Photography by Rita Couto ©, Berlin 2021
Finally, Berlin is getting its open-air dance floors back this weekend. Yet there was one particular dance movement that brought people together with electronic music even during the lockdown. If you haven’t heard about it yet, it’s really time you find out about Dose of Pleasure, because once you tried it you will be addicted to it. I promise.
Basically, Dose of Pleasure is a collective dance meditation that starts usually quite softly, gets energetic with time, and lets you groove to electronic music in a completely different way than you would do in a “normal” night out in a club. The method behind the movement of Dose of Pleasure was created in March 2020, when the first lockdown hit Berlin and the world. Based on his experience with the Berlin night live, the dance teacher Alvin Collantes created a way to move with yourself and get deep into the groove.
Last summer, the movement had regular raves happening in different locations all over town. This Saturday 19th there will be the first public dance demonstration again happening at Tempelhofer Feld. You can find more about the event and the schedule over here.
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by Claudio | People, Stories
The clubs of Berlin have reopened with new, Corona-friendly daytime concepts but one key element is missing: dancing. This has forced Berliners to deconstruct the idea of clubbing and ask themselves what they were searching for in clubs before and where they can find it now.
At the risk of stating the obvious, dancing is a big part of club culture. It is fun, it is a way to enjoy the music, and it is refreshing not to sit straight and hold a conversation all the time while being intoxicated. Consequently, the lockdown gave new life to the recently somewhat neglected illegal rave culture. The second part of this series investigates the illegal, private, and spontaneous dance parties that have been popping up all over the city and the controversies surrounding them.
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by Guest Author | Clubs, Party
Halle, photo: Roman März.
There are many other reasons to come to Berlin apart from the clubs but they are definitely among the most popular ones. Techno has its roots in Detroit and the Afrofuturism movement but both the name and the current widespread popularity have to do with what it evolved into in Berlin.
While these parties are still relatively underground in many cities, Berlin has embraced rave culture and built a special relationship with its clubs and their audience. Berghain has already secured legal status as a cultural institution, and other clubs are fighting for the same. Club tourists are also valued by the city’s government as a major contribution to the economy.
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by Guest Author | Clubs, Party
Summer is slowly awakening Berlin from the long winter sleep and many people miss the long nights out with their friends in their favorite clubs. While many clubs are now proposing outdoor beer garden concepts, this might not be the perfect solution for the passionate raver and dancer among us.
It’s not a surprise that the amount of illegal raves at Hasenheide and in the forests surrounding the city has increased dramatically over the last weeks. Many might not feel comfortable with the idea of throwing themselves into a big crowd of strangers. Others can’t suppress their desire anymore for a night out with music and dancing. It feels a bit twisted that something so natural like dancing together has to be postponed to an unknown future. Yet the Pandemic is not over and the international development of numbers shows that the world is still in a fragile state.
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by Claudio | Clubs, Party
photo: Jake Davies
It’s cold in Berlin. So, I’m dancing. I’m dancing more than I do in summer. Does that sound weird to you? It’s solely logical, and here’s why:
Generally, we never really stop raving here – because, well, we can. When the first leaves fall, however, and folks get out their army coats and Doc Martens, it drives me onto dance floors all the more. Am I missing the rain outside when I forgot my rain jacket, again? Am I missing freezing on the streets, tucked in my coat, while sweating in the metro, peeling off all the layers? So, when I’m not outside, what am I missing out on?
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by Andy | Party, Stories
photos: Raving Iran / Susanne Regina Meures
A bass, darkness, strobing light. Waving arms, dancing people, glimpses of the night, a techno beat. We are not in Berghain or any other dark place in Berlin. We are in the Iranian desert with Anoosh and Arash. The two friends and musicians are having a – not only illegal – but highly dangerous party with some friends in the outback of the desert. If they get caught, they will go to jail at least. Just one of the many inconveniences they have to endure to be young and a little bit free in Iran. The documentary Raving Iran by Susanne Regina Meures is telling a little piece of their story. It just premiered in Berlin at Volksbühne. Find out more and see the trailer after the jump. Read on…
by Yasmin | Movies
photo: Ilse Ruppert
One of the treasures of this year’s Berlinale was the documentary B-Movie: Lust & Sound in West-Berlin that captured the wild and crazy years of West-Berlin in the 80s before the wall came down. I know that we commonly always think that it was the East part of Germany that was behind the wall in the case of Berlin it was actually the West part that was walled-in like a prison. It must have been a strange feeling to be surrounded by the Soviet-led East Germany and I am not surprised that this led to a lot of chaos, craziness and rebellions of the youth culture. The 80s are known for its punk and rave eras and you can still feel the influences of that in fashion and music nowadays. It’s funny when the older generations comment the 80s by saying: Oh, you remember the 80s? Than apparently you haven’t been there… I was still so young back than and too far away from Berlin deep inside East Germany that I didn’t catch anything of it. But thanks to the film B-Movie by Jörg A.Hoppe, Klaus Maeck and Heiko Lange I have a chance to relive it through a lot of footage from the time, a lot of it previously unreleased.
The film follows British musician, actor and author Mark Reeder as he moves to Berlin to discover the creative underground scene of the strange city. The film is like a collage of images from the nightlife, the street riots, the art and music scene – there is definitely a lot of sex, drugs and rock’n roll involved. We encounter a young Nick Cave as he dips into the city, we meet Westbam before the Loveparade and many more legendary characters that started their careers in this period of political instability. It was a world that was undergoing drastic changes which made everything more extreme and I think this is what made the 80s so significant in the history of Berlin. Watch the trailer after the jump and I think you will understand what I am talking about…
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by Frank | Movies
photo: Watergate
With techno it is like any other kind of youth culture: Most books that have been written about it are horrible. There are only very few exceptions. So check out our selection of the books about techno after the jump (German only, as the books are also German).
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by Jens | Entertainment