Read this in a newspaper a few days ago funnily enough:
1 Like
Attended a few that didn’t follow the Roth path where a lot of people been to Boom fest in Portugal. No chemical use, although you would get away with it, nobody did it. The non-judgemental part of it is a big thing.
Half the tunes were obscure bandcamp only, short chat with the DJ where I mentionned Mancuso but formal education (of music history) was a tool of ‘the man’ and he wasn’t having it, new music only.
Interesting and informative - but there’s a wicked part of me that wants to mercilessly ridicule the concept of taking classes to become ecstatic.
1 Like
Something ain’t right quite here. Not you, @Pablodiscobar, just the cognitive dissonance of what it is okay to be judgmental or non-judgmental about.
Far as I’m concerned the entire history of music is a sumptuous feast, a tapestry of shimmering delights. Why deny yourself the pleasure?
1 Like
Funny though as Mancuso was probably about as counter culture as you can get!
1 Like
I’ve done a couple of ecstatic dance gigs and I’ve loved them. Some people in the community were a bit egotistic or culturally appropriative which I didn’t love. But when it came to dancing and music, there was an open mindedness and sense of fun that’s hard to find anywhere else. Crazy unique song choices are appreciated there more than any other crowd.
3 Likes
Wow! Take me to this party!
Everyone joined hands and chanted: “No more Tricker’s! No more Tricker’s.!” ?
Clearly not Keir Starmer’s community. 
(Reference to today’s UK news.)
What’s a “tricker”? Regional slang for party favours I take it?
Something tells me you’re not going to get an answer from Plum.
Tricker’s are a brand of footwear - fairly expensive, and imho not a brand that most people would have heard of.
In the context of this thread, I’m guessing that the reference to people “joining hands and chanting No More Tricker’s” was intended to mock the idea of ecstatic dance being performed barefoot by well-off middle-class types whose failure to lead ‘spiritual’ or otherwise ‘ethical’ lives is exemplified by their choice of practical - but ultimately rather expensive - shoes or boots. It probably also represents an oblique reference to the idea of some form of middle-class ‘solidarity’ as exemplified by their uniform choice of expensive footwear.
A crap joke which didn’t work. He needs to try harder (and on a different forum, of course) 
4 Likes
Sadly, he’s already banned from all of those already, so he’s now back to howling at the moon.
4 Likes
Poor Luna. I sing to her.
I was fully expecting some to completely take the piss out of the topic. I’ve had many old school (jaded) DJs mock the whole idea.
The elitist part is a new angle for the skeptics.
I can see the logic in the Trickers response but I’d rather open a discussion around it than vague jokes that don’t translate on a global forum.
2 Likes
I can see ways in which it’s easy to mock - but hard to do so in a way that is both funny and doesn’t reflect badly on the person doing the mocking, as demonstrated by Plum previously on this thread.
I can’t understand why someone would have an issue with it from a DJing perspective - surely it’s just a particular way of structuring a set?
Tbh, I can easily understand where ‘elitist’ critiques come from. Firstly, esoteric practices have always been attractive to people who are drawn (for essentially egotistical reasons) to ‘exclusive’ things that set themselves apart from others. Place that within the context of a highly class-conscious society such as Great Britain and you have the recipe for some very worldly middle-class types dipping their toes into ‘alternative culture’ and feeling rather smug about how enlightened this makes them.
Don’t get me wrong - that’s a critique of a certain type of person rather than a critique of ecstatic dance practices. Just saying that this is what others might see as being worthy of mockery. As I understand it, the link between music and movement and emotional well-being is pretty much undeniable.
[Edit: some audiences for some of my sets might disagree with that conclusion 
]
3 Likes
I went to a couple recently. It was a welcoming environment and friendly people. Musically, it wasn’t getting me to where I wanted to go. Not bad music. I just thought that if I was playing I could get more energy into that room. I talked with them about the similarities between them and the Loft. I submitted a mix, but it wasn’t what they were looking for. I think the difference comes down to creating a set for a premade formula vs. choosing music based on dancers’ immediate feedback. I adhere to the latter.
Creating that set did get me to find some great new music though! A lot of Native American and new age stuff. That’s the most important thing!
3 Likes
Interesting to read those comments. My immediate impression was also that it seemed similar to Mancuso’s '3 bardo’s (which he developed from Timothy Leary’s writings). I think I mentioned it in an earlier post on this thread. I understand that the bardo’s are intended to mirror the phases of an acid trip - which does seem to me to be a lot like the way you might construct a conventional set (gradual build to a period of peak intensity, then a gradual come down). The psychedelic element is also common to 5 Rhythms, I think. I also wondered about the formulaic approach to the way in which a set was constructed [edit: as compared to an intuitive interaction with the dancers].
2 Likes
An afterthought to my last post - I really admire Mancuso’s vision and his ear for music. My only reservation is the ritualised approach which is slavishly copied by some sound systems as though it is the TRUE PATH (no mixing, for example - thereby inherently favouring some styles of music and not others).
3 Likes