RECLAIMING THE DANCEFLOOR « Converse Dispatches

RECLAIMING THE DANCEFLOOR

Street parties in Manila regularly draw good crowds eager to hear new music.

It wasn’t until relatively recently that one could find the rather high-minded punk-bred indie rockers of Manila busting out their dance moves. It seemed that dance music was either the kind heard only in the headphones of chin-stroking techno-heads or in the flashy bottle-service clubs reviled by the indie kids. But with the rise in stock of electronic music in the new millennium and its subsequent assimilation into the everyday vocabulary of indie rock, dance became something that could no longer be ignored.

The thrift store music magazines devoured by Manila scenesters regularly ran dispatches from the underbelly of dance rock, feeding people’s imaginations with thoughts of a rapidly expanding dancefloor underground.

Suddenly, dance music, long viewed as decadent and superficial, became a response to the middle-of-the-road chart-topping modern rock and R n’ B that had become the convention. Electro became the new punk rock.

Electronica Manila

Silverfilter performs a live PA set.

Early into the new decade, a young commercial musician named Cyril Sorongon began tinkering with drum machines, synths, and samplers in his bedroom to create his own version of the techno and big beat that he loved. Convinced about the viability of the music, Sorongon decided to put together a community of like-minded dance music enthusiasts.

“Electronica Manila is a community of artists, DJs, and enthusiasts who are all for pushing locally made electronic music and learning in the process as well,” says Sorongon. “We started as a simple e-mailing list but now I’d describe it as a family. It’s about the community over the individual artists in the sense that there’s ready support whenever it’s needed. We all have one goal and each area of the group does its share to do it either by producing, promoting, or playing out.”

In the true spirit of the music, EM’s pool of artists produces excitingly diverse and wide-reaching music. Group-sponsored nights span the gamut from downbeat to hard-hitting techno to newer iterations on the form such as chiptune, electrohouse, and fidget.

Today, EM continues to put on Electronica Manila Sessions, which feature live performances from members. The community also helps book artists within the group, all for zero profit. EM is also responsible for bringing the Electronic Stage to the genre-melting festival Fete de la Musique.

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The new dance party

Street parties in Manila regularly draw good crowds eager to hear new music.

The rise of the pure electronic music embodied by Electronica Manila ran alongside rapid developments on the DJ side of things. The left field of new youth culture took things into their own hands and put on their own version of the club night.

“It really all started with Fluxxe,” says Diego Castillo, guitarist for Sandwich and resident DJ of indie dance night Hey Boy! Hey Girl!. “That was four years ago. Fluxxe showed me that there were alternatives. That you could go out to a party and dance to the music you like. It was a place where you could cut loose and not feel guilty about it. It showed me that if you played the right stuff, the kids will be there.”

What immediately stands out about the new alt-dance parties is the eclecticism.

“We throw in the random kitschy pop tune once in a while for the kids, but I feel like part of the job is to share great music that people might not know about and make them realize that, yes, you can dance to this. It’s great when a mix all comes together and the floor is packed and everyone’s going nuts.”

At the new dance parties, expect to see a melting pot of visual artists, writers, fashion designers, filmmakers, photographers, sculptors, skater kids, and all species of young creatives dancing to the music.

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Outer limits<a href=”http://converse.com.cn/blog/cn/files/2009/12/orhk2.jpg”>

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Street parties in Manila regularly draw good crowds eager to hear new music.

NOMAD Massive is one such community. The collective represents heavily for drum n’ bass (one of the cornerstone genres of electronic music that never really achieved any kind of major commercial success in the country) while dipping into the wells of such obscure sounds as Liquidfunk, Neurofunk, Hard-step, Dubstep, Jungle, Breaks, Garage, and UK Underground.

In October 2009, frustrated with the dearth of venues catering to outer limit electronic, the NOMAD Massive crew (all of whom had been involved in the music industry in some degree individually) began putting on their own club shows. NOMAD Massive today puts on regular performances in various clubs around Metro Manila, bringing together an array of musical rebels of all shades—DJ’s, live PA artists, live visual artists, musicians, graffiti and street artists, emcees, beatboxers, break dancers, performance artists, and so forth. The group at present calls M Café home.

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While the guitar still maintains its position on top Manila’s music totem, it is clear that dance has gained much ground in the past years, and that’s good news for everyone.

Word: Karlo Cleto, Photo: Brendan Goco, Karlo Cleto, Maria Cleto Word: Karlo Cleto, Photo: Brendan Goco, Karlo Cleto, Maria Cleto
Tags: dance, Features, the Philippines

RECLAIMING THE DANCEFLOOR

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