Steppin’ Panel Talks will kick off its first edition with thoughts and perspectives on the Politics of The Dance Floor. While the visibility of people of colour, women and queer people, who experience life under the matrix of domination, has increased in the nightlife over the past years, little is reflected in the other side of the business. Clubs are mostly still run by white owners. Some places in Amsterdam suggest that an intersectional approach towards clubbing must also pass through the management team. While this is an ongoing issue that should be addressed, individuals are setting up organisations to provide safe spaces for those who feel excluded in general clubbing spaces.
As an antidote to the overindulgent hedonism within nightlife, various groups try to create safer, more inclusive spaces for those who established the concept of the dance floor in the first place, namely queer people of colour. Simultaneously, in both the DJ booth and the larger music industry itself, sexism is a recurring pattern that groups try to address. In thinking intersectionally about this issue of equity in club culture, we try to learn from those who are actively addressing these issues against the matrix of domination (racism, patriarchy, capitalism).
Hosts Mo Wrights and Razzmic will guide you through this night full of dialogues, discussions and possibilities to ask your own questions. The special guest of tonight will be Hellie: an all-round selector of grooves, house beats and more eclectic stuff.
Hellie's affiliation with nightlife in Amsterdam and beyond has been going on for over ten years, and contributing to funding in the musical and musical theatre department of the Amsterdamse Fonds Podiumkunsten, Hellie knows many trades of the musical landscape and has experienced Dutch nightlife as a woman of colour. In addition, she runs her radio show Voortouw at Echobox, aimed at striving for more agency for women in the club scene. Tonight, she will share her thoughts and perspectives on Politics of The Dancefloor with Steppin’ Into Tomorrow.
Details
‣ Saturday 29th April 2023
‣ 20:30 – 23:00
‣ Door tickets (€5,-) only
‣ Visitors of this talk are allowed to stay for the following club night free of charge
‣ 18+
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