselves, traditionally condemn their negative representation in the media but simultaneously enjoy the sensationalism and inaccuracies within stories. According to Sheryl Garrett, "...gloating over the details they have wrong, is part of the joy of being involved in an underground movement" (Garrett: 162). This "misunderstanding" by the media can be favourable and desirable for subcultural industries, as it helps advertise subcultures to new recruits who wish ta be part of a defiant culture. Ta those who hadn't been to a rave, the media's exposé of all-night dancing and drug taking could be enticement enough.

• 30

• The "kid next door" starts to rave

"Apparently it \Vas a dosing of crystal and coke, and his heart literally exploded. Oh yeah he was dead for a long time at the rave" (~cCqll).

The final rave for "Effective" in June of 199 marked Toronto's first ~cknowledged rave­ re/ated death. A 16 yaar old boy had speedballed'o with his friendS Who danced around him white he died. They Kiere either tao scared ta report it or tao IImessed up" on drugs themselves to realize he was dying. Rigor morlis was setting in aS the baSs continued ifs rumble, the lights flashed and feet trampled in ecstatic bliss al/ éfroU""d the stiffening body. That same night somsone reported an attempted rape in the bathroom. The deaths mentioned in frantic British tabloids and Amer;can TV news magazines were often rationalized by participants as being extremely 10'/1 considering the amount of raves and patrons of ecstasy. Are raves to be blamed at al/ for its validation and naturalization of such extremist behaviour? How dOes tave transgress from hugs, smiles and feel good vibes to attempted rapes and o\lerdoses of cocaine and crystal methamphetamine?

It is not surprising that for the first time in rave's nine year history in Toronto, it has

finally been deemed newsworthy and hit the headlines; the incess81)t beats are literally

• waking up the neighbours and causing a stir. 11 Dissemination of rave and its portrayal within the media in this city has been relatively slow and arduous. The PreClirsor to the

full fledged moral panic evident this year surrounding raves was tf1~ TOronto Stars full

page article in the Lite section bearing the heading "Danger Par1i~s" followed by the

claim, "teens risk their lives at raves". Within the article parents were "urged to be wary"

and were alerted of the waming signs that their child was attendil1Q raves. The article

suggested that, tl•••the entire community must come together ta stol:) raVes fram taking

place. Ill's going to take a fatality to make a change'" (Sanders-Greer: H4 ).

Over two years later, a fatality did make a change. By 1999 raving was at its highest

peak in Toronto, with events gathering record attendance of 10 to 20,000. setween July

and October there were three rave-related deaths in the city, de~pef)ing the public

10 Typically refers lo a combination of speed and cocaïne. Il Toronto residents made cornplaints to city councilors after an outdoor lakefront party kePt them awake miles from • the evenl. See Rebecca Bragg 31

distaste already apparent for raves. Suddenly, after only a few spatterings of articles • after almost nine years of raving, news of the phenomenon hit the front-page. In the Saturday Sun in Sept of '99 the front page said it ail, IIRave scene: Drugs 'Tao easyJII.

Inside a picture of a police sergeant sits with a mountain of seized "rave" drugs and

money while readers are told that clubbers are "ecstatic about rave 'chemicalsln (Findlay). Two months later raving appeared on the front page of Toronto's more

reputable paper the Toronto Star, With the heading "Agonizing over Ecstasy" (Patter: 1).

It is difficult ta surmise whether the moral panic headed by the media and the govemment's task force ta stop raves, is due to the growing number of ecstasy-related deaths or the fact that raves have grown immensely in size over the last year. Afthough the two factors were indeed simultaneous, it can be argued the deaths are partly due to the increase in size and therefore an increase in drug users. Promoter Beverly May suggests reasons why the media is only now so involved, "Now we have parties that • have 15,000 people, the average youth's going, so of course the average mainstream media is going to be interested now, it's big news that Oaddy's little favourite is exposed to these things" (May 1999a).

It is the "averageness" of participants that makes rave even more newswarthy now than ever befora. Typically, if a delinquent, "freakt' or drug addict dies it is not very newsworthy, however, if the average teenager, son, daughter, or student with a promising future dies after ingesting the same controlled substance it is definitely newsworthy because it provides the grounds for a crackdown on drugs. In the three most publicized ecstasy and/or rave related deaths in the U.K., the U.S., and Canada, it was their "normality" and "averageness" which was stressed. In the U.K., it was 18-year­ old Leah Betts who became the poster chird for the panic surrounding ecstasy. She • lived in a remote farmhouse with her mather who was a nurse, and her father who was 32

• a retired police officer. It was this ordinariness that caused such a stir in the media, and according to Sheryl Garrett, "...a distressing, close-up picture of Leah in her hospital bed, tubes running trom her nose and open mouth,...was quickly tumed into an anti­

drug poster by the Sun n (Garrett: 309). The funeral was videotaped and permitted to be used in schools as a propaganda tool, while her picture could be seen everywhere on huge billboards.

ln the U.S., panic was fully demonstrated with the nationwide ABC newsmagazine 20/20 in January '97. The tirst segment was devoted to the uncovering of the "the latest­ kid-craze," the "craze" that had ironically been occurring for almost a decade. The

opening of the piece alerts parents, "00 Vou know where your teenagers are? This could be the night your child ventures into a secretive and potentially dangerous world. The world of the rave" (De Landri). Out of a number of deaths, 20/20 exemplified one • case. Not unlike Leah Betts in England, Sandra Montessi was a regular, middle class, attractive college student whose mother pleaded that we "stop the raves. Ifs not a dance it's not a safe place for your kids" (ibid.). The reporter provides a "thorough" analysis of what goes on at these "dangerous" raves in a 30 second mouthful,

"lt sounds innocent. But beneath the laser lights and loud music, America's youth are rebelling in a new and dangerous way. Ifs chaos tuelled by blatant, brazen drug-taking. Raves are happening...anywhere that's away from adult supervision" (ibid.).

The segment ends with a reassuring note to Americans that they, "didn't start it". Just as the musicians and Mexicans were accused of bringing marijuana to the children of America, there is an Other in the rave menace who brought ecstasy and rave culture overseas: the English. Somehow blaming an Other relieves America of any guilt and • instead portrays American children as innocent victims who need ta be protected. 33

• In Canada, the death most readily mentioned is the 21-year-old Ayerson student who was according to one article, "...just starting into third year in a field that promised a

great future" (Sonmor). He was described in the same Toronto Sun article as a "...poUte young man who didn't act or dress outlandishly" (ibid). As the most average "victim" he was deemed the most newsworthy. Like the U.S. and the U.K., the police are trying to find the death in Toronto that will most appropriately validate their panic. Toronto's Deputy Chief Coroner Dr. Jim Caims informed the public that, "We're looking at which (ecstasy-related death) would be best suited ta get the message across to the public, the perfect case that demonstrates our concem" (Potter: 1). It had taken approximately 10 ecstasy-related deaths over a decade for raves to be publicly denounced in the media. The city's police chief headed the onslaught on raves suggesting they,

Il •••provide a venue and willing customers tor the drug dealers. (They are) mercenary • merchants of death preying on kids who are out for a good time" (Lee-Shanok). ln his analysis of rave music, Philip Tagg suggests that adults tear, "...that their sons

and daughters...are out of control and that the young people, by organising and

participating in these raves, have in tact started ta take control over their own lack of

control of society" (Tagg: 210-11). A number of articles surrounding rave seem to

substantiate this claim. On May 5/00 The Toronto Sun's first page announced that the

city's police chief had invited the Prime Minister to a rave to show him how, IIdrug

parties are 'threatening' youth" (Kingstone 2000). The article provides a quote from the

police chief who claims that raves are "threatening the very fabric of Canadian life"

(ibid). One week later the city council made a decision to ban raves on public property • while the mayor positioned fears and myths of panic proportions, "When people take 34

this Ecstasy...they go nuts and Vou cannat control thern. The caps cannat control them ll • (Ruryk).

The Iynching of raves was certainly not limited to print media. Toronto's City Pulse news

also showed mayor Mel Lastman to be the unofficial guardian of the victims of rave

culture. His "responsible" govemment promised constituents that he would not tolerate

"...illega) after-hours clubs and raves...we will do everything in our power to shut them

down," and, "padlock these dens of drugs and guns" (Znaimer). The inaccurate Iinking

of after-hours clubs with raves had the public believing that raves were a place of

violence. Ironically, these news stories that abscond raves for their alleged violence and

iIIegal activities do so over pictures that contain pretty lights, people smiling, waving into

the cameras, hugging one another, and dancing. In the City Pulse piece a young male • dances with sunglasses, a soother in his mouth and a long brightly coloured woolen cap on his head making the commentary of the veritable "war" against raves almost comic;

these happy rave pictures give the panicked words very little validity. City Pulse

concludes their foray inta raves with a three part series called "Ovemight and

Underground" on City Pulse that promised ta tell the public what theïr children really "get

up ta" at raves.

ln his study of punk in the late 1970s, Dick Hebdige points out that media reaction to

spectacular subcultures is often ambivalent; it is simultaneously fascinated and amused,

dreaded and outraged. Hebdige believes that it is usually a subculture's style that

initially attracts media attention, then as deviant and anti..social aets are uneovered they • are used, "...to 'explain' the subculture's original transgression of sartorial codes" 35

(Hebdige 1979: 93). This is clearly evident with rave and acid house and the case of the • British tabloid The Sun. The newspaper initially printed an "acid house fashion guide" calling the acid house style "cool and groovy" and sold their own version of the smiley T­ shirt which had come to represent Acid House; one week later as acid house's drug

associations were uncovered, moral panic ensued and The Sun stopped their T-shirt offer and started a, '''Say No ta drugs' campaign with a frowning smiley logo" (Collin:77).

The situation was similar in America, New York magazine had an article commenting on rave style and the outlandish, childlike nature of the fashion while CSS newsmagazine 20/20 totally absconded raves for their drug-play. Likewise in Toronto, there seems ta be an ambiguous relationship ta raves even within one paper; in amongst months of

condemning articles about rave in The Toronto Star, there appeared a two page article devoted to rave-flyer art with no mention of rave drugs and their side-effects.

The headline, "Celebrating drug abuse: The rave generation tunes inta LSD and • ecstasy"(Cunningham), beautifully homogenizes a multitude of condemning discourses. According to this Alberta newspaper article not only is this generation doing drugs, they're celebrating about il. Although a "new" drug and subculture have been added to the century old list of menaces, the article reiterates prejudices that date back ta the '60s and beyond. Just as the hippies were called "misfits" and "directionless," (Roberts: 93) the drug users of the '90s are accused in this article of being "Iazy and bored" (Cunningham). In the '30s "Reeter Madness" wamed parents of the evils of marijuana, "lt must be stopped. You and ail the school parent groups about the country, Vou must stand united on this and stamp out this trightful assassin of our youtho" Articles in the '60s like "my son is on LSD" had a similar message with a different drug, reassuring parents, "lt's not the Jack of a perfect home that drives children to run away ta the hippie scene" (Roberts). With rave culture in the 190s the structures from decades before • remain intact with a similar message ta parents in the UoSo, "we need ta stop the 36

• raves.. .itls not a safe place for your kids" (De Landri). Similarly the front page of

Canada's national magazine Maclean's wamed on April 24, 2000, Il •••the drugs can kill­

what parents need ta know. 11 The formulaic fears of drug-mongering pied pipers have remained intact for decades: threat ta family life; drugs for hedonistic purposes; dangers for youth.

The perpetuai life of myth in the media

"Up till now it has been thought that the growth of the Christian myths during the Roman Empire was possible only because printing was not yet invented. Precisely the contrary. The daily press and the telegraph, which in a moment spread inventions over the whole earth, fabricate more myths.. .in one day than could have formerly been done in a century" (Karl Marx in Cohen 1973:5).

Joumalists are taught to ask six integral questions for every news story they encounter:

• who, what, where, why, when, and how. Mysteriously, in the discourses surrounding

drug consumption, one of those questions is typically ignored: WHY? The youths have

changed styles, they've changed drugs (or simply added ta their menu) but what may

have remained constant is why kids consistently, generation, after generation, are

drawn ta drugs. In the discourses conceming LSD in the '60s two separate New

Republic articles stepped away from the typical fear formula and instead asked a similar

question. The New Republic said, "Attacking society's minor symptoms, without

recognizing society's major disease which causes them, is a fruitless pursuit" (New

Republic). This article suggests that drugs are evidence of a much larger systemic

problem at work. • 37

ln many of the articles analyzed throughout this paper there is little differentiation shown • between drugs. Ecstasy was considered at one time an opium-based designer drug, then an amphetamine and even a hallucinogen; society tells us "ail drugs" that are

neither prescribed nor govemment sanctioned are bad and evil. Drugs have been

served a similar fate ta the mytholigically evil snake. Ali snakes are feared because a

select few are venomous; ail drugs are killers because of the laws which surround them.

Interestingly ail three drugs that are outlined are non-addictive and have been used as

medical tools within their lite spans, but once aligned with fear and/or subculture, they

became as ominous and frighttul as crack or heroine.

ln ''The Myth of the Drug Taker" 1 Jock Young suggests that the media position

themselves as ''the guardians of consensus" (Young 1973: 317). They perpetuate the • quiet myths that are seemingly impossible to evade. Mathew Collin believes, IIThe dividing line between legal and iIIegal drugs is largely a social construct, reliant on

tradition, morality and culture as much as science and 10gic... 11 (Collins: 297). One

"street" drug is as wrong or deviant as the next, regardless of scientific evidence of non­

addictive properties and few damaging physiological and psychologieal effects. As

recycled myth, the meanings and signs surrounding evif drugs have become axiomatic

in the public view .A recent U.S. Public service announcement resonates tears that

have lived tor sixty long years. "In a world this dangerous there's no such thing as a

harmless drug: Talk ta your ehildren about marijuana:' ln a world this dangerous there's

no such thing as a stocy without origin: Talk to your children about myth. • 38

Dance

• The ingredient most often absent from subcultural discourse and specifically rave discourse is the action of subcultural participants: their communal gathering to dance.

By abandoning the rationalist view of dance and establishing its importance as an

innate human activity, raves help to establish dance as a meaningful, non-rational forrn

of communication. The following section will position some of the rational theories

surrounding dance against the non-rational theories. Dance and movement will be

iIIustrated as a means of communicating our social values, and dance as it exists within

the rave environment will be highlighted.

A rationale for dance

1was six years old when 1performed my first dance solo. 1had already been dancing for three years but this moment was magieal. 1can still remember my costume; it was red with white polka-dots, my tap shoes were black patent leather. 1 also recall my initial fear tumed ta excitement, then elation as the audience melted away and 1realized 1was • in my own spotlight; my feet seemed to move more quickly than Bver before and suddenly 1was free Iike never before. 1was 21 years old when 1daneed at my first rave. 1 remember my outf;t: 1 wore denim overalls; "Nike" running shoes; and my hair in pigtails. 1 experienced the fear and excitement of taking part in something that was deemed underground and possibly immoral as 1was transported by a small freight ferry ta the island airport hanger where the event was taking place. The butterflies in my stomach calmed as the crowd me/ted away and / drew in the lights and absorbed the bass. Suddenly my feet moved without me telling them ta and 1 was reunited with the freedom 1felt as a child dancing on stage.

Why are the feelings one experiences when one dances so difficult to articulate?

Feminist theorist Angela McRobbie suggests that, "Dancing seems to retain at its centre

a solid resistance to analysis. So deeply have we absorbed its rules and its rituals...that

somehow we avoid subjecting ail this to the scrutiny of analysis" (McRobbie 1984: 97).

Conversely when dance is subjected ta analysis, the outcome is generally a

• rationalization of the social arenas surrounding dance or the philosophical 39

underpinnings of a cultural art form. Dance theorist Susan Leigh Foster criticizes many • of the recent academic articles on the body accusing them of either by- passing the physicality of the body in order to reach a "theoretical agenda," or, analysing and

scrutinizing the body, "only as a product of the various discourses that measure ir

(Foster: 235). Typically the dancing body is lost in a sea of theoretical jargon and

rationales. Cultural theorists, dance scholars, and dancers tumed scholars have

repeatedly tried to find "meaning in motion". Perhaps motion doesn't create meaning

through its outcome but is meaningful in itself.

Of a myriad of convoluted theories on dance, it seems as though no-one even

attempted to answer the most integral question, "why do we dance?" Perhaps that

question is too base for most theorists and would be akin to asking, "why do we walkJl? Because we cano A three year old has a need ta move in a free form unregimented manner. They hear music and they need to move ta it and we cali this movement • "dance" whether it's a recognized dance movement or not. Through a definition of what dance is in artistic terms Western culture slowly helps shut these doors to free

movement and assigns particular movements ta the body. Hence dance is an execution of a particular arrangement of pre-determined steps in which a teacher and/or defined

style of dance dictates if the movement is correct or not. This dictation even extends ta

social functions such as clubs, weddings, barmitzvas etc. In social settings participants

aren't necessarily complying ta an artistic aesthetic but they are usually 5ubscribing to a

status quo and adhering to what culture deems appropriate social movement. Those

that do not are often ridiculed.

This fear of dancing appropriately is 50 evident it is often suggested in popular media

such as television. In one episode of the late sitcom Seinfeld, one of the main • characters named Elaine is ridiculed throughout the duration of the show for dancing 40

• terriblyat an office Christmas party. On the British Soap Opera Coronation Street, the character Roy is so ashamed of his lack of rhythm that he secretly takes disco dance lessons before goin9 to a disco with his girlfriend. It's commonplace for adults to confess they can't dance when in social situations where dance is expected. Contrarily, a three year old would never say they couldn't dance, they simply try through movement.

Somewhere between infancy and adulthood the doors to free movement are closed. At raves these doors are opened again; movement is suddenly liberated, and participants dance with reckless abandon much like children on their living room floor. Ali of a sudden the fear of social scrutiny and criticism is fargotten and participants become "slaves to the rhythm" to borrow from Grace Jones.

There are generally two distinctions within dance theorists' approaches. Those who look • at dance cultures as a means to an end can be explained as being rational, while those who understand dance to have its own meaningful outcome are explained as being non­ rational. In rationalist terms dance or dance arenas are often seen as a means of

meeting a mate12; a place of free sexual transgression 13 and a place ta consume illicit drugs14 ln non-rational terms dance is understood as a means of self-expression 15 a

17 non-verbal form of communication 16 ritual and hedonism 18

12 see Mungham (1976) 13 see Walsh (1993) 14 sec Cunningham; Kellaway; Sanders Greer, Oh and Atherley 15 see Graham (1998) 16 see Hanna (1979) 17 sec Oyortey (1993) • 12 see Garrall (1998) 41

Rational view s vs. • non-rational views of dance "Circles....white circles...circles of Iight...I'm trying to find something better than T-shirt sufisms ta describe the feelings aroused by the swirling undulations of the Whirling Dervishes' skirts.. .1 start to take notes on the pad in my lap, watching the Whirling Dervishes last week in Austin, Texas, but 1 immediately sense the shock of the elderly lady on my right, my hostess and guide, a devotee of the Mevlevi Sufi order of Islam, and smile as 1 realize 1 agree with her-how detached! taking notes on ecstatic trances-... 1 also realize that whatever she's feeling, l've fallen into the rationalist's prejudice against reason, our materialistie preference for

assumption..." (Wetzsteon: 507). Il •••one of the dervishes asked me after the performance for my reaction, and 1 found myself agreeing-to say anything at ail is difficult, for to undertake the act of detachment necessary to describe is precisely to deny the feeling of the experienee " (ibid: 511).

As Ross Wetzsteon realized it is sometimes the most obvious thing to attempt to rational dance. If we've forgotten what it feels like to tum in cireles until we fall over in dizziness and laughter then we are likely to try and rationalize why one might do il. As a child you would simply say you did it because it was fun, but as an adult, or more • specifically a Whirling Dervish, it would be explained as ritual or transcendentalism. If the same twirling action was part of a secular Western dance on stage, the average dance eritic would undoubtedly criticize it as being redundant and unimaginative. However, in the Turkish tradition as explained above, it is deemed meaningful because it is steeped in religious rituel. Understanding the volatile nature of dance, the ever changing ways it is esteemed can be realized. To place ail dance on a more equal

critical awareness l one must look at dance non-rationally.

For the most part, the Western ideal of dance is a limited one. On one end of the spectrum dance is assumed to be "high art," something only appreciated and enjoyed by an elite group. On the other end of the spectrum social dance is still seen as • sornething enjoyed by a limited group hidden in the darkness of clubs where movement 42

is sexualized and routinized for the purpose of mate hunting. In this sense dance is • rationalized because it has a reasonable purpose: to entertain or to find a mate.

Like most art forms sorne dance styles have value ascribed to them and others do nct. Western culture commonly esteems dance which exhibits specialized skill and training and which is performed on a proscenium stage to have value as an art form. More often than not, ballet is the most highly reeognized. We rationalize ballet's importance as a beautiful art form that coheres to our societal values. The dance that doesn't take place on the proscenium stage typically has little value ascribed to il. Understanding dance as either art, ritual, or play can shed light on why some dance is deemed more meaningful than others. Dance in many non-Western cultures sueh as Afriea, is understood by sociologists as ritual, or a codified, repetitive social praetiee eneompassing symbolic actions/steps and adhering to the myths and ideologies making up that culture. 19 Dance in Western culture can generally be subdivided into art and play. Art is that which is • performed on stage and adheres ta a set of artistic rules with the purpose of entertainment for an audience. It is usually categorized by its degree of specialization whieh has led to the development of an "art establishment" consisting of critics, historians, schools, museums etc. This establishment defines what is and is not dance. ln so doing art establishments refleet the deeply rooted divisions and stratifications within a given culture. Dance that is generally understood as play, is the dancing done at clubs, bars, raves, your living room etc. Play is understood to have very little meaning and importance. Western culture defines play negatively; it deifies work, it is deemed non productive and not serious. According ta anthropologists Emily Shultz and Robert Lavenda, "Play seems senseless, admitting the very chaos and misrule that social structures are meant to control" (Shultz: 175). As humans grow out of their childhood

• 19 sec Shultz and Lavenda (1995) 43

• years, play becomes less acceptable because it is non-productive in Western social structures.

The types of dance that are consistently unaccepted or ignored are particularly those that are sub-cultural, taking place in dance-venues such as clubs, bars, and raves. More often than not, the activity surrounding the dance takes precedence leaving the act of dance ignored. The following section examines the rationalist analysis of dance cultures from the '60s, '70s and '90s.

Dancehalls ln the 1960's Geoff Mungham conducted what is said to be the most comprehensive study of dance halls. Within the first paragraph he makes his intention clear, that the study is not about dancing, but the "mass dance" and those who trequent them. Quite simply his aim is to show the rationale behind dancing: to meet members of the • opposite sex. Mungham sees the dance as a convention of courtship, dating, and sexual bargaining. He explains that the ordered and conformed proceedings on the dance floor are simply a vehicle for sexual gratification, "The dance becomes a mechanical configuration; it represents, as it were, the Mechanization of the sexual impulse" (Mungham: 192). Mungham notes that few men dance weil or seem to enjoy it but does not elaborate on why soeialization or Western culture has contributed to the feminine overtones associated with dancing in Britain. He does, however, suggest that the "body taboos" apparent in English culture overlap into the dance arena where there is little demonstrativeness. Nowhere does Mungham wrestle with the possibility that patrons enjoyed dancing, or why they chose a dance arena over other reereational outlets as a marriage meeting place. The outcome of dance is seen as important and even necessary for British working class culture but the aet itselt is given very little • validity, scrutiny, or analysis. 44

Andrew H. Ward hypothesizes that because dance is marginal in society it doesn't • receive great attention; therefore groups that have dance as their central activity will be marginalized. He notes that even youth studies that centre around dance phenomena aren't solely concemed with dance. Here Ward uses Mungham's previously discussed dance-hall study as an example which Ward claims is one of the "fullest" treatments on youth social dancing, yet outwardly explains in the second line that it is not a study of dancing as such.

Discos A decade later David Walsh conducted a study similar to Mungham's, this time conceming discotheques. Like Mungham, Walsh believes the primary function of discos remains consistent with that of dancehalls and social dancing: mating. He doesn't challenge the rationalist view of dance and sees the activity solely as a means of meeting a partner. One could quite as easily meet a partner at a coffee shop if society • decided these were appropriate singles hang outs. So why did dancehalls and discos serve this niche? ln this sense Walsh exhibits the same functionalist attitude towards dance that Mungham does. Walsh believes the gay disco has an important function for homosexuals by offering a community atmosphere where they can be "out" comfortably. He outlines the process of the mate pursuit with great detail but pays no attention ta the activity surrounding it dancing. Walsh's essay therefore understands dancing to be a means to an end (chatting up, dating, having sex) and not as an end in itself. That disco patrons thoroughly enjoyed dancing for hours on end is not an issue for Walsh.

Once again, Andrew Ward offers an atittude opposed to the previous functionalist approach to discos. Ward believes the disco helped dismantfe the normalized notion of a dance partner; the continuation of music between tracks left no time for the ritualized • search for a partner between songs. If Ward's suggestion is true, the dancing itself must 45

• have been a primary means of communication in a disco because of the absence of quiet moments to talk between songs.

Neither Mungham in his study of dancehalls or Walsh is his study of discos accredit dance with its own meaningful outcome. Dance is arguably a much easier form of communicating with a stranger than the idle chit-chat that's often exchanged at bars. Body language can communicate with someone across the dance floor with much greater ease then having to shout over the music.

Raves ln his essay, "Rave Culture: Living Dream or Living Death?" Simon Reynolds offers an in depth analysis of the British rave scene. In this essay he suggests that raves are dying and have become meaningless. He believes ravers fall in love with "nothing" • every weekend only to have their hearts broken when the party's over. For Reynolds, rave is a culture that is void of destination or objective and suggests the concept l'rave culture" is oxymoronic because of rave's lack of "culture". Reynolds' essay targets the drugs, the music, and the participants and barely mentions the fact that raves are about dancing. Like the aforementioned essays, Reynolds attempts to rationalize raves and in this process understands them to have very little rational outcome; he therefore deems them pointless. He believes they are solely about tautology and dismisses the tact that hedonism can be meaningful expression. The fact that up to tens of thousands of people have gathered to dance is ignored. Although rationalist in their scope, Reynolds' points are not without viladity. When you look at raves rationally, many aspects of the developed scene have become meaningless: drug use has become more rampant; the age of ravers has become objectionably young; and many participants don't even seem to know or care which DJ they are hearing. However, there is one non-rational, • meaningful element absent trom most accounts of rave, even one as thorough as 46

• Reynoldsl20: dancing is the mainstay of the rave community and it offers a variety of

personal and individual meanings ta those who participate. It offers an outlet for self­ expression and is often a very unifying experienee in a culture highly stratified and

disparate. For most of the discourse surrounding rave, the aet of dancing itself is lost in

a critique on the morals of drug taking, hedonism and music. George McKay suggests that it is ravels lack of reactionary politics that posits a difficulty in its academic analysis, "the problem with the rave scene is precisely its hedonism, its focus on the simple activity and pleasure of dance. Or is this a problem only for a writer/academic needing ta make rave fit the orthodoxy of his argument of a tradition of resistance?" (McKay:

115).

Andrew H. Ward uses the example of Acid House ta show how a dance movement can be reduced to a drug movement. He explains that media coverage of the Acid House • scene focused on the music and drugs, not dance itself. Ward believes that, "Even here the rationalist postulate is in operation: that people should want to travel many miles in secret to dance in fields or warehouses is beyond the grasp of reason" (Ward: 50). The media couldn't see any rational behaviour taking place within the Acid House scene therefore they deemed it as meaningless and attacked il.

Perhaps those who rationalize dance have never really danced, or perhaps they've forgotten how it felt to dance on their living room floor when they were a child. Martha Graham, one of the century's most remembered artists offers a non-rational query into

dance from a dancer's perspective. In her essay "1 am a Dancer", Martha Graham

explains why dance has such an enduring quality, "1 think the reason dance has held such an ageless magic for the world is that it has been the symbol of the performance of

20 Simon Reynolds' book Generation Ecstasy offers a more detailed accounl on raves including the very positive aspects of rave like heighlened communication and dance in its earlier days. The aforementioned essay is an account • of rave after its downward spiral towards "the darkside" in the early 1990's. 47

living" (Graham: 66). She speaks of dance in terms of personal expression not cultural • acceptance or entertainment and feels, "...that the essence of dance is the expression of man - the fandscape of his soul" (ibid: 67). Her aim is to reveal something of herself every time she dances. Dancers at a rave may also be revealing themselves in a similar manner to Martha Graham, but for both expressive dance forms the feelings experienced are very difficult to rationalize.

Marginalization of dance ln Dance Modemity and Culture, Helen Thomas very thoroughly investigates why dance may be rationalized and sometimes ignored in sociological terms. She acknowledges that dance has been recognized as an integral aspect of the leisure activities of urban youth by theorists such as Angela McRobbie, Simon Frith and Geoff Mungham, but suggests that dance itself still takes up very little discursive space in comparison to • other cultural barometers such as music. She first suggests that what is most problematic when looking at dance from a sociological perspective is dance's transitory nature. In other arts such as painting and sculpture you are left with the artistic product. In poetry and literature you have the written ward, and even with music you have a musical score; however, the dancing body and the dance cannat be separated. She then reasons that if the body receives little analytical attention/importance so too will dance. She relates this lack of bodily importance back to the 1600's in the time of Descartes and his main philosophy in his "Discourse in Method" (1637) translated as "1 think, therefore 1 am". This idea that thinking is the basis of human nature and development suggests that rationality supersedes emotion. Thomas goes on to say that we view the body as pre-linguistic and treat it as, "existing outside language and, as such, rit] is not subject to the (cultural) • conventions of discourse" (Thomas: 6). 48

• It has baen suggested that dance first became marginalized in the Middle Ages.21 During this time period in Britain, the ruling Christian church condemned anything hedonistic; ones' main purpose in life was to save the soul. The body was seen as a hindrance to this and in order to free the soul the body was ignored and punished. Natural behaviour was seen as impolite and coarse. Helen Thomas explains how society codified the body,

"The cultural codes of polite society increasingly came to be directed towards the control and privatisation of the body. The body become shrouded in manners, adomments and implements and its (natural) functions become privatised and concealed. 50 the body cornes to be classified as the dangerous 'other' to culture..." (ibid: 7).

The situation in Puritan New England in the 17th century was similar because amusement and idleness were condemned. Calvinistic rule prohibited any sort of play; life was intended to be devoted to work and because dance was contrary to work it was • forbidden. Anthropologist and dance theorist Judith Lynne Hanna explains that the Puritans, "...repudiated the body and therefore, dance, equating it with the devil's handiwork, animal instincts, and the lower forms of life" (Hanna: 9). Dancing between men and women, in tavems, around Maypoles, and accompanied by feasting and drinking were ail prohibited.

Because dance was believed to be one of the oldest of the arts, it was associated with pre-history and primitive culture. Dance was eventually associated with rites of passage and formai ritual which, in tum, were understood as elements of structurally simple, pre­ literate cultures. As cultures progressed and became more "civilized" and rationally oriented, dance lost importance and became less relevant. Hanna suggests it is this long rooted Puritan view of dance along with Western culture's negative attitude toward

• 21 see Hanna (l979); Thomas (1995); Kraus (1969) 49

• the body that has slowed and limited its prevalence in cultural discourse. It can also be argued that dance, being a display of bodily emotions, has been marginalized because of Western culture's privileging of rationality over emotion. In addition our culture generally esteems verbal language tantamount in defining our reality.

It is a cumulation of dance's emotional yet non-verbal nature, bodily display, and association with play that appears contrary ta a fast-paced, productive life which enables Western culture to marginalize and belittle its importance as primai communication.

Dance as an inscription of social values

"...dance is a liqueur which is distilled of the stuff of culture" (Polhemus: 9).

• In this statement Ted Polhemus addresses the significance of non-verbal communication systems which makeup "physical culture:' ln his essay "Dance, Gender and Culture," Polhemus suggests that cultures, whether male, female, modem or traditional, would not exist if "we did not wear them and dance them'l (Polhemus: 7). In essence, this suggests that dance has a direct working relationship with culture and is, in fact, a reflection of that culture. He believes that the use of the personal body relates to a greater "social body". This section examines how Western dance, typically ballet, is representational of Western ideals while national dances such as those in Africa differ tram this Western notion of dance.

Many feminist theorists who comment on dance make the accusation that ballet conforms to patriarchal society, but surprisingly these theories do Iittle to suggest that • this was perhaps the root cause of dance's feminine overtones. Consistently absent 50

• within dance classes are male participants.22 The majority of boys treat dance with disdain and embarrassment; it is mocked because these young skeptics see dance as gay men in tights doing twirls with their arrns above their heads. Typically, expression through the body is a feminine ideal in North America. With this feminine ideal cornes the stereotyping of male dancers being effeminate or homosexual. Even established male danseurs are more often than not assumed to be gay and the idea of "masculine," straight, male dancers is somehow beyond the Westem world's comprehension. Society has instilled an image of dance that is a feminine one. Perhaps this feminist coding associated with dance stems from ballet, which still sits atop of the Western dance world's hierarchy and, as such, is the most recognized form. Ballet exudes soft graceful movements and is quiet and serene.

Ironically, ballet wasn't born a female art. Its growth began in Renaissance Europe • during a time when the purpose of arts was to serve the secular, wealthy, powerful monarchs and court members. The earliest ballets were solely perforrned by royalty and nobility. It was, in fact, Louis the XIV of France who asked his dance master to establish rules for ballet such as arm and foot positions and patterns of movement. The dance style was noble and controlled and always exhibited a kingly demeanour. The confident, upright movements were danced as though moving in courtly processions. Never was it more clear that dance was an exhibition of society's rules and conducts. Ballet in its earliest days epitomized the extravagance, bodily control and lavishness of the French courts; grandiose costumes and wigs were so omate they often weighed up to 100 pounds. 23 Elements of ballet's courtly beginnings are still evident today because movement is still always elegant, graceful, and controlled. Any opening promenade is

22 As an instructor ofballet. tap and jazz my classes usually have no male students. Ifboys do register they are often overwhelmed by the numbcr of females and only attend a couple ofclasses. • 2J sec Kraus 51

• surely a display of royalty. The theatres used are usually the most grandiose and elaborate in any city.

As an excepted dance form ballet's genderdized movements and historieal ideologies are also accepted even though they often exceed the unwritten parameters of political correctness. Should women be portrayed as damsels in distress, flightless fairies or fragile swans, weightless, perfected, anorexie? Should men be valiant yet deceitful, heroic, athletic, and always strong enough to hoist women above their heads? Rather than get into a sociopolitical debate as to the validity of ballet's ideological underpinnings, the art form will be used as an illustration of how dance quietly infuses Western ideas, morals and culture.

An overwhelming number of theorists readily engage feminist theory as their • springboard when looking at dance such as ballet. In her essay, "Reinstating Corporeality," Janet Wolff recognizes the female body as a site for self-surveillance where girls leam to monitor personal appearance. She suggests that dance studies are marginalized because the body is marginalized in Western culture. Wolff believes that Western culture readily accepts the "classical body' which is embraced by ballet. The body type that is strietly required of a ballet dancer has a look of weightlessness, and perteet bodily lines in lieu of a "real corporeality." Wolff accuses ballet of perpetuating the patriarchal storybook roles of women, ''The roles created for women in the elassical repertoire-fairies, swans, innocent peasant girls- collude in a discourse which construets, in a medium which employs the body for its expression, a strangely disembodied female" (Wolff: 95). Some of the characters and story lines to whieh Wolff may be alluding are: the princess in Swan Lake who is cast under a wicked spell and tumed into a swan, her only hope of becoming human is if she wins the heart of a young • man; the fairy in La Sylphide who captures the heart of already spoken for James: the 52

• beautiful doll in Coppelia who is brought to life by Dr. Coppelius and catches the eye of already spoken for Frantz. What these feminist critiques of ballet neglect to address is the outdated stereotypes of men which are also rampant within these stories. These males not only cheat on their fiancées, but are so naive they are duped into falling in love with fairies, swans, and doUs.

Wolff is joined in her feminist critique of ballet. In her essay, "Homogenized Ballerinas," Marianne Goldberg asks sorne poignant questions about the state of the female body in ballet. "How do we read against the grain of the patriarchal body? How does the fledgling ballerina vomiting in the school bathroom refuse her anorexia and recognize that the unattainable White Swan she is looking for in the mirror is an imaginary, fictional Woman?" (Gordberg: 307). This statement acknowledges the propensity for many women to endure bodily constraints such as eating disorders in order to maintain • a fairy·tale body type. The only difterence between these characters and the ones in children's storybooks is that the traditions of ballet encourage rear bodies to be moulded to fulfil these patriarchal roles.

Goldberg suggests that the body is constructed through discourse and that masculine and feminine movements are "social and artistic conventions rather than physical or physiological facf (ibid: 305). This suggests that sorne women courd technically lift a man, but society dictates that the man should lift the woman and therefore the ballerinas have to be small and light so they can be lifted by the male danseur. Sorne dance movements such as "rivoltades", "entrechat huits", and "sautés des poissons", are solely male movements regardless of a female dancer's ability to perform them. Likewise moves such as a "petits battements sur la cou·de pied se cres" and "emboites" are never performed by males. The dance troop calied Trockadero Gloxinia Ballet fully • substantiates this point. They are an ail male group who perform female ballet 53

movements en pointe. Because these moves are used in the usual feminine raies • wearing female costumes such as tutus, it has somewhat of a "drag-queen" effect and therefore may be perceived as more farcical than innovative.

Goldberg proposes that it is a sequence of political, historieal, and economic identifications that construct the body; these then expand into meanings which trickle down through social practices. Goldberg accuses many choreographers of not having the desires or skills to think theoretically about dance while most academics don't spend enough time getting to know their bodies. She accuses academia of separating the physical and intellectual, suggesting the majority of feminist writing alludes to a theoretical reclaiming of the body in lieu of the material body. Goldberg believes daneer's bodies and bodily shapes are formed through the many discourses that surround the dance. She suggests that we dig through this discourse to attain a self and • body that is devoid of societal and gender infliction. How does ballet and its patriarchal story lines explain how dance is a reflection of societal values? Cuite simply it helps perpetuate the myths that are rampant within

Western ideals. Large or very tall women will never be accepted inta the National Ballet school while Western society worships, consumes, and idealizes the thin. This is reflected not only in dance, but also in magazines, fashion runways, advertisements, music videos and television series. Most dance performed on stage reflects these archaie yet ubiquitous stereotypes of 'lfemale" and "male". It is true that a woman considered overweight can have the necessary muscle for balance and agility and still expound the gracefulness required for ballet, but she will rarely be seen on stage or even encouraged to dance because she is too "faf'. Sadly, most people belonging to Western society do not want to pay to see "fat" people on stage, whether they are • graceful or not. 54

Evan Alderson emphasizes the idea that Western culture consumes our ideal of the • beautiful at whatever cast. In his essay, "Ballet as Ideology: "Giselle", Act 2," Alderson employs a personal anecdote of being enraptured by the second act of Giselle to iIIustrate how easy it is to be taken in by the beauty of art, leaving rooted ideologies invisible. Alderson suggests it is our unconscious acceptance of societal order which allows us to accept the perfected beauty of ballet, "The bodies we admire in their fulfillment of an extraordinary technique, the sense of a rare perfection, the feeling of ultimate simplicity in the 'rightness' of it all-these also invoke our loyalty to a social order' (Alderson: 131). This suggests that anyone who accepts the perfected quality of a ballet is quietly or unconsciously accepting the ideals of society.

Anne Daly goes further than attacking the bodily constrictions of ballet, she attacks the stagnant discourse surrounding it. In her piece, "Classical Ballet: A Discourse of Difference," Daly uncovers the aesthetic achievements in ballet that are won at the cost • of differencing gender. Daly believes that much of the discourse surrounding ballet is comparable to the dancing on stage in that it inscribes, "gender difference as an aesthetic virtue"(Daly: 112). She underlines a variety of quotations which describe female ballet movements as relating ta bodily display, femininity and delicacy compared ta male movements which are described in relation to strength, endurance and skill. Daly points out that very few dance scholars and critics have "investigated the patriarchal underpinnings of ballet" (ibid). She believes that because ballet's ideologies have remained stagnant over its three century life, sa too has female representation within ballet, regardless of historical milestones in gender equality. Western society readily accepts the female fragility displayed as spectacle in most ballets as weil as the heroic and athletic leaps and bounds of the male danseurs because these stereotypes are in similar standing to the myths and gender biases quietly accepted in Western • culture at large. These ballets exhibit the same antiquated images, differencing women 55

• and men as the cartoon characters consumed by children; where women are usually

small, perfected and beautiful (Cinderella, Snow White, Pocahontas) and men are

valiant, strong saviours (Tarzan, Hercules, Prince Charming).

African dance

"Like the tree deeply rooted, which cannot survive without the earth, life without dance cannet exist." John Kullbali, Cote D'Ivoire 1961

Unlike dance in Western culture, which is marginalized and enjoyed by an elite art-going

crowd, African dance is an essential component of life shared by ail of society, old,

young, female, male alike. The body movements in African dance generally imitate and

symbolize aspects of lite and are described as the site where body, mind and soul unite.

The movements of African dance are in stark contrast to ballet's courtly, controrred

movements, quiet elegance, and high art status. Loud and boisterous, African dance is • low to the ground, uncontrolled, and seeped in ritual as opposed to artistic regulations. Although there is a multitude of African dance performing troupes, their dance was not

originally a means of aesthetic expression like ballet or recreation after work Iike early tavem dances. African Dance is "not a separate art, but a part of the whole complex of

living" (Welsh: 4). Atrican dances communicate everyday emotions associated with war,

marriage, gods, harvests, birth, death etc. Dance is so integral in Africa that in Ghana if

a chief cannat dance according to the way of the people he can be dethroned.

ln her essay, "Still Dancing Downwards and Talking Back," Zagba Oyortey employs a

quote trom A.M. Opoku to emphasize the importance of dance in Atrican society, • 56

"Ta us life with its rhythms and cycles is dance and dance is life. The dance is lite expressed in dramatic terms. The most important avents in the community have special dances to infuse turther • meaning into the significance of these events" (quoted in Oyortey:79).

Oyortey assumes that the reader will know the meaning of dancing downwards. Just as the refined, upright, and poised movements of ballet grew out of the highly refined, straight-spined, controlled movements evident in the 17th century courts, African dance is an extension of its culture's general bodily movements. The more bent, relaxed, and close ta the ground movements of African dance are a continuation of everyday African movements such as farming. Dancing downwards points to the main difference between Western dance torms such as ballet and modem which are always performed on the bail of the foot with the body usually in a very upright position and African dance which typically uses the whole of the foot pushed down into the ground and the body's centre • of gravity much lower. Oyortey explains that African dance and drama are often used as a means through which to communicate with the supreme being or mediating deities; therefore, dance itself can be an act of worship. 8he underlines the fact that African dance in Europe has been awarded "non-art status" and acknowledges the dismissive tones often used by European critics when discussing African dance. Could this be because Western culture sees its own dance as art and African dances as ritual? One needs to understand that the European performance delights in the ideas of spectacle, decoration, and very limited audience participation. Contrarily, African dance is both ritualistic and functional so the fragmentation between audience and performer disintegrates. Unlike Western societies where dance is either frivolous play or art, appreciated by few, and performed by much fewer, dance in Africa has central importance in everyday lite in which most

• participate. 57

ln her essay, "Vodou, Nationalism, and Performance: The staging of Folklore in Mid­ • Twentieth-Century Haiti", Kate Ramsey touches on many important issues such as the appropriation of traditional dances which were altered in an effort to be performed on a

proscenium stage. She also investigates the idea of "Vodou tourism;" which is the

acceptance of the dancing associated with Vodou but not the ritual in an effort to

streamline Vodou for the sake of tourisme Ramsey outlines the changes that had to be

made in order to make ritual dance transposable to Western performance ideals. The

role of drumming was altered; rhythmic patterns were decided ahead of time, and

improvisation was discouraged ail of which were contrary to authentic Vodou dances. In

an effort to appeal to Western audiences Vodou was striped of its ritualistic tendencies

which were replaced by aesthetic virtue upon a stage; therefore, Vodou could be

appreciated as being compatible with the Western ideal of performance.

Esher Dagan is another who points to the absurdities in staging African dance. In 1966 • she was invited to stage dances by a variety of groups for Independence Day celebrations in Gabon. She points out the stark contrasts between Western

performance and staging in rural Africa. In African dance the stage is in a constant state

of change and can span village streets to the bush in the outskirts. Dancers usually

come and go during a performance and the audience participates by dancing, clapping,

singing, talking, and eating. The duration of the performance is dependant on

participants energy level. In Western performance the size of the stage and the length

of the performance and amount of performers are limited and defined in choreography

while the active performer is secluded on a lit stage set apart from the passive audience

that sits in the dark. According to Dagan, l'the Western concept of staging a dance,

based on limitation and seclusion, was totally foreign to rural Africans thirty years ago, • and 1was not aware of it when 1came to Gabon" (Dagan: 220). 58

• In another essay Dagan compares two visits to Burkina Faso, one of which occurred in

1961, the other in 1988. In 1961 she remarks that the streets, trains and villages were

bustling with rhythm. At night the sounds of drumming and sangs filled the air. She

recorded over 60 sangs and dances over her six week stay. During her second visit she

heard no drums at night and didn't witness a single dance. She suggests that it is the change in Africa's relationship to the rest of the world that has caused this decrease in dance and song. Dagan notes that today's Africa is driven by productivity and modemization in an continuous attempt to compete in the global market. The same train trip that took her 16 hours in 1961 took 8 hours in 1988. As the pace of life in Africa increases the old rhythms are becoming lost and the importance of dance has declined.

Sociocultural change in Africa directly affects traditional customs and is responsible for the slow retreat of dance from its ritualistic ways. Christianity, for example, diseourages • traditional dance and has failed to acknowledge that dance in Africa is a means of expressing spirituality (Welsh: 105). The infusion of pop culture also discourages traditional dance by opening up new contexts and forms of dance. As Afriea becomes

more aligned with Western culture, 50 too does dance, which now functions as mere recreation in many Afriean cities. While African dance leaves the ground and takes to the stage if marks a progression from ritual to performance art. As dancers perfect and choreograph their once ritualized movements to an applauding crowd they are no longer

communicating with gods, they simply look like they are.

• 59

• Dance as it exists within the rave setting

"...it was very spiritual. Sorne of those moments in the club were unbelievable. People literally went into trance states, including me. Not from the use of drugs, but through that music and the human energy that was going around...It happens on the plains of Africa and south America, but it's not something that's happened in Britain for centuries" (Danny Rampling quoted in Garrett: 117).

Rave dancing would make much more sense in the African Savannah than in a prestigious Ballet/Opera House. The movements associated with rave are liberated, lucid, and typically beyond control. It stands in stark contrast ta refined dance such as ballet and is more aligned with the ritualistic dances of Afnca. So is rave dance art, ritual or simply play? One may suggest ail three. In sorne rave environments the dancers are so in sync with one another that the moves appear leamed and highly skilled. Ta an outsider the motion almost appears artistically choreographed and delightful to watch. • Sorne allude to rave's ritualized behaviour, "As rave became big business, it became highly ritualized. There was a uniform...along with accessories...Hardcore youth developed a choreography of geometric dance moves and a drug lore of Ecstasy­ enhancing tricks" (Reynolds 1998: 131). Other descriptions of rave dancing indicate its more playful nature, "At times, the crowd seemed to transcend physical limits. They would literally climb up the walls. They would fall to the floor, legs thrashing in the air..." (Garrett: 41). However, the lack of attention paid to the dance component of rave in discourses such as books, news segments and articles, suggest its common conception: play. In his essay ''The Subterranean World of Play," Jock Young suggests that, ''the subterranean values of expressivity, hedonism, excitement, newexperience and non-alienated activity are identical with the customary definition of play" (Young 1997: 74). Ali of these subterranean actions described by Young are easily identified within rave. Although there are ritualistic and artistic tendencies woven into the entire • rave agenda it is more or less an arena for teens and young adults to play; it is a place 60

• to act out roles, to exhibit complete freedom, abandonment and expression. Is this

serious or meaningful? Perhaps as serious or meaningful as a child leaming to ride a

bike or bounce a bail. As mentioned previously, acts of play are generally given little

respect and are considered relatively meaningless; therefore, it is little wonder that rave

has received a lack of sociological attention.

Get lost in sound

Ritual 10: Derrick May and Kevin Saunderson battling over four tumtables sometime between 2 am. and 3 am. 1had been dancing non-stop, sweat absolutely dripping off me, my eyes closed, or staring at the floor, staring through the floor. And then 1look up, and realized that 1hadn't even noticed the DJs until now. These "Godfathers of Techno n weren't superstars, they weren't pretentious, they weren't there for them, they were there for us...they were playing the music we needed, we wanted. Twiddling with knobs frantically, grabbing the next record, ail with lightning speed. They were working, working uS... without us even realizing. People have cal/ed DJs gods, Techno shamans, musical Priests. But priests talk of scriptures that exude doctrines, codes and moral logic. That's not what these DJs were doing. They were simply telling us ta dance. They were teaching us how to dance. The music they played in the sequence they decided ta play it, control/ed my movement, our movement. ail of us together, at the same time, • feeling the same euphoria, feeling the same rhythm. This is what 'VIBEn is, and these DJs helped create it. "Vibe" hangs over the crowd like an invisible mist; it is mysteriously congealing; it allows everyone in the room ta feel, safe, happy, welcomed... free. Once again 1had found my centre, my locus, my meditative space at that point where music, colour and energy thrust towards me while 1 swallow it whole, allowing it to become part ofmy inner motion. Purely losing myself between the soundscape.

So what sets rave dance apart trom other social dancing such as that done at night

clubs? What makes it a prime vehicle for self reflection, expression, and

communication? The seamless, tribal-like drone of techno and its multitude of sub­

genres makes trance-dancing possible. For the most part, electronic rave music is

Iyricless, it has no catchy melody ta sing along with. Its repetitive rhythms are highly

consuming and enrapturing, if you let them be, lIYou sort of lose track and the rhythm is

very important in enabling you to lose track because it's something that moves your • body, it's not something that you have to concentrate on. You have to click into it and 61

• get into the groove and the pattern and relax with it, and that is this incredible feeling" (quoted in McKay: 111). In techno emotion isn't spelled out in words as it is in pop­ music; it is measured by the emotion it strikes in dancers as it acts as vehicle for "Iosing" oneself on the dancefloor. For many ecstasy is the catalyst that aids in this process. According to Sheryl Garret, "On E, the insistent rhythms of house seemed to pulse inside Vou, become part of vou, urging you to dance, and dance, and dance" (Garrett: 135). Rave also provides an optimum environment for this music to work its "tribal magic". Unlike clubs and bars where patrons are often there ta "pick-up" or be "picked-up", rave's often dirty, dark, sometimes painfully loud environment makes the

mate pursuit seem futile and for most it is certainly not the intention. DJ Paul Oakenfold hints at the change when clubs started tuming "ravevn in the late 1980's,

"...London clubs had always been about people drinking, trying ta chat up girls, looking gaod but not dancing. Ali of a sudden we campletely changed that- yau'd come down and you'd dance for six hours. The idea was 'if you're nat into dancing, then don't come down'" (Reynolds 1998: • 59). Ecstasy's amphetamine-like nature daes more than just make you dance, it helps tum sexual feelings inta sensual feelings. Guys on "e" don't necessarily want to pick-up and grope girls. It puts them in touch with their feminine side and allows them to teel love inside their awn heads without the usual "physical manifestations" of love. This means a lot of hugging and loving at raves (even heterosexual guys hugging one another) without the pending doom of a one night stand; in tum allowing girls to interact and dance more freely. Dancing in this sense is no longer limited ta attracting attention, Hillegonda Rietveld notes, "The master(ing) gaze had disappeared. For this reason, dancing ta show off had gone" (Rietveld: 63). Similarly Antonio Melechi sees rave dance as a means of moving past the need to watch and be watched, "...the trance-dance • moves the body beyond the spectacle of the 'pose' and the sexuality...of the look..." 62

(Melechi: 33). A Toronto raver qualifies these theoretical observations, "My first • impression of rave was that 1didn't know how to dance. My sister came up ta me and said no one cares what you look like vou know. And 1was like oh O.K. and 1started dancing like mad" (Barst). Rave clothing reflects this in its privileging of comfort and mobility over body hugging fashions. Loose baggy clothing and baseball caps helps disintegrate the distinguishing marks of male and female giving way ta an androgynous aura, allowing girls to look like "boys" and boys to look like "girls".

The feminine overtones associated with dancing are also diminished at raves where the men olten outnumber the women. Here, males dance with as much vigour as women and sometimes more. This contrasts clubs and bars where the majority of patrons, male and female, do the usual l'two-step", "head bop", or casual sway. Club dancing is usually controlled and conformed whereas rave dancing is individual and tree. The friendly atmosphere at raves, "vhich is arguably induced byecstasy, awards people the • freedom to move without the usual judgement from others. On ecstasy everyone is tao content in their own private moment ta be judging others. Ravers are suddenly as children again, twirling on their living room floor.

Androgyny, ecstasy, trance-inducing techno, and usually a barrage of l'trippy" lighting would no doubt help you dance with a little more vigour and lucidity. One rave participant 1interviewed attempts ta articulate what exactly happens to him at a rave, "dancing at raves allowed me to express aspects and facets of my life and myself that 1 didn't have an outlet ta express in everyday life. It allowed me ta experience myself not as a reflection of other people's judgements but as an expression of my freedom"

(Cairns). The flyer for a rave called Revelations in April of 1996 blatantly substantiates • the meanings felt or idealized by the rave community, 63

"On this night, Toronto will truly understand the meaning of revelations and their purpose in shaping our phuture...These are revelations that show the true spirit of tribalism, music and dance. For only through music • and hedonistic gathering, can the faithful feel and unite as a true community."

So if raving is about dance, what about the other components: music and drugs? It was

their symbiosis that built the scene and their collective endurance that maintains the

scene. The fact is that ail three have changed but ail three remain. Arguably, the scene

could exist without the drugs, the music could evolve until it was unrecognizable, but

without the dancing, raves would certainly not exist. The primary function of a DJ and

the music they chose is to get participants dancing. A rave without dancing is generally

devoid of "vibe": the buzzword for a rave's almost tangible collective energy. Without the

dance component a rave woufd simply be a very boring concert, where the musicians

do little to entertain visually. Simon Reynolds suggests that dancers are the • entertainment at raves, Cl ...it became even clearer that the audience was the star: that guy over there doing fishy-finger dancing was as much a part of the entertainment as were the DJs or bands. Dance moves spread through the crowd Iike super fast viruses. 1was instantly entrained in a new kind of dancing- tics and spasms, twitches and jerks, the agitation of bodies broken down into separate components, then reintegrated at the level of the dance floor as a wholell (Reynolds 1998: 5).

ll ll According to the 70s band IIFunkadelic if you , Il •••free your mind ...your ass will follow

(Clinton). Raves provide a place ta free your mind and therefore your body through

dance. Typically rave serves as a place to be yourseff without the often pretentious aura

of a nightclub. Conversefy, you can adopt a guise and be anyone else for the night;

raves allow you to become free enough to be a Clstar" aven if it is for only a few hours.

This altemate reality is attainable with the help of rave's darkness, outlandish costumes,

• pigtails, baby soothers, loose clothing, and hair dye, ail of which disguise genders and 64

• ages. Raves are often viewed as utopian and anarchistic by their participants because

drug use is welcomed, and social barriers are overcome. Rave companies and parties

calied "Utopia", "Liberty", and "Promised Land" substantiate these ideals. Essentially

rave provides an outlet for urban youth ta go outside their problems through dance. An anonymous rave participant provides reasons for a need ta dance, III dance ta bring life

back into a world bent on destruction. 1dance because it teels good...1dance because my life-energy is sucked away daily in the workplace--I dance to rejuvenate it, to replenish, to feel my strength and my beauty.1I

The function of dance

Transcendance Productions. Their name for me epitomized rave: transcendence through the vehicle ofdance. 1wasn't a/one in my affinity for these raves; a close friend ofmine had the Transcendance logo tattooed on the top ofhis back. He rationalized the permanent imprint that scars his spine by exp/aining that the people he met and the events themselves had such a profound impact on who he had become that the symbo/ representing fevered nights of dancing will be forever meaningfu/. Somewhere between the frantic feet and the raised arrns in ecstatic bliss, something meaningful is going on. • People are connecting, communicating, networking, falling in love, and making new friends. What is forgotten or ignored in most rave discourse that ail of this meaning begins and ends with a dance.

It is exceedingly difficult to substantiate rave's meaning because it is completely and wholly personal. One rave participant rationalizes his disappearance fram the scene claiming, "1 stopped raving when 1stopped dancing." Whether it was his distaste for the evolved rave music or the toll drugs were taking on his body he could no longer dance

and without dance, raves for him were meaningless. Perhaps this is the story for many as they withdraw from the scene.

If one is to understand ail facets of dance as a meaningtul way to communicate our

inner self, one must start looking at dance in non-rationalist terms; only then may we

• begin to see subcultures like rave as an arena of dance, an outlet for expression and an 65

• avenue of freedom; not simply a drug-haven. Philosopher Paul Valery tries to explain the transitory, irrational nature of a dancer's world,

"For the dancer is in another world; no longer the world that takes colour form our gaze, but one that she weaves with her steps and builds with her gestures. And in that world aets have no outward aim; there is no object to grasp, to attain, to repulse or run away from, no object which puts a precise end to an action and gives movements first an outward direction and coordination, then a clear and definite conclusion...Thus there is no aim, nor real incidents, no outside world..."(Valery: 61).

When one dances they are creating for the moment. Once a dance has ended there is nothing left to grasp; if this dance is not on stage and not enjoyed by anyone except the dancer the meaning is rather elusive. Non-theatrical dance opposes normal useful action and necessity and appears ta serve little function in society because it simply performs a highly personal inner function that others cannot see, feel, or experience, • unless they too are taking part.

Whether the dance is alone, on stage, or with its tribe, it communicates. Ballet communicates myths, fables, and the dominant society's perception of gender. African dance communicates facets of everyday lite from birth to death, while rave communicates emotions, freedom, and individuality. In today's fast paced, technology driven world ifs often difficult to see why an undirected kinesthetic outpouring of emotion is necessary. Perhaps it provides nothing more than a release; it may be a big sigh in the face of a hectic lifestyle and a deep breath to help Vou continue.

When asked ''what is dance?" dancer Mary Wigman quite simply answers, "...the dance is a language with which man is born, the ecstatic manifestation of his existence." When a member of the great Bantu was asked "what do vou dance?" he answered, "What a • man danced, that was his tribe, his social customs, his religion; for, as an anthropologist 66

• has put it, a savage does not preach his religion, he dances if' (Ellis: 479). Similarly,

dancer and writer Erick Hawkins calfs dance a metaphor of existence,

"Sometimes when the curtain is lowered at the finish of the last dance on the program, the thought has arisen, This performance was a chunk of my life. It was my existence on a knifes edge, focused in the confines of the stage space and focused into the duration of the series of dances" (Hawkins: 105).

Dance is a voiceless articulation of your existence at that particular point in time. It is the

physical manifestation of a persons feelings towards a particular beat whether it's a

simple heart beat, an African drum, a full orchestra or a thrashing 180 bpms of drum

and bass. It is an innate language for the entire human race.

Phase Il

Rave flourishes

As Toronto's scene was only beginning to bud, Britain's rave scene had flowered into • something that was barely recognizable to the initial Ibiza crew's acid house. It wasn't long before the seemingly secret, underground world of rave started being taken to the

masses. Acid house moved into larger, privately owned and sometimes disused

warehouse locations where ravers and promoters could overcorne the restricting hours

of licensed clubs. By 1989, there was a new breed of promoters who jumped on the

acid house bandwagon reputably motivated by the tax-free incornes of huge spectacular

events. Outdoor events with no stated venue started with Tony Colston Hayter's

company Sunrise, whose first event was raided by police. The shut-down of his first

party prompted Hayter to withhold his upcorning rave locations until a couple of hours

before the event in order to avoid closures by the police. This first series of outdoor

raves became increasingly spectacular, showcasing lasers, strobe lights, bouncy • casties and special effects. Parties grew to massive proportions with attendance 67

• increasing into the thousands while ticket prices inflated from around 5~ in 1988 to 20f:

in 1989.24

The ecstasy distribution network grew to involve serious criminals, and eventually "firms" were demanding a eut of the action with threats. According to Mathew Collin, "Acid house had transformed the East End, but as thousands danced in blissed-out ignorance, their pleasures were facilitated by violence and terror" (Collin: 134). Corruption and money making schemes were also evident in legal club spaces. With the knowledge that water was the primary rave drink, sorne club owners in Britain and Canada began tuming off water taps in an effort to increase their bar takings.

Within time there were huge police crackdowns, new laws, and even special police units like ''the pay party unir' set up strictly to abolish raves. The "Entertainment's Act" that • increased penalties for unlicensed events started forcing raves to be Iicensed. By the end of 1990 there was a second wave of rave promoters, doing large scale commercial raves in legal venues. By the summer of 1992 British raves were drawing crowds exceeding weil over twenty thousand.

Mainstream rave vs. underground rave

''The end of 1989 saw the once-fun world of acid house degenerate into a media circus with money-grabbers and charlatans thieving off a gullible public desperate for spectacle and the all-night party...The beginning of 1990 saw this once-happy world become what it most despised: elitist, closed, fashion-conscious and distant. The great slow-down was coupled with a new attitude of snobbishness and Charlie (cocaine) tooting..."- DJ Justin Robertson.25

24 see Rietveld, 48 • 25as quoted in Mi.xmag. see Sheryl Oarret. 245 68

Acid housers and the ravers which followed, positioned themselves against the status • quo and mainstream club crowd, and sawa need to maintain its underground status. Toronto promoter Beverly May tries to explain the meaning of "underground", "1 don't think underground means a specifie percentage of the people 1 think underground means a culture that is ostracized from the mainstream and is not allowed, is not

accepted. And that's what this culture was in the beginning" (May 1999a). Set apart from the mainstream, these early ravers bonded with one another by exhibiting small significant signs such as clothing which showed those "in the know" that they belonged. Eventually, a number of acid house clubs opened up in London leaving the original crew feeling resentment towards newcomers that were tuming their seemingly secret world into a business.

A year after the "original" British acid housers had posited themselves against the mainstream club scene, they positioned themselves against a new mainstream; the • "acid Teds", wherein ''Ted'' was representative of the "average" male. It is arguable that ail the media hype caused by the police crackdown on raves created an even bigger audience: a new breed of seemingly "unhip" and "unauthentic" ravers exhibiting outdated, stereotyped rave anties. Thus began the fight between the elitistl underground and populistlmainstream areas of rave culture. Dick Hebdige notes there is always a distinction between those who originate and authenticate a subculture, and those who are "hangers-on". He gives earlier examples of "acid Teds" relating ta other subcultures, "plastic punks" or "safety-pin people", "burrhead rastas" and "weekend hippies".26

The scene fractured into sub-seenes and sub-genres, diverging trom rave's original path. The hypocrisyof rave was beginning ta show, the scene that initially purported

• 26 sec Hebdige (1979). 122 69

"unity", "love" f and "equality" f now exhibited a number of opposing not unifying attitudes • relating to class, drug choice, musical preference and style. Clubs like Shoom now imposed strict door policies that ran contrary to their initial ideology of unity and

acceptance. Ironically, the new young recruits to the hardcore rave scene were enjoying

the same "innocent" euphoria that the condemning Ibiza crew had experienced a couple of years earlier; the honeymoon had ended for some and was only commencing for

others.

According to Simon Reynolds, by 1991-92, "...rave became a dirty ward; Ecstasy was passe, undignified" (Reynolds 1998: 181). Although the amount o"f people doing ecstasy and going to raves steadily increased, the original acid house crew withdrew from the big outdoor raves viewing them as too commercial, too impersonal, and their followers too young. DJ Paul Oakenfofd signifies his changing relationship to the scene in the early '90s, "We'd come through E, and what we were into was smoking joints and • chilling...For me, at the raves it was ail sheep. Everyone would look the same, dress the same, expect to hear the same big tunes" (Garrett: 243).

Rave was in the midst of a tug-of-war between the mainstream and the underground, the hip and the regular, those who are already part of something new versus the sheep­ like followers. For Sarah Thomton the mainstream is equal to "the masses" and raver

ideology is "anti-massculture" (Thomton: 5). However, as early as one year after rave began, two rave sanctions had developed; those that were the underground, and those

that the underground considered "massculture", the hardcore ravers that attended the

huge events with tens of thousands in attendance and bought into ail the trends such as

glow sticks, white gloves, Vicks Vapo Rub and baggy pants. • 70

Constant change

Epie trance follows a formula of fast repetitive beats usually in 4/4 time. Each track will • typically build ta an ethereal, washy, beatless plateau, which seems ta intensify and enhance the "en euphoria. It is usually at this point in a track that everyone is forced ta n stop dancing because of the lack of beats, and notice how hard they are "rushing 27 This trance plateau is generally the most opportune moment to qualify how good one feels on "en, which usually entails holding hands and / or hugging those beside them. Yet somehow, listening or dancing ta trance not under the influence of ecstasy makes the music appear almost comical/y predictable. Without the "e-rushnthe epic moments of beatless bliss seem silly and formulaic while the need to hug or hold hands, and massage one another can seern superficial and passé. For those on pot, speed or psychedelics, it wasn't about flowers and hugs anymore, ail the "e" rituals that were part and parcel of the trance experience seemed a fittle too faIse, tao superficial. Hard techno andjungle seemed ta fit this more serious mood.

While the want for ecstasy decreased and rave punters changed drug allegiance, music and musical tastes were also being altered. Simon Reynolds attributes the rise in rave music's bpms to an increase in amphetamine use and describes hardcore as, ", ..music for ravers who knew the rave dream was a lie, but carried on taking the bad medicine" • (Reynolds 1998: 138). Toronto promoter Beverly May attributes musical changes to increased amphetamine use such as crystal methamphetamine, "You had extreme hardcore...that was a direct relation to an increase in speed use...They (producers) were saying we need to sell records...and herels what people want so we1re going to have to speed it up..." (May 1999a).

ln Toronto, hardcore and jungle dancers moved with lightning speed; their impressive footwork would carry them across the floor in short spurts, even on large amounts of speed the style of dance was far tao exhaustive for any length of time. Reynolds aptly named these twitchy, jerky movements "disciplined epilepsy' (Reynolds 1998: 126). In Britain, and later in Canada, a uniform and rituals developed around the hardcore scene and saw the rise of whistles to be blown along with the music, baggy jeans for increased • 27 A term used to describc the high or 'speedy' part ofone's drug trip. 71

• ease of movement, glow-sticks to be held in the hands for visual effect while dancing,

soothers to gnaw on when on speed, and Vicks Vapo Rub ta massage one another.28 By the early '90s in Britain hardcore started moving into the mainstream, there were TV­

ads for hardcore compilations, and hardcore bands on Top of the Pops, arguably England's most commercial music show. Toronto promoter Beverly May visited London in 1994 and was astonished at how commercial the scene in the U.K. had become,

"The music (house and techno) was evervwhere: piped into the supermarkets, chiming in the chain clothing shops, blaring on the radio and the TV...where was the Underground, the 'vibe', the 'scene' in this sea of corporate hype and beer-backed mega-events?" (May 1999b: 3).

According to theorists such as Simon Reynolds and Mathew Collin the onset of jungle in '92-94, saw most of the remnants of "raveyness" disappear and ail that remained was the velocity of the music. Jungle was less demonstrative bodily and emotionally, there • were less glow sticks and less smiles; breaking trom the parameters laid out by house music and ecstasy, it came to be labeled as dark and evil. Mathew Collin points out that jungle was the antithesis of rave's initial ideals because of its suggested associations with violence and bad drugs such as crack cocaine. He notes the jungle rave, "...was no longer a safe playground for E babies" (Collin: 257). Inevitably the onset of jungle created yet another division with the scene.

• 28 The menthol vapours in Vicks seemed to enhance the "e" rush. 72

Toronto's big divide

Yau didn't need drugs ta experience it, yau didn't need fancy clathes, you didn't even • need ail of your friends around to experience it. You simply needed to be free yourself enough to allow yourself ta not only hear the music, but to feel it, to consume it, to allow it to consume you. Without drugs, or with Ecstasy no longer having the effect it once did, it becomes more difficult to feel. You have to work at it. Finding that one spot in the crowd, where people aren't going to encroach in your space, where there are enaugh people dancing Iike mad around you, where you feel no one is watching you, where you can feel that you are a part ofeverything aroundyou, and at that VBI}' instant you are as free as you've ever been. A feeling that 1 can no longer find at those massive events because 1no longer feel welcomed, and free enough to allow myself to get lost.. .there's almost too much going on. Too manypeople, too much ofa spectacle, tao much to look at. That sacred space was no longer mine, it was everyone's...

Much like the 'Balearics' in England who resented the so-called "acid Teds: self

proclaimed "originals ll in Toronto condemned new younger recruits and the

commercially oriented raves they attended. lan Guthrie of Transcendance magazine in Toronto, suggested in 1996 that rave had simply become another youth culture, and • that old ravers accused the new younger generation of being too concemed with fashion and drugs, ".. rave has become another 'high school' fado It goes against the 'secret society' aspect of rave to become yet another sub group such a 'mod', 'skater, 'punk' etc." (Guthrie).

The quiet divide between rave promoters was evident even when there were only two

production companies: Exodus having the original 'underground' events and Nitraus the company accused of being commercial. As early as August of 1992 the 'spectacle' raves with meeting points and withheld locales, that mimicked the large outdoor events

in England, were weil on their way in Toronto. The third event by Nitrous oftered an ail.. night midway in a field north of Toronto with eight local DJs, a Ferris wheel, bumper

cars and an octopus ride. Each Nitrous rave tried to outdo the last with increased spectacle appeal; their "Full..E-Charged" rave was held in a 90,000 sq.ft warehouse • where their indoor fireworks display and laser show managed to blow out the power for 73

• the whole area. By June of 1993, Nitrous mutated into Atlantis with events getting ever

more spectacular. Their tirst was at the Ontario Science Centre which offered a playground of science-related activities, experiments and rides. Their second blatantly called "Rave-a-Rama," was the first ta have a huge colourful fold-out flyer which promised a veritable circus with a bouncy castle, velcro wall, fire eaters, an inflatable maze, and stilt walkers. The musical component was usually secondary ta the entertainment extras and typically consisted of relatively inexpensive local DJs offering

a mix of musical styles. At/antis continued on their quest for excess and held their third

event at the CN Tower. By contrast, smaller promotions like Exodus sometimes gave a portion of their proceeds to charity, had much smaller venues, less DJs and less entertainment aspects and spectacular enticements.

As early as 1992 there were promoters who championed themselves for being

•"underground" and those whose primary goal was to bring rave to the masses. Many complained of the sensational excess of Nitrous, prompting the growth of companies

like Sykosis who prided themselves for being an "underground" solution to these huge budgeted mega raves. The flyer for their tirst event in September of 1992 promised, "Classic rave anthems without the mainstream commercial shit. Taking rave where it

should be...back to the underground." Sykosis Ben Ferguson announced on a college radio interview, "We want ta bring things back to where they began. While other companies are worrying about bouncy casties or meeting points, we've been focusing on music" (Applegath: 18). Much like the "originals" in Britain, people in Toronto accused the scene of being dead and reminisced about the "good old days" in an effort ta qualify their early aflegiance to the scene and therefore their superiority as a veteran or "original". • '. DITROUS Dili

anindoorloutdoorrave

"Nitrous" was responsible for Canada's first outdoor rave. By 1993, "Nitrous" morphed into "At/antis" who's rave locations became ever more extreme. One party hoisted ravers up the CN tower. "Nitrous" rave. August 8, 1992 • "Atlantis" rave. October 6, 1993 ÂAVË ~ FLAKES a~

"Pleasure Force" was one of "Nitrous's" competitors who URDfIY had claims of being more "underground". DEe. 16 "Pfeasure Force" rave. December 26, 1992. .\jfd'~

, ~~. ~ Plwasa... Une: • 416 - 760 - 3DZ 74

• By 1994, Toronto's scene was large enough to allow smaller promoters to get a piece of

the action. There were divisions not only between promoters but participants as weil

who were usually aligned with a particular division within the scene. Those who

frequented smaller events often argued that the community nurturing aspects of rave,

couldn't be fulfilled at massive venues. Sorne smaller events attempted to bring a more

spiritual side ta raving, sorne just wanted to duplicate the same "rnass" rave

environrnent but scaled down. Companies such as Transcendance were extremely

successful, while others would have one off parties.

Competition mounts

Rave's growing prominence could be measured by the sheer volume of tlyer art being distributed in Toronto. By 1998, the promoter had been transformed from a discreet messenger into a pushy salesman, battling for punters' attention. Exiting ravers found themselves in a virtual tunnel of promoters bidding for patronage by yelling out their upcoming headliners. "Kimball Collins!" l'Derrick May!" ''Josh WinK'! The aftermath was a literai sea of flyers adoming the pavement outside clubs and raves. The following year / had my own event to tlyer for. Many momings / joined the battle ofso/icitation, "please • take my flyer it cost us a whole 40 centsn my eyes tried to scream. One raver grabbed a tlyer, perused its glossy pictures then threw it at my feet. 1decided with that defeat, that / didn't have the irone/ad constitution necessary for the new eommereia/ized business of rave promotion.

The sheer increase in rave events had helped tum the noun "flyer' into a verb; flyering

had undoubtably become a pushy sales oriented job. As the more "commercial" raves

grew to become ever more spectacular, so too did their tlyers with sorne the size of fold­

out posters, showcasing the latest in graphic art technology. Flyers trom the large party

circuit often spouted what initiators would cali outdated rave credences in the spirit of

"peace and love" with typical names such as "Liberation", "Utopia", "Kind," and "Summer

of Love". These tlyers would advertise star DJs and public appearances from the U.S.

and Europe; as attendance for these events climbed weil into the thousands so did the

• DJ's fees. Only tully established promotion companies that were guaranteed ta draw 75

• mass crowds paying $25 to $50 a head would risk the massive DJ fees and set up costs. Companies would try to outdo one another by increasing the number of DJs at

their events. Music editor Andrew Rawnsley from XLRBR magazine in Califomia complains about parties that rely on the allure of star DJs,

"Why do big 'rave' promoters still insist on booking too many 'name' DJs for their parties, usually giving them a whopping 1 hour set each? How many fliers have you seen that have 20 or more DJs on them? Precisely because of the pulling power of those names, and because of the star status which these DJs give ta their parties" (Rawnsley).

As the size and number of parties increased, companies started becoming more specialized musically. At a Destiny party for example Vou would expect mostly IItrance", while at Better Days or Dose parties it would be "progressive house," Syrous was "jungle" and HuJ/abaloo was typically "hardcore". The number of rooms at raves also changed dramatically over a few years, growing from one room events to one room plus • a traditional"chill-out" room with slower more ambient oriented music where participants could "come-down" off their drugs and rest. Later there was a move towards two dance rooms plus a "chili-outil room, the main room being the promoter's usual brand of music and the other smaller room offering a variant. Syrous for example, would generally have jungle in the main room, and house in the small room, while companies like Phryl, would typically have techno in the main room and jungle in the smaller room. With participants

on an amphetamine overload the need for a IIchili-out" room decreased until eventually they were only avident at small parties. By the mid 1990s entrance lineups could often be two or more hours, while bathroom and water lineups could be up to a half hour. Ominous bouncers would frisk entering ravers while inside, security guards would shine

their flashlights at anyone sitting around or looking "suspicious". By 1999, large events • often gathered more than 15,000 and had up to four rooms. Crowds exceeded capacity 76

limits and were left with barely enough room to dance while condensation would drip • like rain from the ceilings.

ln the very early stage of rave in Toronto, promoters would often thank each other on their flyers for support and simply being part of the scene. This saon began to change and came to a pivotai moment at the end of 1997. Rave had become a battle of egos where bigger meant better: the biggest venue; the biggest acts; the most aets; the

biggest crowd. Kinds New Year's 1997 rave "Skyhigh" was to be the first held in

Toronto's Skydome. Competing companies reputably sabotaged this venue deal by convincing Sky Dome management that a rave held on their premises would put their reputation at risk because of illegal activity that would undoubtedly take place. After

relocating, Kind then reacted to accusations from other promoters that their DJs weren't officially booked, by posting their DJ contracts on the internet. They promised 14 headliners, 4 live public appearances, a staggering 57 local DJs, a bouncy castle, • clowns, stilt-walkers, massage booths, and virtual reality set-ups. Toronto's three biggest promoters banded together in an attempt to outdo Kind's efforts that night. The outcome was two massive spaces that were barely full. The tug-of war that took place that New Year's was not only saddening, it left rave's purported ideals of unity and respect in question. Competition this fierce was Iikely the impetus behind the amalgamation of Toronto's four largest rave companies in 1998. The new company

called Lifeforce was capable of parties so huge it was futile to compete with them on the same night unless you were part of the smafler, niche party circuit which gathered a completely different crowd.

The niche scenes that became prominent by the mid 19905 encompassed a number of different subgroups. Sorne of these small parties were spiritually, new age or hippy • influenced, sorne were purely experimental, while others catered to a more elite aider 77

• rave crowd. Transcendance was one of the more successful smaller companies that stood in opposition to the burgeoning Iimass" rave scene,

"...trom the beginning, we also considered ourselves a breed apart from 'commercial' rave mania...One of our early party feats was ta successfully convince Richie Hawtin, local and Midwestem cult hero, to play for us in Toronto in February 1995 ...Richie didnlt like Toronto for the exact same reasons we didn't-- it was obsessed with UK happy hardcore, bouncy casties and ail the worst bright-light excesses of 'Classic Ravelll (May 1999b: 5).

Small party flyers often had little information on them and were much smaller and less colourful than the those advertising large raves. Often they would only have one or two headfiners who were still obscure ta most, while sorne didn't even list DJs. These flyers were generally less enticing to newcomers or very young ravers seeking "mass" rave

spectacles. By 1996 Beverly May of Transcendance was left rather disheartened after promoting for a couple years,

"Increasingly, 1felt that what this culture had become was without hope. 1 • had schmoozed with enough ego-drenched 'stars'. 1had flyered at enough drug-driven, teenybopper, headache inducing, multi-thousand persan evenf' (ibid: 9).

Rave had left a bad taste in many mouths as it started encompassing what it initially

denied, the excesses of clublife. As a reactionary measure Beverly May started Ritual in

1996 and tried ta escape the trappings of n rave" by executing a more purist approach ta an event that maintained musical integrity in an artistic production. Principled on

aesthetics, Ritual events generally appealed to musical purists and aider participants. These "non-rave" raves, shunned the glow stick brigade by having a no glow stick policy

printed on the flyers. Tiny in comparison to typical rave flyers, the Ritual flyers were usually black or dark blue with little design or flourish. The factor of being licensed helped ta ensure that any under-age Ile-mangers" would likely not be interested

• because alcohol was indisputably un-rave. The tlyers lack of colour, pizzazz, and star •

Twenty-one years after the first "summer of love", British youths danced the summer of 1988 in far away fields • and concealed warhouses. It was coined by many as the "summer of love" reincamated. Eight years after Britain's simulation of the "hippy trip", Toronto rave production company "Dose" had yet another "5ummer of Love". ActuaJ size offold-out flyer 11" X 16". -Dose" rave. August 17,1996.

Small party f1yers often had Iittle information on them and were much smaller and less colourful than the those advertising large raves. • Actual size of f1yer 4.25" X 4.75". "Rituar. December 4, 1999. 78

• DJs was certainly no enticement ta a new recruit in their honeymoon of l'ell-Iove.

Although events like Ritual forsake the entertainment excesses common to the massive parties and denied the pigeon-hole of rave, ta sorne these events still fostered that

special, indescribable "something" that defined rave. For Beverly May, Ilrave Il is a particular aesthetic, a particular community, a particular music, and a particular delivery

of that music. Perhaps rave, however, can also be defined simply as a feeling that can be found in a multitude of different environments. Nonetheless, much like Britain, the theme of elitists versus populists, the "undergroundll versus the masses, had asserted divisions within the Toronto scene, leaving the definition of rave in question.

The darkside

"...the "chemical generation" passed through the doors of perception into a world where drugs were not only acceptable, but all-consumingly glorious" (Collin: 281).

• Matthew Collin argues that one of the net effects of rave culture was to alter

participants' opinion of iIIegal drug use. Ecstasy didn't seem to have the Ilbad Il reputation of heroin or cocaine: it made Vou happy and "huggy", warm and friendly. It came with a package of pretty Iights, fun, colourful fashion, and its own soundtrack; to its millions of takers, ecstasy seemed innocent. Rave itself can be seen to function as a drug. Those who attend raves are forever in anticipation of that initial high - that first party that "blew your mind"; attainment of this is rare, for in most cases, it is the newness of the experience and spectacle that creates the high. Inevitably, the licorne down" from "e" and the rave experience means drifting back to reality, an often disheartening task. Herein lies the tragedy of raving; touching heaven on earth so many times, is just too consuming to endure for any prolonged length of time. Sheryl Garrett • points out that ecstasy's retums eventually diminish, "It can't change your life every 79

time. The buzz gets weaker, the insights it offers more banal" (Garrett: 314). Those that • can't easily slip back into reality, simply deny it with more drugs until the rave dream becomes their whole world. Sorne become casualties, sucked into the dark underbelly

of rave excesses, while sorne completely withdraw from the scene because they no

longer desire the drugs and are unable ta divorce the rave experience from the ecstasy

experience.

According ta Collin, "The substance that made the scene so special also contained the

means of its destruction" (Collin: 159). There is a repeating cycle within ail rave scenes that starts with a honeymoon period where new recruits see only the positive effects of

"e", followed by the licorne down", when either the drug offers diminishing retums and usage slows and eventually stops or tums into excess and abuse. Simon Reynolds talks extensively of rave's darkside and suggests any scene has a honeymoon of about two years before problems arise. He points out the duality of rave: on the one hand it can be • a "spiritual" experience, a heaven on earth exuding a beautiful, happy, asexuallove; on the other hand rave has a darkside of potential drug abuse. Reynolds wams that the full

rave lifestyle means falling in love every weekend only to have your heart broken every Monday.

Reynolds further suggests that excessive drug use not only affected participants but

partly inspired new forrns of music that were neither positive nor happy, and were aptly

coined "darkside" or "darkcore". He suggests this music reflected, "...a sort of collective

comedown after the E-fueled high of 1991-1992" (Reynolds1998: 208). Darkside was

apparently a pivotai moment for Reynolds when Ecstasy culture's "smiley" face was ripped off revealing rave's ugly drug-based underbelly. The atmosphere of clubs and

raves deteriorated as dead souls wandered the dance floor, haggard and "out of it". The • blissful effects of "e" faded, leaving only amphetamine-like effects of jitters and twitches. 80

• A couple of years after Britain's crossover to the darkside, U.S. rave started taking a

tum for the worse. Reynolds reports participants injecting lI ell out of sheer impatience for

the rush. Kids would often lie in the hallways of clubs because they were too 1I 0ut of it" to stand. Drug use had tumed into po/}'tlrug use with chemicals such as ketamine, nitrous oxide, GHB and crystal methamphetamine coming into prominence. Arguably, it

is this polydrug use that depletes IIvibe", the wonderfully congealing component of an event that mysteriously unifies ail separate rave elements. A variety of drugs creates a

multitude of "headspacesll as opposed to the unifying headspace created by the mass dosing of ecstasy. Reynolds was astonished by the excessively young participants who

n n adopted terms like "tweaking and "sketching , words frightfully fitting for this speed culture who were addicted to crystal meth. An American rayer from Los Angeles confirms these observations in the U.S.,

"...now ail 1see is a bunch of fittle kids tweaking on crystal meth, x'ing their ass off so hard they can't dance, and the whole thing has tumed into a big drug fest. ..a lot of people don't even care who is on the tables, or • anything about the music; as long as they are high off their asses. crystal meth and too much x is killing the scene near my neck of da woods" (Trance).

A girl in New York confirms this problem wasn't specifie to L.A., "Can you believe that

hardly anyone dances out here? ln a crowd of 15,000 people, l'd say only 100-200 people dance...the poor kids are tao drugged out on cat tranquilizers, heroin and speed to do anything, even smile" (Colorada).

Eventually the same problem made its way to Toronto. Initially in about 1995 crystal meth was taboo; little signs on flyers marking lino crystal" certainly confirmed this. Within a couple of years however, it was impossible to keep the drug out. One Canadian participant voiced his concem in Lotus magazine, "Why is it that these mindless pricks • are constantly asking me if 1want to buy some crystal? .. Meth brings out bad vibes, as 81

• weil as non-social behaviour. It's ruining our scene. Wake up!" (Hill: 42). It became

almost as commonplace as "e", and in most cases it was difficult to find "e" without any traces of crystal. It became the secret ingredient that would make ecstasy piUs last for 8­

12 hours instead of 3-4, but the after affects were harsher and much more addictive.

The allure of crystal over pure MDMA was its reduced cost and longer lasting effect. Sorne ravers would have bouts of staying up for days, "1 lost control of my whole life. 1 wouldn't go to sleep ail weekend, and was literally sleeping on my break time at work" (McDowell).

Simon Reynolds paints a grim picture of the effects of prolonged participation in what he calls the rave "machine",

~'The machine is demanding, exacting a heavy toll on its human software: post-rush comedown and midweek ver-out. .. ravers tum into man-machine contraptions gone haywire, teeth-grinding, twitching, guming....this regime of bliss wreaks a terrible attrition on the flesh-and-blood components of • rave's orgasmotron" (Reynolds 1994: 56). For sorne, raving simply consumes too much bodily and mental energy to endure for any extended period of time without experiencing bumout.

• 82

• Phase III Rave is commodified

Counter Spin, a current events forum on CBC Newsworld, conducted an episode on the impending rave "problem" after a city councilor got numerous noise complaints about the outdoor Halloween rave. Most interesting about this episode was not the formulaic talk about "kids and drugs" or the public nuisance of raves, but rather the fact that the

rave panelist was addressed not as a raver or rave participant but as a II rave consumer'. Even the media now saw rave culture as something that was sold and bought.

Many theorists have argued that media recognition and condemnation of rave, acts primarily as publicity. Likewise, Bills designed to stop raves in England actually assisted in driving it mainstream. One of the ravers that Sarah Thomton encountered in England explained that when the tabloid papers used acid-house as a front page story, the • scene started tuming ugly, "Kids, who shouldn't even have known about drugs, read about the raves in the Sun and thought, 'Cor-Acid. That sounds good. Let's get sorne', and loads of horrible people started trying to sell 'swag' drugs" (Thomton: 88). Mathew Collin also suggests that the panic surrounding raves provided great promotion, "Loud music! Drugs! AII-night dancing! What inquisitive young person could resist such enticements?1I (Collin: 90). This free publicity increased business for promoters, drug dealers, and the entire rave infrastructure such as record companies and stores, fashion designers and clothing stores, and street based youth and style magazines. Tony

Coiston-Hayter of British rave company Sunrise admitted that his massive crowds were

impart due to the fact that acid house was front page news and believes The Sun promoted for him.29 Undoubtedly, media attention and condemnation helps industrialize

• 29 see Garrett, 163 83

• a subculture into a business. Mathew Collin plots the progression of commodification

alter ten years of rave and ecstasy culture, "A decade on, the key words did seem to have changed, from love and peace ta investment and promotion, from music ta marketing" (Collin: 272).

Style

Whi/e at a rave in Los Ange/es 1saw young ravers wearing neck/aces ofloosely stitched porn-poms. 1 thought the idea was comp/etely "rave" and started designing my own rendition with a partner in Toronto. Within a year and a hait my business grew from selJing at small 1000 plus parties to 5,000 plus parties ta stores buying $2000 worth of merchandise at a time. /t seemed that 1cou/dn't attend a rave without watching at least a few of my neck/aces on parade, a/ong with a handfu/ of homemade copies. My neck/aces were seen on f/yers, a local magazine, a Toronto-based music video, and around the necks of pop group "Len". Standing behind stalls watching "e-d out" kids buying my wares was a totally new experience from dancing in the crowd. 1 was no longerjust a participant at raves, 1was participating in creating what was rave style. The final mark of our mainstream appeal was evident when CBC's "Jonovision" had an episode dedicated to hip trends in fashion. Two models adomed the stage wearing my • necklaces, this no longer represented "rave" fashion, this was simply "fashion". The style surrounding the scene started ta reflect ravels freedom trom socialized barricades. The uniforms that developed were androgynous and infantile; lollipops, teddy bears and baggy clothes ail became synonymous with acid house. The Ibiza crowd seemed ta continue wearing theïr relaxed, comfortable holiday outfits and rejected the rigid London club style. Subcultural theorist Dick Hebdige believes the distinguishing character of spectacular subcultures from the masses is that they are

"obviously fabricated ll (Hebdige 1979: 101). This contrasts mainstream culture, the goal

of which, according to Roland Barthes is an attempt ta look as "natural" as possible. 3D

Although ravers and the early acid house crowd looked more Ilnatural" in a sense in that they chose clothes and shoes that were comfortable and the girls wore less make-up, they actually stood in stark contrast to the average club crowd. In this sense their outfits • 30 see Barthes 84

• were fabricated: although attending clubs, the acid house crew weren't wearing the normal club gear. Hillegonda Rietveld notes that ravers dressed down while club goers dressed-up. She caUs this an "anti-fashion ll statement and sees this "lack of style" as a style in itself which marked the ravers' marginalized identity. According ta Rietveld those who weren't truly part of the scene easily stood out by their restrictive, "tight uncomfortable clothing..." (Rietveld: 53). The rave fashion protocol was decided according to Rietveld, not only by the need to difter from clubbers but by the exhaustive nature of raves, dancing for hours in combination with Ecstasy would make you sweat and made baggy, comfortable clothes, trainers and little make-up almost a necessity. Rietveld caUs the 1980's the "Designer Decade" and the rave attitude of comfort and anti-fashion was, "...a significant departure from, or a resistance to, the established trend of packaging"(ibid: 52). Acid House style allowed people to express themselves without worrying about image. The colourful, comfortable clothes made ravers look • infantile, which Rietveld sees as a refusai to enter the restrictive rational adult world. A 21-year old raver substantiates this, "We dress this way because we want to look

younger than we are. 1want ta feel younger than 1am, because getting old in America is not much fun" (quoted in Mead: 43).

The "look" of rave if there was one, was anti-style.31 Clothes were based more on comfort than appearance and borrowed some of the loose-fitting traditions of hip-hop, skater and snowboarding styles. Running shoes and the most comfortable pants you owned were the primary elements of rave wear; cornfort was typically interpreted as

"baggy" and it was this Ilbagginess" that eventually became Ilstyle". Bigger came to

mean better and soon ravers were sewing panels into their loose jeans ta make the bottoms wider. Huge sweatshirts and lose T-shirts ail gave ravers a pre-pubescent

• 31 see Phase l "The honeymoon of"e" love" 85

• appearance, while plush teddies came to be a rave accessory that just felt lovely and made everyone smile when on "e". Soon ravers themselves tried to look as "teddy-like" as possible and made loose fitting pants out of pastel fun-fur. It wasn't uncommon in one faction of rave style to see a full-grown male dressed in pink or baby blue fun fur with a soother hanging around his neck. It was safe to say this style had erased ail remnants of club machismo.

Particular drugs also seemed to alter style. When amphetamines started becoming more prominent in the Toronto scene sorne ravers used baby soothers in their mouths to stop the teeth grinding habits caused by excessive speed. This trend was soon adopted as rave style, irregardless of amphetamine consumption, simply because it fit the prominent infantile look. Suddenly soothers and other baby paraphemalia could be found in rave stores, not just drug stores. In Subculture the Meaning of Style, Dick • Hebdige notes a similar trend with punk and suggests that the era boosted the sale of safety pins that were now being used in a new style oriented contexte Hebdige believes subcultural style not only initiates new conventions but reestablishes old ones, "Youth cultural styles may begin by issuing symbolic challenges, but they must inevitably end by establishing new sets of conventions; by creating new commodities, new industries or rejuvenating old ones..." (Hebdige 1979: 96). A similar trend occurred with Vicks Vapo Rub and Vicks inhalers; both were stripped of their intended use as cold-remedy ta become a symbol of rave and more specifically ecstasy use. The electronic band AltemB, appeared on Top of the Pops in England, and prominently displayed a jar of Vicks Vapo Rub which was a clear signification of ecstasy use to insiders of the culture. Displayed by any non-rave band, the same Vicks would perhaps only signify a cold • 86

• virus. According ta Mathew Collin, so many inhalers were being sold to ravers that Vicks was forced to publicly wam of misuse.32

Within time there were individuals who ail adhered to a loosely stitched aesthetic primarily comprised of baggy pants, loose T-shirts, short brightly coloured hair, beaded necklaces, body sparkles, body stickers, bail caps, safety chains, baby paraphemalia,

and children's television and cartoon character paraphemalia such as Winnie the Pooh

and Teletubbies. It was these styles that were emulated because they came to epitomize rave. Eventually with enough people copying, there were no longer individuals. Similarly, ravers started copying each ether's dance styles until certain movements became coditied; eventually regions acquired their own signature articulation of dance style. It had been a heterogeneous crowd that initially defined rave; but ironically raves eventually became a homogeneous mass of fat pants that dragged • along the tloor sopping up rave dirt while they danced. Soon rave was a sweating, gyrating mass of androgynous fun fur.

Rave started as a rejection of the masses, a transgression of gender roles, and dismantling of stereotypes. Gays who felt welcomed and uninhibited in the early rave scene have now created their own scene. Many of the socialized norms once absent in rave culture are now evident. Fewer people talk openly ta strangers, girls are often objectified in a similar manner to the club scene while rave fashion is no longer about standing out, it's about looking the same. This left sorne ravers complaining that the majority of those attending did not "get it"; they were accused of trying too hard at looking, dancing and acting a certain way. One Toronto raver explains his early relationship to rave, "What separates what a rave was when 1tirst started is that they

• 32 sec Collin, 247 87

• don't get the intention behind il. 1 wasn't going to be accepted, 1 was going to be someone who wasn't accepted, 1was going to be someone who was different. 1was inventing my fashion, 1was inventing who 1was" (Cairns). Sarah Thomton discovered that the majority of ravers classified their crowd as, "mixed or difficult to classify" and positioned themselves against, "...a homogeneous crowd" which they weren't a part of (Thomton: 99). So what starts happening when this heterogeneous rave crowd becomes homogeneous and in essence becomes the mainstream it was trying to escape? One Toronto rayer named Karl started stepping away trom the scene when he noticed this happening, "1 think that before rave was something 1 went to because 1 rejected and wanted to escape the mainstream. Now...the mainstream has brought their mentality world views into it and pushed me out. It's become what 1tried to escape" (80rst).

• Sheryl Garrett notes the final development of rave style as witnessed in England's IIsuperclubs" and emphasizes the homogeneous appearance of the crowd,

"People dressed to be noticed, but also to fit in. These were not places for clubbers to experiment, ta try out new sexual and cultural identities. They were places where the joy came trom a sense of belonging, of being part of a crowd. Less participants creating the spectacle, more consumers now expecting ta have it created for them..." (Garrett: 303).

It is difficult ta conclude whether today·s ravers are now consumers, or today's

consumers have bought rave. In early 1999 C8C's Jonovision devoted an entire episode to the "underground world of raves" and began the first segment by suggesting, the most important issue was what ta wear. The segment continued by conducting three

rave IImakeovers". Ironically, it had been anti-style that defined rave, now rave had been • reduced to a style itself. 88

• Many involved in the scene as participants change their relationship to it by becoming

DJs, promoters, drug-dealers, and graphie and fashion designers. By the mid nineties

there was an influx of Toronto..based clothing companies that became quintessential

n rave" labels and brands. According to Dick Hebdige as styles are created and expand

throughout a new subculture they will inevitably be produced, packaged and publicized

and "feed back into the appropriate industries", eventually limiting a subculture's

rebellious nature (Hebdige 1979: 95).

Companies like Snug created pants with special hideaway dual purpose pockets, that

served as secret drug pouches, and allowed your body ta be free while dancing by

eliminating the need for a bag. They also were the tirst to have pants that unzipped into

shorts, perfeet for sweaty raves. In the spirit of Snug a number of other rave..inspired

designers followed suit: Geek Boutique, Fiction, and Mod Robes have ail gained

• National and International success. Soon Canadian chain stores were cashing in on the

rave machine and were imitating many of the innovations of these "street" designers.

The front window of Le Chateau emulated a bathroom at a rave with flyers, empty water

bottles, an empty drink container named "Rave" ail littering the floor while on the

manikins, rave fashions abound. National retailer Eaton's was also keen to benefit tram

the rise in rave's popularity. In the youth section of the downtown Toronto store, a

shopping checklist was prominently hung listing the "necessary" fashion components of

rave. Dick Hebdige points out the social hypocrisy of mainstream stores selling

subcultural style,

"Subcultural deviance is simultaneously rendered 'explicable' and meaningless in the classrooms, courts and media at the same time as the 'secret' objects of subcultural style are put on display in every high street record shop and chain-store boutique. Stripped of its unwholesome connotations, the style becomes fit for public consumption" (Hebdige 1979: • 130). 89

While newsmakers condemned raves, national retailers thrived on its growing appeal. • Hillegonda Rietveld explains that although chain stores stylised and marketed the rave look, the meaning behind the fashion disappeared. Removed from music, the crowd, the hedonism and the dance, the style was purely appearance and aesthetic. This is most evident in Toronto where children as young as 12 are wearing "phat" pants looking as though they just came out of a rave, the only difference being, their pupils are not dilated from drugs, the bottom of their pants are not filthy from rave dirt and they are not sweating from dancing. According to Steve Redhead, "...post-punk subcultures have been characterised by a speeding up of the time between points of authenticity and manufacture" (Redhead 1993b: 24). This is evident with the lightning speed The Sun newspaper in England got hold of Acid House's "smiley'· insignia and sold T-shirts by mail-order. Style progressed trom what was comfortable in the demanding, exhaustive arena of a rave to a very specitied commodity sold in chain stores. Hebdige sees the conversion of subcultural signifiers such as style into mainstream commodities as a • reincorporation into the hegemony, inevitably marking the culture's demise. He feels that, "The cycle leading from opposition to diffusion, from resistanee ta incorporation, encloses eaeh successive subculture" (Hebdige 1979: 100). Hebdige uses the example of punk style, once a symbol of defiance, later a symbol of "huate couture," as elements of the punk aesthetic were evidenced on fashion runways.33 Similarly, one of the

newest Mattel Barbies called "Happenin l Hair" now sports her very own pair of "phat" pants with hair that changes into "funky" eolours, she certainly wouldn't look misplaeed if Iife-size at a rave. With pop ieons such as Enrique Iglesias and Jennifer Lopez bath emulating "rave-esque" environments in their videos, and Samsung electronics

advertising a "portable rave scene" with their MP3 player, it can be argued that rave's subversive nature has deteriorated and has been left undeniably mainstream. Ironically,

• 33 see Hebdige (1979), 96 90

• recent media panic in Ontario would still have the public believe that attending raves is just about the most rebellious and underground aet a teenager can participant in.

Growing industries

Theorists such as Baudrillard have feared the marriage of digitization and music for years, believing that, "...technology can destroy music itselr (quoted in Stail: 66). As technology keeps renewing itself and becomes cheaper, more music is being made, causing particular sounds to be fashionable and others quickly dated. Through the evolution of digital music technologies and their increased availability, a plethora of sub­ genres have been born out of techno since its debut in the late '80s in Detroit. The effect of an ever increasing variety of rave-music genres has been twofold. In one respect the rave scene is now split in countless directions while simultaneously it is more palatable to a larger cross section of the public. The music rave eneompasses has • widened, with sorne parties showcasing hip-hop stars as headliners. This hybridization of music genres has left electronic dance music caught in a maze of semantics and classifications: acid house; house; techno; breakbeat house; handbag house; gabba; hardcore; happy hardcore; darkcore; jungle; ambient; ambient jungle; intelligent techno; trance; and breakbeat house. With each music scene, there is generally a preferred drug. 34 Speed garage is typically sped up garage with a hint of jungle; its preferred drug "coke" is said to encourage the snobbishness of speed garage clubs where jeans and sneakers are most often banned. Jungle is the mast apparent genre for public consumption and has been employed in children's TV shows, and numerous commercials.

34 Le. The house scene invites alcohol, coke, and ecstasy. Hardcore and happy hardcore partners with ecstasy, speed. • and crystal melh. while trance often suggesls the use ofecstasy. acid and mushrooms. 91

Inevitably as the role of rave music transforrned so too did the music's primary deliverer: • the DJ. An article in the Economist Newspaper discusses the idea of technology creating a "faceless" genre of music. Techno music was born out of clubs where,

"...what counts is the beat and the sweat, not the glossiness of the performing artistll (Crocker: 60). Because of this, artists and DJ's are rarely sean, which has helped give rise to a sort of pyramid effect within the techno genre. Artists are placed at the bottom of this pyramid; technology makes producing techno easy and abundant, so fashions within the genre are constantly evolving, thus making the actual music groups/producers less important because of their transient nature. The record label lays in the middle because it is usually synonymous with a particular form or sub/genre of techno. Often people will knowa particular record label because of compilations they produce representing different groups of a particular sound. The DJ is at the top of this pyramid; he/she is the collector and deliverer of a particular style of techno. DJ's are typically the stars of raves, not live acts. As this signifies, the pyramid effect induced by • new technologies suggests changes in music's political hierarchy that are very much evident within the rave scene. Many ravers are more likely to know what DJ they like than what groups/producers they like.

DJs cohere rave ideology by uniting dancers with the spectacle that encompasses them. Without the DJ, rave would cease to exist. While amphetamines help give ravers

their all-night energy, it is the DJ who mysteriously manipulates it. Initially, techno and house DJs had Uttle prominence: their faces remained unrecognizable to most. Douglas

Rushkoff acknowledged in 1994 that, cc •••the house movement is determined to have no stars. It is 'in the face' of a recording industry that needs egos and idolarity in order to survive" (Rushkoff: 121). Despite electronica videos such as Future Sound of London's which refused to show band members, CD packaging with graphics instead of IIfaces", • and Daft Punk who even wore masks during an interview, house music eventually 92

• yielded to the needs of marketing and manufacture. Originally, DJs and electronica

producers defied the usual parameters of authenticity and rock commodification; they

couldn't play live as a typical four or five piece band does, and they made twelve inch

singles on vinyl, not full-Iength CDs. Musicologist Philip Tagg suggests that, "rave

music-especially techno-differs sa basically from rock and roll...that old models for

explaining how popular music interacts with society may need radical revision" (Tagg:

210).

More recently however, house and techno has begun to adhere to pop and rock music

business standards. DJs' faces often adom compilation packaging, their names have

become recognizable and their booking tees reflect this. In addition ta the usual twelve

inch electronica singles, record labels now market CDs which prove more accessible

than their vinyl counterparts. The DJ remix has become standard, while compilations of

generic trance, house and techno are marketed to a more general audience and can • easily be found in chain retail music outlets and television advertising. Continuum records released aThis is Techno compilation series, and the company's manager

admits, "We want our record ta be the ·Saturday Night Feve'" of the '90s. We're going

after a wider audience, a suburban audience" (quoted in Tomlinson: 206). DJ's that

were once "faceless" are now revered with the same awe as pop-stars. In 1991, British

DJ Sasha was called the "son of Gad" by Mixmag music magazine and was pictured on

their cover. Music editor for XLRBTR magazine Andrew Rawnsley explains this

reverence towards the DJ, "...the focus in the House scene is no longer on participation,

no longer on the music itself, but on the deification of a personality-the DJ. In other

words, tis' rock and roll ail over again!" (Rawnsley: 39 DJs who eamed 50~ a set ten

years ago now get f:1 ,000 an hour for spinning.35 Teenagers now want to be more like

DJs than Rock Stars, while arguably the most sought after teenage possession is more • 35 see Garralt, 321 93

• likely to be tumtables and a mixer rather than a guitare This is evidenced in Japan where tumtables reputably outsell guitars.

Another rapidly growing industry in England and more recently in Canada, is the music and style press. Niche media cover the trends of subcultural sound and fashion and contribute to their construction. Sarah Thomton believes that niche media such as this are, "...crucial to our conceptions of British youth..." (Thomton: 151 Within the last decade the number of articles conceming drugs in youth oriented magazines has increased dramatically, no doubt in direct correlation to the growing number of young drug users involved in the club and rave scenes. In Canada there are now two

magazines that are directly related ta raves and clubbing, Tribe started in 1993 and

Klublife started in May 1997. In her book, Ecstasy: Case Unsolved, Sheila Henderson explains this phenomena was evident even with magazines designed for young teens,

• "Smash Hits magazine advertised '8 pages of Rave stuff inside' on its October 1992 caver· (Henderson: 9).

Free street magazines such as NOW, currently have an underground section which lists upcoming raves, dance nights, and parties. Ironically, a few years ago rave promoters were denied any listings in their events calendar because they had no fixed location

mentioned.

• 94

Rave is everywhere

"Can't tell the women from the men Il no 1say you can't because they're • dressed in the same volution Il their mind is confused with confusion Il ta their problems seems there's no solution Il midnight ravers, please don't let me down

1see ten thousand chariots Il and they're coming without horses Il riding they cover their face Il so you couldn't make them out in a smoky place Il in this musical stampede where everybody's doing their thing Il in this musical stampede people swing Il in this musical stampede someone said 'keep on ridin llf "Midnight raverslf -Bob Marley These lyrics help define the nature of a rave without the limitations of its subcultural definition. Bob Marley speaks of ravers in 1973 that are using dance to find hope and meaning in their world tilled with problems which defy solutions. Much like the androgynyof 1990'5 ravers, Marley points out that you "can't tell the women tram the men"; in their dance these classifications are meaningless. Bob Marley's words suggest • that the idea of raving is certainly not new, yet only now has an international youth culture been sa closely aligned with the specified event that is a rave. Simon Reynolds provides ample example of prior use of IIraverl. Once it was used as the condemning description of jazz fans in 1961, and later evident in a documentary as a term for hysterical teen female fans. The term "Ali Night Rave" was used in 1966 for a

psychotropic event which featured acid rock bands the Soft Machine and Pink Floyd 1 36

while in Biblical terms lita rave lf was ta prophesize.37 The dictionary has traditionally defined a rayer as an "uninhibited pleasure loving persan", while a "rave-up" was simply

lf a "Iively party."38 Mainstream knowledge and participation in a definitive rave Ifculture however, is evidenced in the new Canadian Oxford Dictionary definition: "a large, often

36 see Reynolds (1998), 77 37 see Wheless, 200 • 38 The Concise Oxford Dictionary (1990), 996 95

illicit all-night party or event, often held in a warehouse or open filed, with dancing to • roud fast electronic music" (1998).

Rave started as an alternative, underground, renegade culture, that hid from police and media exposure and rejected the high profile nature of clubs. Having come full circle, rave culture is now a driving force within sorne factions of club culture and is undoubtedly the impetus behind the increase of all-night clubs. Licensing laws and unattainable permits have forced rave-type events into legal club environments, while the ever growing prominence of speed-based drugs such as ecstasy, has increased the desire for clubs ta stay open all-night. In England, electronica is the norm in clubland

with "superclubs" such as Ministry of Sound, and Cream playing house, techno and its various subgenres. Other clubs will cater exclusively to one particular brand of electronica. This has been paralleled in Toronto ta a lesser extent where rave-type • clubs will pander ta a particular genre on particular nights each week. The ward rave is now common lingo and has been mentioned on Britain's soap opera

Coronation Street, and Canada's youth talk show Jonovision, while two episodes of

Britainls mystery series Inspectar Morse were devoted ta raves entirely. Rave culture is no longer a hidden phenomenon; it is what the majority of mainstream youth do for fun on Saturday nights, usually in a club that is legally open after hours. Ali that remains of its underground nature is iIIegal drug consumption.

An HMV add sums up the ubiquitous presence of rave and how normalized and mainstream iIIegal pill-popping has become. Their "Holiday Relief Sale" advertisement

shows an outstretched tongue where a coloured pill embossed with the word "saleu prominently sits, looking symbolically like an ecstasy pill. Ironically, the picture in this

• advertisement is almost interchangeable with the picture in a front page Toronto Star 96

article condemning ecstasy use39 and with Irvine Welsh's caver for his novel Ecstasy. • Sheryl Garrett also notices the advertising lure of club and ecstasy culture which contrasts the actions and discourse of the goveming bodies attempting its control, "...the tourist board markets our clubs as a vibrant attraction even as laws are being passed ta close them" (Garrett: 319). Garret lists the signs of commercial success within rave and club industries: Britain's "superclubs" that have their logos on CD compilations, merchandise and clothes; superstar DJs that make weil into the thousands for DJing; and the success of dance hits on the radio music charts. She notes that most flyers now adom a corporate logo while virtually no club is free of advertising in at least one form. Ironically, on the back page of Sheryl Garrat's book is a sublime advertisement for a compilation mixed and compiled by Pete Tong, arguably Britain's most commercial dance/rave DJ and a staple on BBC radio. This weil placed advertisement confirms that rave and club culture is so incorporated and commodified that even a book analysing the culture quietly suggests that the reader purchase one of the most commercialized • compilations available. Although an advertisement, this final page couId also be taken purely for its irony in showing us just how consumed this culture is by consumerism.

• 39 see Potter 97

• Hippy vs. rave

1I li IIHippies- The original blueprint for ravers. - Copy for a IILevis jeans advertisement

This II Levisll advertisement certainly wasn1t the first ta suggest that hippy had been a ll precursor for rave. Twenty-one years after the first Iisummer of love 40 British youths

danced the summer of 1988 in far away fields and concealed warehouses. It was

coined by many as the "summer of love" reincamated. Once again the media had

discovered that white, middle-class youths were embracing new music, a new

awareness and a new drug. Or were they? Was the birth of the rave a 1990s archetype

of the quintessential hippy trip, or was this something completely different?

• "It's 1960s idealism hopping into bed with the technologically inclined 90's ta give birth

ta one big happy politically correct family" (Huffstuter). This Los Angeles Times article

suggests that rave culture was a fusion of 1960s idealism with 1990's technocracy.

Many of those within the scene like to adopt this belief as weil; one raver explains, lIit's

like a 1960'5 scene - ail the races are together, dancing, having a communal

experience. We want ta go to Woodstock and rave for a whole week" (Garcia). Is it

incorrect or superficial ta define ravers as flower-power-wanna-bes? Although sorne

parallels are clear and aften appropriate, comparative investigation begins alluding to

vast discrepancies between the two cultures. The following section serves as a

comparative analysis of hippie and rave, outlining similarities and discrepancies within

40 The summer of love in 1967 epitomized the hippy's culmination of self-awareness and awakening through public displays of"unifonnity", and was seen by many as the height ofpsychedelic drug tlow within this culture's lifespan; • il was the summer thal America discovered the hippy. 98

these two cultures specifie to their music, ideologies, politics and cultural arenas and • shows how they are intrinsically linked to their culturally appropriate drug consumption.

Relationship 10 drugs

The strong and obvious parallel between hippy and rave is the symbiotic axis around

which they revolve: drugs. Like most deviant subcultures, rave and hippy were both

reliant on an emergent drug culture. Interestingly, LSD and MDMA were new to the

public sphere when introduced as the fuel for both of these sub-cultures respectively.

LSD was banned in 1966 just prior to the height of public consumption, while similarly

MDMA was banned in 1985 about three years before it was adopted by a media frenzy;

ironically these drugs were originally synthesized in 1938 and 1914 respectively. While

trying to decipher whether the drugs pointed to the scene or whether the scene pointed • to the drugs, the inherent symbiosis becomes evident. As hippy culture disseminated, sa too did media and public discussion, and talk of LSD quietly subsided. A similar

development has incurred in Britain with rave; as it proliferates globally and becomes

more acceptably "mainstream", public fears of MDMA slowly lessen.

It cannot be refuted that the hippy movement was built symbiotically with L80, "...there is

no doubt that the initiating element, the sacrament, the symbolic centre, the source of

group identity in hippy lives was the psychedelic drug trip" (Bakalar:70). Likewise eestasy

with rave culture, "...rave also operates as a gigantic musical, subcultural machine, in

which the drug Ecstasy, or E, works as both fuel and lubricanf' (Reynolds 1994: 56). • There are, however, fundamental difterence in eaeh culture's respective drug of choiee. 99

LSD is considered to alter and expand human consciousness, increase bodily • sensations, heighten awareness of colour, distort scenery and perception of spaee and time, initiate concem with philosophieal, cosmological, and religious questions which can

lead, if it is a "positive" trip, to an intensified interest in the self and the world. 41

Understanding these effects, it becomes clear why LSD was particularly appropriate for a

culture with ideologies steeped in self discovery, or inversely why these particular drug

users initiated a culture based on self discovery. Contrarily ecstasy can create a capacity

for empathy, sensuality, serenity, self-awareness, and "noetic" feelings Le. envisioning

the world as a child sees it. 42 15 it the culture that just wants to have fun, love one another

during a night of dancing and act like a kid again, that chose the appropriate vehicle,

MDMA, or did this new drug initiate this collective behaviour?

• Sounds of a subculture Hippies and ravers alike claim that drugs offer the possibility of adding new dimensions

and depth to their music. One commonality between the two cultures is an idea of

"seeing" music.43 ln hippy culture there was a hierarchical relationship ta the type of drug

used in musical appreciation, with acid usually considered the most influential and

altering. One hippy explains, ", ..with acid you see right into the music...you hear things

in Floyd on acid, that 1don't hear when l'm straight" ('Tony' quoted in WiIIis: 145). The

space held open ("spaced-out") by drug induction allows for greater differentiation of

sound reception and hearing manipulation. In particular, drug use allows listeners to

01' see Masters, 5 42 see Eisner, 3 43 This is a drug reaction that occurs with the use ofpsychedelic drugs called synthesia, which in essence is a • blending of sensory responses, i.e. hearing and seeing music or seeing music or words as colours etc. [DO

follow the lines and sounds of different instruments, which is impossible for "straighr • people to do, and in sorne cases helps Iisteners go "insidell the music. Groups like Frank Zappa, Pink Floyd and Jimi Hendrix claimed that their music could only be

understood through drug-induced Iistening. Sorne of the 160s material from the

legendary IlGrateful Dead" was accused of being, "unlistenable unless vou are in a

altered state of consciousness" (Shapiro: 142).

Like the progressive rock of the '60s, the aesthetics of techno often allude ta drug

induced listening/dancing. One anonymous raver alludes ta the idea of "seeingll music

much Iike hippies claimed, "Teach your eyes to hear and teach your ears ta see, then

only will you understand our culture." Because techno uses very repetitive drum and

bass loops, sorne find techno too grating or monotonous to tolerate while "straight". One • raver sites the blatant connection of music and drugs, "...whoever it was that brought house music and Ecstasy and amphetamines together is a total genius and 1 want ta

shake that man's hand". Specifie genres such as ''trance'' use intensely high

frequencies, layered sounds, and intense climaxes that accentuate a psychedelic drug

trip, or inversely the drug trip accentuates the music. Simon Berry, of the trance label

Platypus, axplains this phenomenon,

"There's definitely a Iink between trance music and acid...Acid lands itself more comfortably to the mood on the dancefloor at trance evants. The music is very visual, with lots of changing frequencies. Acid exaggerates the sounds, which are made for people in that headstate as their ears are 50 much more sensitive ta what is happening" (Munday:47).

For hippies, music was an experience in which the appropriate method of reception was

• concentrated Iisteningl and usually not dancing. The helps explain the lack of interest in 101

the single, because they were seen as tao short and limiting, hence the LP • predominated. The full length album, which was often used as a resource in thematic production, was intended to be listened to in one sitting. On the "Grateful Dead" album,

"live Dead", one composition takes up three album sides.

While hippies fought against the single and elevated the LP, the mainstay of techno, like

most dance genres, is the single. Techno's foremost intention is "danceability", and

marks the first genre of "popular music" that is built around a voiceless, faceless artist.

ln hippy culture the musician was paramount and was received through concentrated

listening or a live venue. Technology however, has altered the crucial role of the

musician, and as the live act was disintegrating, DJ culture was synthesized. DJs use • other artist's music (sometimes with their own) to create a signature piece through their mixing; in essence the process causes the music to continually evolve. Records and

samplers have become the instruments of the nineties rave experience, with DJs often

using two or three tumtables to create ''their'' music. As music has progressed from

hippy to rave it has experienced a vast transformation tram voice orientation in the

music of the 160s to a Iyrical void in the 190s. In hippy music lyrics were paramount and

often alluded specifically to ''tripping''. The Beatles' "Yellow Submarine" came about

after John Lennon tripped on acid and imagined Harrison's house as a big submarine

where they alllived.44 For the most part rave music is Iyricless, it manipulates repetitive

rhythms to involve the dancer, not a catchy tune or lyrics. The use of samples • sometimes alludes to drugs not unlike the music of the 160s. The Shamen's "Ebeneezer 102

Goode" (Ue's" are good) Josh Wink's "higher State of Consciousness" and Ashley's • "Dope makes Vou feel ail righr are only a few examples. Reaetionary polities vs. the polities of partying

Although hippy culture was seeped in the notion of reactionary politics such as the

Vietnam war, the principle ideology surrounding their culture was a sense of spirituality

as it relates to self awareness. The greatest quest within hippy philosophy was

transcendence, and what better vehicle to attain this then LSD. It is therefore

understandable why both LSD and "grass" were viewed by many hippies as the

sacraments of their religion.45 Hippies opposed the "plasticity" of American society by

living naturally in the likes of communes and ghettos. In this sense hippy ideology was

not only a statement, it was a way of living. Somehow LSD made issues in mainstream

America appear trivial and limiting, hence hippy opposition to political action and • quarrels. Hippies were stridently opposed to technology, reacting against ail that was technologically inclined including nuclear power, war, and corporate America. Contrarily

rave culture was built on the premise of new technologies. Techno music and its'

counterparts are created solely by computers, drum machines, electronie keyboards

and samplers. Detroit techno originator Juan Atkins substantiates this by calling his

music emotion crumbling at the feet of technology, liAs the priee of sequencers and

synthesisers has dropped, so the experimentation has become more intense....we're

tired of hearing about being in love or falling out, so a new progressive sound has

emerged" (Cosgrove: 86). Rave culture utilizes ail that is "technocratic", tram

eomputerized phone links to update party whereabouts, the internet for dissemination, • 44 see Shapiro. 145 103

computerized lighting and projections at events, to flyers created with the aid of • computer graphies. Mathew Collin notes there have been many comparisons of outdoor raves to hippy festivals but admits that these analysis were purely cosmetic. A

magazine advertisement for a rave called "Zencentricity" in London in 1996, hints at

their efforts to ensure a Ilpsychedelic" experience, "...much has been done to recreate

the meaningful relationship between both the musical and visual elements of the bona

fide psychedelic experience. n As the liner notes of this tlyer suggest, the rave is the

epitomized psychedelic spectacle. But in many ways rave only 1100ked" like a hippy

gathering. Mathew Collin differentiates between the scene in the sixties that was built by

Harvard University students, artists and writers following in the wake of professor

Timothy Leary. For Collin, hippy culture was seeped in psychology and Eastern

mysticism and championed civil rights movements. Contrarily,

• "Drug-taking in the eighties had lost the politicized, bohemian context it had in the sixties; it was more about hedonism, a holiday in an altered state, than it was about mind-expansion, and the adoption of hippie slogans by the original Shoomers was merely a reconstruction of received myths about the sixties...The way acid house developed reflected eighties

Britain, not sixties America... Il (Collin: 196).

Hippies engaged in student protests and lived their philosophies daily; rave ideology on the other hand, is provided for its patrons on flyers and album liner notes where blatant references to egalitarianism are made, suggesting that raves are events without door policies where people from ail walks of life unite and become one under a hypnotic beat. Perhaps it was the hippy remnants on the Island of Ibiza where Acid House was bom that encouraged the Acid House originators to adopt lia simulacrum of what they

believed the sixties were like..."(ibid:60). The copy for a 1995 New Years Eve rave in • oiS see Yablonsky, 22 104

• Los Angeles exemplifies this, "Everyone is a star, you are the future. You've got to believe in yourself, your god within, as we jam, hand in hand...celebrating another loving year of the planet family...of global chillage. 11 Rave was built on the essence of

community and unity and this is apparent at most events,

"The ultimate phase-Iocking occurs in the dance itself, where thousand of the "Iike-minded" young people play out house culture's tribal ceremony. The dance links everyone together in a synchronous moment. They're on the same drugs, in the same circadian rhythm, dancing to the same 120­ beat-per-minute soundtrack. They are fully synchronized" (Rushkoff:120).

Rave culture is overflowing in hedonistic ideology, where the essence lies in having fun through the convergence of one big happy collective. The smiles that ecstasy created on the faces of its partakers, made the late '80s Acid House "smiley" face mascot exceedinglyappropriate, irregardless of its adoption from the hippy era.

• As uniting as ail the glossy flyers maintain, Sarah Thomton points to the irony, "...only those lIin the know" could hear of and locate the party- moreover black and gay youth tended to see rave culture as a straight, white affair" (Thomton: 56). Thomton observes the egalitarian hypocrisy by noting that although techno music has black roots, rave is predominantlya white-middle class phenomenon, much like hippy culture. While hippy culture embraced the idea of public displays of Iifestyle rave substantiates the inverse: it has always been "hidden". Along with rave culturels noctumal existence, news of events

has always been secretive, and limited to ward of mouth and flyers to avoid police raids.

Unlike hippy culture which embraced a grass-roots way of living that stressed environmental concems, the rave community is symptomatic of a 190s anti­

environmental mentality. Any snapshot of a rave space after an event is evidence of the

• culturels wasteful nature. The floor is strewn with empty water bottles and flyers, soon ta 105

• be tossed in the garbage rather than the recycling bin. Even at outdoor parties, it is typically the promoters who are left to deal with the camage that patrons leave behind

because they were too Ilhigh U to care where they littered.

Although there were hippy rituals such as the music festival, live shows and communal gatherings such as the nightly "rap session", the hippy arena was lite itself. Most hippies came from middle-and upper-class America, living in self-imposed poverty in siums, ghettos, and communes. Many within the scene voluntarily chose to live in the drudgery that poverty struck America was trying to crawl out of.

Whereas hippy is a lifestyle rave is primarily a weekend event. This allows participants

to be anything they want during the week and be a "raver" on the weekends. Roger

Beard, a "Boys Own ll DJ in London, qualifies this observation, III1The problem with the • scene was that it only really existed for the time that you were in a club, whereas the sixties was a much more all..encompassing thing" (quoted in Collin: 70). Although it is

true that sorne ravers live for the weekends and attend almost religiously, one can only

be a raver if they actually attend raves. Hippies, on the other hand, were still hippies

whether they went to a Grateful Dead show or Woodstock or not; it was inherent in their

way of life, not in the events they attended.

Unlike the hippy ideologies that were pushed along with the intermittency of radical

politics, rave culture has been accused of being purely apolitical. Simon Reynolds

points out, rave culture is "...about the celebration of celebration" (Reynolds: 1994: 56).

While DJ disaster suggests that rave is, Il •••about forgetting who's 90in9 to be president • and having a good time" (quoted in Garcia). In Lysergia Suburbia Kristian Russell 106

suggests that rave was politieal in a manner akin ta the 160s. For Russell, ravers that • held poUtieal demonstrations with the slogan "Freedom for the right to party" in England were similar to demonstrations by student protesters in the late '60s. George MeKay

disagrees wholeheartedly,

"Let's see- in the sixties there were international demonstrations against the intemational power and wars of capitaUsm...for the rights of workers across Europe.. .ln the late eighties and early nineties a few disparate groups of British youth come together ta demonstrate for the right to carry on getting out of theïr heads and dancing to weird music at weekends. Are these really so glibly comparable?" (MeKay: 118).

Perhaps the comparison of hippy politics and rave politics is glib, because for the most

part ravels politics are internai, personal and invisible to outsiders. No one can argue

against the celebratory intent behind raving, but perhaps it is rave's sheer hedonism

that is meaningful and political. Western society demeans the importance of celebration

unless it is wrapped in the commereialized package of a calendar holiday. Our culture • dictates that individuals should work, and function in a manner recognized by the govemment and the economy. Ravers on the other hand rebel against what is defined

as "good" and "normal". They dance while others sleep, they celebrate simply for the

sake of celebration and take drugs for enlightenment and entertainment. Rave culture

questions societal norms. It steps outside the day to day mundane, socialized rituals

into a world that is free forme Herein lies the political nature of raves: they mark a refusai

to conform, to accept socialized gender roles, established codes of interaction and

personal conduct. Rave culture has also been political in ifs dismantling of normal music

distribution and production hierarchies. The initial use of white label singles by DJs and

relatively cheap computers and samplers put music making in the hands of individuals

and posed a huge challenge to major record labels. • 107

Slowly, however, rave has become less subversive and more commercial, as it has • been absorbed by the institutions it fought against. DJs have become stars, small white labels have been bought and distributed by corporate labels and the style has been codified and commodified. Paradoxically, the less political rave has become intemally, the more political rave has become extemally through media and govemment exposure and regulations. In the 160s, hippies were political because they recreated against the

govemment. In the IgOs rave has become political because the govemment has reacted

against if. Police units and laws have been set up in Britain and Canada to deal specifically with what they see as the pending "rave problem. 11 ln Britain the "Criminal

Justice Actll was passed in 1994 and outlawed the organization of attendance of "...nighttime outdoor festivals characterized by Irepetitive beats'" (Rumack: 28). Similarly, in Toronto a rave summit was headed by Ontario's consumer and commercial relations minister in an effort ta strategize an end ta raves. Another summit was held on March 14 at Toronto's police headquarters in an effort ta create a rave Task Force. The • city's mayor initiated "0peration Strike Force" while proposed bylaws were pending that would award police and fire marshals greater control in stopping a rave event. A few weeks later city council banned raves completely on city-owned property, arguably the safest places ta hoId raves. The two provincial summits in Toronto have set the stage for proposed bylaws which will inevitably help push sections of the rave scene back underground, while others will only survive if they are large enough ta afford the appropriate permits and tees for spaces that maintain fire code regulations.

ln lieu of ail the efforts made by various govemments to stamp-out raves, there is little evidence of ravers making a united front ta defend theïr culture. George McKay accuses rave of showing "little evidence of social collectivism" (McKay: 116). Sadly this is often the case. As unifying as the rave scene may appear it encompasses a variety of • disparate groups that often don't communicate outside of a rave venue. Toronto's rave 108

• community is also split between musical tastes, age, and promoter loyalty. The entire Toronto rave community has recently been on trial with a coroners Inquest into an ecstasy and rave related death. The "Toronto Dance Safety Committee" pleaded for support to hire a lawyer to defend rave culturels interests at this inquest. Sadly the bulk of funds came not from rave participants but from the city1s largest promoter, who obviously had the most finances at stake. Furthermore, only a small number of ravers were actually present at the inquest. The same week a benefit called II rave against rage" was held at a small Toronto club that was almost empty.

On the first of August, 2000, however, Toronto ravers finally seemed to take notice that their culture was under fire. A number of rave-related organizations and promoters

ll organized "I Dance : a free rave and rally that took place on the grounds of Torontols City Hall. The rave rally's credence was, IIll's about Freedom to Dance". The response • was overwhelming with an estimated attendance of 15-20 thousand. As techno ricocheted off surrounding downtown buildings, young and old ravers stated their cause

ll by dancing, cheering and carrying placards such as IIRaves are fun , and "Raves = Jobs".

• •

At Toronto's "1 Dance" rally on August 1, 2000, young and old ravers stated their cause by dancing, cheering and carrying placards such as, "Raves are fun", and "Raves =Jobs". • Photos: Tara McCall

• 109

• Different drugs for different times ln unearthing the symbiotic relationship between hippy culture with LSO, and rave culture with MDMA, one can begin to comprehend a key relationship between LSD and the hippy ideological notion of self discovery, and the hedonistic rave ideology of collective empathy through MDMA use. It cannot be denied that LSD and MDMA were the "new" drugs that created media hype, public experimentation, and helped oil the cogs of these two subcultural phenomena. In opposition to hippy ideology which was steeped in revolutionary undertones, are today's ravers naive in that they have no cause, or have they unearthed the tribal secret in the power of communal dance? ln sorne respects the rave phenomenon helps point to a global youth culture that lacks uniform ideologies. Unlike hippy culture who were searching for collective transcendence, raves, in their tum, were enveloped by utopian egalitarianism with rave promoters Iike "Utopia", "Setter Days" and "United Dance" stating the obvious.

• Rave has given birth to what has come to be known in media cireles as the E generation; marking a culture that is synonymous with drug consumption. While we hazard to guess if hippy culture was a reflection of middle America rediscovering itself, or middle America discovering a new drug, a similar question surrounds rave. Are these sub-cultural evolutions dependant on new drug experimentation or would either scene have developed in isolation trom surrounding drug cultures? Any answer is highly speculative, and while history prevails will remain unknown.

• 110

The hippy disco

"The music never stops...not for a single minute. Each song segues into • the next...The lights are synchronized with the sound, and they never stop flashing except during the percussive interludes, when everything falls dark...After you've been (there) for a while...you may begin to teel a disorientation of fancy within yourselt, and Vou may attune yourselt to the repetitive shifts of this electronic music of the spheres and fall into a kind of...trance in which your brain tums off and you give yourself up to the sensations which envelope you ...The...trance is hypnotic" (Helgesen quoted in Tomlinson: 195).

Although many theorists have suggested similarities between rave and hippy culture,

Lori Tomlinson uses the above quote describing a disco to iIIustrate similarities between

the rave scene and disco. Since rave music did have roots in the New York and

Chicago disco scenes the comparison of musics seems obvious. Tomlinson outlines a

number of music criticisms from both eras with accusations that are virtually

interchangeable. Just as disco was accused of being, "monotonous, boring, • mechanical," "Faceless," l'formulated, restrictive" and having "predictable rhythms" rave music has been described as "repetitive and cold," l'faceless, computer-generated

dance music," and "soulless machine music" (Tomlinson: 197). Tomlinson notes that as

disco gained in popularity, the accompanying styles became codified, expensive and

gender based. Any rave clothing store will suggest a similar trend with today's scene.

What was once a style of androgyny and comfort, is now a style that is costly and

gender based, with body-hugging women's fashions making a resurgence. A 1996

article in the Utne Reader on rave suggests the culture is headed towards the same

commodification process that disco experienced, "...with the inevitable

commercialization of the trend, raves are headed down the same spiral that saw disco • in the '70s go from a hip ritual of the gay demimonde to the white-suited silliness of III

Saturday Night Fever' (McKusick: 22). As discos became more popular they also • became more segregated, "providing fewer opportunities for those of diverse ethnie backgrounds and sexual orientations to mingle frealy" (iomlinson: 208). This has also

been an inevitable by·product of the growing rave scene, where particular clubs now

attract a particular crowd. At one time a singular rave would attract old, young, gay,

straight, as weil as a multitude of races. Today there are raves set up specifically by and

for the gay community, events that specity a nineteen and over crowd, as weil as events

that appeal primarily to teenagers.

If rave began in the summer of 1988 as a simulacrum of the hippy experience it has

surely made the logical progression a decade on to more accurately resemble the last • days of disco.

• 112

Conclusion: ravels last days

Wednesday July 12, 2000. around 1:30 am. Tonie nightclub with Detroit DJ • Claude Young. After five years of raving and 109 pages of insight, can any conclusion be drawn? The DJ clashes the sound of two records back and forth with almost violent precision. His rhythms are so syncopated that it confuses a lot of the dancers. The strobe lights are so continuai and erratic 1feel as though l'm constantly having myphoto taken. 1 look around the assortment of people quickly trying to take my own mental photograph of the scene before me. There are a couple of guys in suits who look painfully out of place, not sure how to find their rhythm. Two couples in their late twenties are massaging one another, their bodies and actions a physical display of the drug they've ingested. They can only be new to ecstasy, their uncomfortable clothes and the looks of wonder on their faces are way too telling. 1massage my boyfriend's neck, only because he's tired from a long day of work (it being a weeknight), a clubber makes the assumption that we're on "e", smiles uncontrollably at us and waves glowsticks in front of our faces, thinking this will intensify our "trip". It makes us both laugh. The odd raver wanders about with an air ofnonchalance. Some are only dancing because they're in a dance club, not because they're inspired to, and you can tell. It's almost as if1can read their minds, "What is this techno stuffanyway?" 1realize this club like many others is a melting pot for a number ofdisparate groups, probab/y reminiscent of early Toronto club raves. "Regular" people trying out what they be/ieve to be "new" drugs for the first or second time. "Old-school" ravers coming to check out a particular DJ, others simply enjoying a few beers and a night on the town. There are moments at this club when we seem to synergize, whistles are blown, arms are raised and bodies move with pure abandonment. But as quickly as we are unified, the track changes and • the intensity dies. Arms come back down, and we mingle once again. 1make a mental note of the changes in the scene and try andpinpoint the fragmented e/ements of "rave" that remain. Making full judgement of those around me, 1 come to understand the difference between a true rave and a club night, a rave from manyyears ago and a rave trom today. Unlike the spattering of people here tonight on ecstasy who feel no judgement towards themselves or those around them, 1do, and therein lies the integral difference.

Unlike other subcultures that have their burst and then quietly dwindle into subcultural

archives, rave has endured countless cycles and resurgences. This has happened not

only in Britain, but in North America as weil. Perhaps it is the sheer lack of ideology, the

voicelessness of rave, that allows it to seep over borders like no other subculture before

il. Rave music transcends the limits of words that were evident in the musies of previous

cultures, while rave style transcends the parameters dictated by fashion, for each region • has created its own style that continually progresses. Rave events themselves 113

overcome the laws intended to suppress them by finding new locations of fields, • cowsheds, and even licensed clubs. This is why rave is limited when it is defined by place. Perhaps it is simply an environment which allows the experience of certain freedoms, and in so doing, certain emotions. If the environment allows you to get lost in music, lost in the human connections that surround you, lost in dance then your integral, internai self is found and Vou are raving.

Rave much like the internet that started its growth around the same time, involves more

people with each passing season, growing not as a scene but scenes. As what is

considered II rave ll music expands, it invites a much broader cross section of youth with it. Every parent has heard the word "ravell and most likely hopes their own children are not involved; the probability remains if they are not involved they soon might be. As rave continues to expand it morphs into a new entity, only slightly recognizable to it's initial stage over a decade ago. It is rave's marriage with change that assures its longevity. • This cyclical characteristic maintains rave's ceaseless perpetuation and is arguably programmed into its drug of choice: ecstasy. Rave's new recruits experience their own honeymoon periods every subsequent couple of years and eventually they too will drop out.

The evolution of rave exhibits the same fundamental tendencies of lite in the city, the process much smaller and perhaps with accelerated pace. Rave can be seen as a microcosm of the city which houses it. Or perhaps a microcosm of the city. Like a small town vou once knew many of the people at a rave or at the very least, their faces were vaguely familiar. Many rave communities have grown to include the same variety of people that Vou might encounter on the streets; it isn't as easy to find faces you • recognize. In a city Vou have to lock your door at night, and yes, at a large rave it is 114

• recommended that you keep an eye on your knapsack. 50, are raves violent and scary? 15 your city?

The ambiguousness of the definition of rave is also evident at the events themselves. Some parties appear spiritual, liberating and even magical; others, however, show rave's extremist nature where drug use seems excessive and abusive, demeaning rave's more meaningful attributes.

Sheryl Garrett leaves her readers with a positive picture of rave and club culture,

"At theïr best, clubs are places where the marginalised can feel at home, where we can experiment with new identities, new ways of being. They are places where cultures collide, where people dance alongside each other and then, when they meet again in the real world outside, understand each other a little better" (Garrett: 321). Idealistically this is sometimes true, but tao often when the drugs where off, this understanding Garret speaks of diminishes, leaving the divisions of race and sex • reaffirmed and the barricades of socialized behaviour rebuilt. The proof is in the sub­ scenes, the war between promoters, the "Balearics", the "acid Teds," and the naming of bath.

If only ravers could remember the joy they felt when dancing with their eyes closed, not seeing, not judging. Loving themselves, their lives and those around them for that instant, even if they were strangers, newcomers, old-timers, wearing fast years outfit or dancing fast year's dance. They loved them, during that dance, during that song, during that "rush" because they assumed those around them were experiencing that same jay they were experiencing. With a simple smile their existence was validated; for at that most vulnerable, intimate and blissful moment, they were acknowledged and allawed to feel more liberated then ever before. If ravers remembered that moment ail dayevel}' day, perhaps they cauld live their life not having to go ta raves, ta be a rayer. • 115

Bibliography

• Alderson, Evan, "Ballet as Ideology". In Meaning in Motion. ed. Jane C. Desmond. London: Duke University Press,1997

Applegath, James. "the Divine Creators" Klublife magazine. Vol2 issue 7, Dec. 1998: 16-18

Aslinger, H.F. and Cooper, Ryley, Marijuana- Assassin of Youth, The Reader's Digest, February 1938: 3-6

Bakalar, James Band Grinspoon, Lester. Psychedelic Drugs Reconsidered. New York: Basic Books, Inc. 1979

Banks, Mike, ''Techno Rebels: Detroit's Agents of Change". URB. Aug/Sept. 1996: 58-65

Barthes, Roland. Mythologies. trans. Annette Lavers. New York: Hill and Wang, 1972

Beek, Clarence V. "Marijuana Menace." Literary Digest. January 1,1938: 26-7

• Benson Richard, "Life Overthe Rainbow". The Face. March 1996: 87-90

Bland, Alexander and Percival, John. Men Dancing, London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson Ltd.,1984

Bragg, Rebecca. "Police say raves can't be stopped." The Toronto Star. 2 November, 1999

Broughton, Frank and Brewster, Bill. Ministry of Sound's the Manual: the who. the where. the why of clubland. London: Headline Book publishing, 1998

Cairns, Paul. personal interview, Dec. 5, 1999

Cashman, John. The LSD Story. Greenwich: Fawcett Publications, 1966

Champion, Sarah. "Fear and Loathing in Wisconsin." ln The ClubCultures Reader. ed. Steve Redhead. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers. 1997

Clinton, G., Hazel, E. and Davis, R. (Funkadelic). "Free Your Mind and Your Ass ll Will Follow • Bridgeport Music Inc.: 1970

Collin, Matthew, with contributions by Godfrey, John. Altered State. London: • Serpent's Tail, 1997 116

Cohen, Stanley. Folk Devils and Moral Panics. Oxford: Martin Robertson, 1980 • ------The Manufacture of News. London: Constable and Co. Ltd., 1973 Colorada, DalL "Feedback." Fix magazine. Vol 1 issue 4, Nov. 1995: 8

Crocker, C., "Ali the Rave." The Economist Newspaoer. Vol. 323.30 May, 1992: 60

Cosgrove, Stuart. "Seventh City Techno." The Face. No. 97. May 1988: 86-89

Crosley, John. personal interview, Dec. 5,1999

Cunningham, Dave. "Celebrating Drug Abuse". Western Report. 16 March, 1992: 31

Dagan, Esher A. The Spirit's Dance in Africa. Westmount Quebec: Galerie Amrad African Arts Publications, 1997

Daly, Anne. "Classical Ballet: A Discourse of Difference", ln Meaning in Motion ed. Jane C. Desmond. London: Duke University Press, 1997

"The Dangers of LSD". Time. 22 April 1966: 52 • De Mille, Agnes. The Book of the Dance. New York: Golden Press Inc,1963 De Landri (producer), segment 1. "20/20". ABC News. 24 Jan 1997

"Donna and the Sugar Cube", Newsweek, 18 April, 1966: 100

Donut, Tribal. "They said the rave scene was dead." URB. vol 6, # 50, August/Sept. 96: 14

Durant, Alan. "A New Day for Music? Digital technologies in contemporary music making." ln Culture. Technology and Creativitv in the late twentieth centruy. ed. Philip Hayword. London: John Lebbey and Co. Ltd.,1990

Dwarka, Robin. personal interview, Dec. 5,1999

Eisen, J. ed. The Age of Rock: sounds of the America" cultural revolutio". a reader. New York: Vintage Books, 1969

Eisner, Bruce. Ecstasy: The MDMA Story. Berkeley: Ronin Publishing Inc.,1994

Ellfeldt, Lois. Dance from Magic to Art, Iowa :Wm. C. Brown Company • Publishers, 1976 117

Ellis, Havelock, ''The art of Dancing". In What is Dance? ad. Roger Copeland, and Marshall Cohen. New York: Oxford University Press, 1983

• Erickson, Patricia. "The Selective Control of Drugs". In Social Control in Canada, eds. B. Schissel., and L. Mahood. Toronto: Oxford University Press, 1996

Ericson, Saranek and Chan. Visualizing Deviance. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1987

Evang, Karl. "LSD: New Menace ta Youth." UNESCO Courier. May, 1968:18-20

Farrel, Barry. liA remarkable Mind Drug Suddenly Spells Danger LSD." Salo Evening Post. 2 November, 1963: 28+

Feigelson, Naomi. The Underground Revolution: hippies. yippies and others. New York: Funk and Wagnalls 1970

Findlay, Alan. "Young clubbers ectastic about rave 'chemicals.'11 The Toronto Sun. 25 Sept., 1999: A4

Foster, Susan Leigh. IlDancing Bodies". In Meaning in Motion. ad. Jane C. Desmond. London: Duke University Press, 1997

• Foucault, Michel. The Archeology of Knowledge. trans. A.M. Sheridan Smith. New York: Pantheon Books, 1972

ll Gard, Wayne. IlYouth Gone Loco • The Christian Century. 29 June, 1938: 812-13

Garcia, Guy. "Tripping the Night Fantastic". Time. 17 Aug, 1992

Garratt, Sheryl. Adventures in Wonderland: A Decade of club Culture. London: Headline Book Publishing, 1998

Gasnier Louis (producer). Reefer Madness. G&H Films. George A. Hirliman: 1936.

Goldberg, Marianne. "Homogenized Ballerinas". In Meaning in Motion ed. Jane C. Desmond. London: Duke University Press, 1997

Gottschild, Brenda Dixon. "Sorne Thoughts on Choreographing History". In Meaning in Motion ed. Jane C. Desmond. London: Duke University Press, 1997

ll Graham, Martha. "1 am a Dancer • In The Routledge Dance Studies Reader. ed. • Alexandra Carter. London: Routledge, 1998 118

Guthrie, lan. "Ian Guthrie Writes..." Transcendance magazine, Issue 5 Spring 1996:4

• Hanna, Judith Lynne. To dance is Human. Chicago: University of Chicago Press,1979

Hawkins, Erick. The Body is a clear Place and other Statements on Dance. New Jersey: Princeton Book co. Publishers,1992

Hebdige, Dick. "Posing....threats, striking ....poses: Youth, surveillance, and display". in The Subcultures Reader. eds. Ken Gelder and Sarah Thomton, London: Aoutledge, 1997

------.Subculture the Meaning of Style. London: Routdledge, 1979

Henderson, Sheila. Ecstasy: Case Unsolved. London: Pandara, 1997

Hill, Chris. "Destiny." Lotus magazine. Issue 11: 42

IlThe Hippies are Coming", Newsweek. 12 June, 1967: 28-9

Huffstutter, P.J. "We're not in Woadstock Anymore; Crank up the music." Los Angeles Times. 7 August, 1994: 5 • Izod, Max. personal interview, Dec. 5,1999 Kellaway, Aobert and Hughes, Simon. "Spaced Out! 11,000 yaungsters go drug crazy at Britain's biggest-ever Acid party". The Sun (England) 26 June, 1989: 1, 5

Kellaway, A., Hughes, S., Kay, J., Gibbs, W. "Ecstasy Airport: The Sun cracks secret drug rave-up in hangar". The Sun (England) Monday June 26, 1989, pg. 4-5

IlThe Kick". The New Republic, 16 April, 1966: la

Kingstone, Jonathan. "Rave Scene Drugs 'Tao Easy.'" The Toronto Sun. 25 September,1999: 1, 4

------IIChief Raves to PM" The Toronto Sun, Fri. May 5, 2000: 1

Kabler, J. "The dangerous magic of LSD". SaI. Evening Post. 2 November, 1963: 30-2

Kraus, Richard. History of the Dance. New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, 1969

• Leach, H.G. "One More Peril for Youth". Forum and Century. January 1939:1-2 119

Lee-Shanok, Philip. "Chief blasts rave scenell Toronto Sun. 11 May, 2000 • Levi-Strauss., Claude. The Savage Mind. London: Wiedenfeld and Nicolson, 1962 Mandel, Bill. "The Yuppie Psychedelic". San Francisco Chronicle. 10 June, 1984

IIMarihuana More Dangerous than Heroin or Cocainell ln Scientific America. May 1938:293

Marley, Bob. "Midnight Ravers" Catch a Fire. Tuff Gong: 1973

Masters, R.E.L, and Huoston, Jean. The Varieties of Psychedelic Experience. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1966

May, Beverly. personal interview, Nov. 25, 1999a

------.Future Jazz, unpublished book, 1999b

------."Editor's Commentary". Transcendance magazine. Issue 5 Spring 1996: 4-6

McDowell, Natasha. personal interview, Dec. 5, 1999

• McGrath, John and Scarpitti, Frank. Youth and Drugs. Glenview: Scott, Foresman and Co.,1970

McKay, George. IIEvereeebodeee's Freee; or, Causing a Public New Sense? Rave (Counter) Culture". Senseless acts of Beauty. London: Verso, 1996

McKenna, Terrance. Food of the Gods. New York: Bantam, 1992

McKusick T."Catch a rave". Utne Reader, September/October 1996: 22-4

MeRobbie, Angela, and Mica Nava eds. Gender and Generation, London: McMillan Publishers Ltd.,1984

McRobbie, Angela. "Dance and Social Fantasy". In Working Class Youth Culture: Dance. Gender and Culture. ad. Helen Thomas. London: McMillan Press Ltd., 1993

MeCall, Kevin. personal interview, Dec. 5,1999

Mead Rebecca. "Rave on ". New York. 20 August: 43-44 • 120

Meleehi, Antonio. "The Eestasy of Disappearanee." ln Rave Off: PoUties and Deviance in Contemporary Youth Culture. ed. Steve Redhead. Aldershot: • Avebury,1993 Milestone, Katie. "Love Factory". In The Clubeultures Reader. ed. Steve Redhead. Aldershot: Avebury, 1997

Mungham, Geoff. "Youth in Pursuit of Itself. In Working Class Youth Culture, eds. G. Mungham and G. Pearson. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul Ltd.,1976

Munday, Matt. "Acid Reign". WAX. Volume 1 Issue 7, October 1996

Naylor, Tony. "Flashback". WAX. Volume 1 Issue 7, October 1996

Oh, Susan, and Atherley, Ruth. "Rave Fever: Kids Love those all-night parties..." Maclean's. 24 April 2000: cover story

Oyortey, Zagba. "Still Dancing downwards and Talking Back". In, Working Class Youth Culture: Dance. Gender and Culture. ed. Helen Thomas. London: McMilian Press Ltd., 1993

Partridge, William L. The Hippie Ghetto: The Natural History of a Subculture. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, Inc. 1973 • Polhemus, Ted. "Dance, Gender and Culture". In Dance Gender and Culture. ed HelenThomas. London: Macmillan Press, 1993

Potter, Mitch and Powell, Betsy. "Agonizing over Ecstasy." Toronto Star. 20 November, 1999: A1, A30

Ramsey, Kate. "Vodou, Nationalism, and Performance: The Staging of Folklore in Mid-Twentieth-Century Haiti". In Meaning in Motion. ed. Jane C. Desmond, London: Duke University Press, 1997

IIIRave' task Force Looks for Way to tame AII-night Parties, Il Associated Press. 3 April,1997

Rawnsley, Andrew. "Rawno's Rantings." XLR8R magazine, Issue 19, Holiday edition 1995: 39

Ray, Janet. "Trancin Shoes", Twin Cities Reader. Vol 20. 26 April, 1995: 26

Redhead, Steve. ''The Politics of Ecstasy." ln Rave Off: Polities and Deviance in • Contemporary Youth Culture. ed. Steve Redhead. Aldershot: Avebury,1993a 121

------."The end-of-the-century-party" ln Rave Off: Politics and Deviance in • Contemporary Youth Culture. ed. Steve Redhead. Aldershot: Avebury,1993b Reynolds, Simon. Generation Ecstasy. London: Little Brown and Co., 1998

------."Rave Culture: living Dream or Living Death." ln The ClubCultures Reader, ed. Steve Redhead. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 1997

------. "British Rave", ArtForum. Vol. 32, Feb. 1994: 54-6

Rietveld, Hillegonda. "Living the Dream." ln Rave Off: Politics and Deviance in Contemporary Youth Culture. ed. Steve Redhead. Aldershot: Avebury,1993

Roberts, Mclean. "My son is on lSD". ladies Home Journal. Jan. 1968, pg. 38, 88,92-3

Ruryk, Zen. "City Bans raves." Toronto Sun. 11 May 2000

Rushkoff, Douglas. Cyberia. Life in the Trenches of Hyperspace. New York: Harper Collins, 1994

Rumack, leah. "They strangle raves with a billion by-Iaws." NOW magazine. November 4-10: 28 and 33 • Russell, Kristian. "Lysergia Suburbia." ln Rave Off: Politics and Deviance in Contemporary Youth Culture. ed. Steve Redhead. Aldershot: Avebury,1993

Sanders, Clinton R. mA lot of People Like It' The Relationship 8etween Deviance and Popular Culture". In Marginal Conventions: popurar culture. mass media. and social deviance. ed. Clinton R. Sanders. Bowling Green Ohio: Bowling Green State University Popular Press, 1990

Sanders-Greer, Shelly. "Danger Parties. Il The Toronto Star. 22 March, 1997: Hl, H4

Sanford, David. "lS0 Crackdown". The New Republic. 16 March, 1968: 11-12

Saunders, Nicholas. E is for Ecstasy. London: Nicholas Saunders 1993.

Schultz, Emily and Lavenda, Robert. Cultural Anthropology: A perspective on the Human condition. 3rd ed., Califomia: Mayfield publishing Co.,1995

Shapiro, Harry. Waiting for the Man: the story of drugs and popular music. • London: Quartet Books Ltd. 1988 122

• Sonmore, Jean. "Rave drugs are deadly serious." Toronto Sun. 13 November, 1999

Stallings, Ariel Meadow, "Incense and Glowsticks" Lotus magazine. Issue 11: 10­ 11

Starks, Michael. Cocaine Fiends and Rester Madness: an iIIustrated History of drugs in the movies. New York: Cornwall Books, 1981

Stoll, Clifford. Silicon Snake Oil. Second Thoughts on the Information Highway. New York: Doubleday, 1995

Tagg, Philip. "From Refrain to Rave: The decline of figure and the rise of groundll . Popular Music, Vol. 13 Issue 2, 1994: 209-22

Thomas, Helen, Dance. Modemity and Culture: explorations in the sociology of dance. London: Routledge, 1995

Thomton, Sarah. Club Cultures: Music. media and Subculture Capital. Cambridge: Polity Press, 1995

Tomlinson, Lori. '''This ain't no Discol...Or is it? Youth Culture and the Rave Phenomenon". In Youth Culture: Identitv in a postmodem World. ed. • Jonathon Epstein. Malden: Blackwell Publishers, 1998 Trance, Funk. "Letters to Lotus." Lotus magazine. Issue 12: 10

Turner, Ben. "In Tong We Trust." Muzik. No. 29, October 1997: 62

Valery, Paul. "Philosophy of the Dance" ln What is Dance. ed. Roger Copeland, and Marshall Cohen. New York: Oxford University Press, 1983

Ward, Andrew H. "Dancing in the Dark: Rationalism and the Neglect of Social Dance". In Working Class Youth Culture: Dance. Gender and Culture. ed. Helen Thomas London: McMillan Press Ltd., 1993

Walsh, David, '"Saturday Night Fever': An Ethnography of Disco Dancing". In Working Class Youth Culture: Dance, Gender and Culture. ed. Helen Thomas. London: McMillan Press Ltd., 1993

Walton, Paul. "Youth Subcultures Deviancy and the Media". In Youth Subcultures: theory. history. and the Australian experience. ed. Rob White. Hobart, Tasmania: • National clearing House for Youth Studies, 1993 123

Welsh Asante, Kariamu ed. Afnean Dance, New Jersey: Afriea World Press, Inc.,1996

• Wetzsteon, Ross. ''The Whirling Dervishes: an emptiness filled with everything". ln What is Dance. eds. Roger Copeland, and Marshall Cohen. New York: Oxford University Press, 1983

Wheless, Joseph. Is it God's Word. Kila: Kessinger Publishing, 1997

Willis, Paul E. Profane Culture. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul Ltd.,1978

Wolff, Janet. "Reinstating Corporeality: Feminism and body Politics". In Meaning in Motion. ed. Jane C. Desmond. London: Duke University Press, 1997

Yablonsky, Lewis. The Hippie Trip. New York: Pegasus, 1968

Young, Jock. ''The Subterranean Worfd of Play'. In The Subeultures Reader. eds. Ken Gelder, and Sarah Thomton. London: Routledge, 1997

Young, Jock. I1The Myth of the drug taker in the mass media". In The Manufacture of News. ed. Stanley Cohen. London: Constable and Co. Ltd. 1973

Znaimer, Moses (Producer). City Pulse News at Six. CITY-TV. 14 • Mar, 2000

•