BRUZZ RA SERRA: Are you crazy? The urge to dance is
inclusiveness, Sara. That says there was a need.
immense! (Laughs) The Club Open Airs have proven that over the past few months. People partied there like nobody’s business, without the slightest incident. It had been a long time since I had seen that. That was really heartwarming.
DZIRI: Yes, there is still many needs to fulfil. Even though diversity is a hot topic right now and I notice that a lot of people in the scene are doing things around it, I still think that there is a long way to go, and I especially hope that this is not a temporary trend. With Not Your Techno, we organised talks during the lockdown about things that we think could be done better in the electronic music scene. The VRT showed a documentary about Belgian electronic music where almost no woman was mentioned, which led us to hold a talk about the under-representation of women. Our second talk was about the participation of the Maghreb community in electronic music. Apart from myself – I’m half Tunisian – and a few others, I see hardly anyone from this background in our scene. We also talked about tips and tricks for beginning artists to feel more empowered in our scene which is predominantly cis, white and male. SERRA: For me, nightlife is the “shaker” of democracy. La nuit, tous les chats sont gris, they say. That’s true, but all walks of life do come together while partying, all colours, orientations and social classes. Not always and everywhere, but it can be done. We used to pay attention to that too, but we didn’t say it openly. I thought it was a given that LHBTIQ+ people came to my parties. But now it’s being said out loud, and actually that’s pretty cool. The night is a kind of magnifying mirror of our society: everything happens there in superlatives. The shortcomings, the excesses, are much more visible there. On the one hand we are the jesters who have to entertain the king, on the other hand we do have to ensure safety, control drugs and alcohol, curb transgressive behaviour, provide employment.... That is quite a responsibility and we are working hard on it. But we can do it. Look at those clandestine parties: there have been deaths. That doesn’t happen in our clubs. We must stress that we are part of the solution, not the problem.
Will the Covid Safe Ticket be a hurdle? SERRA: I don’t think it makes sense to impose
something like this in a democracy, but we need to be able to live together and this is the only way. At the Club Open Airs, things went very smoothly. There were no rioters who wanted in without a Covid Safe Ticket. The dance floor is no place to protest, if you want to resist the system you have to take to the streets with a placard.
Has the nightlife scene also been able to take something positive from this crisis? SERRA: The biggest “advantage” for me is the
creation of the Brussels By Night Federation. We finally have a voice, a spokesperson. At last, we can be heard. We have organised workshops, protocols were written for the reopening. With people from the techno world as well as the hip-hop scene, Latin lovers, the queer scene, both subsidised and unsubsidised culture and so on. New contacts have been made, people who didn’t know each other now know that they exist. And we are recognised by the authorities, who realise that the world of the night is part of the Brussels ecosystem. That’s huge. Secondly, there is what I call the boomerang of creativity: young people want to express themselves, and you can’t stop that simply by pressing pause. That boomerang is now going to come back hard, in the positive sense. There was a lot of talk about Brussels before the corona crisis, the scene was real, it was buzzing, but after this debacle it will be even more so. For example, I see a new club, Rust, founded by a couple of young guys. That says a lot.
With Not Your Techno, you’re pushing for more
WAAR IS DA FEESTJE?
WAAR IS DA FEESTJE ?
Na 567 dagen mogen de Brusselse clubs en danscafés hun deuren eindelijk weer opengooien. Dj’s kunnen hun heetste floorfillers de dansvloer op keilen terwijl u zich de pelvis van onder het zweterige lijf danst. Lekker op elkaar gepakt en zonder mondmasker, maar wel in het bezit van een Covid Safe Ticket. Maar pikt het nachtleven de draad gewoon weer op, of heeft de pauze tot nieuwe inzichten geleid? En heeft de crisis ook iets positiefs opgeleverd? “De grootste vooruitgang is de oprichting van de Brussels By Night Federation,” zegt Lorenzo Serra. “We hebben een stem, we kunnen eindelijk gehoord worden.” De scene zelf heeft van de extra tijd ook gebruikgemaakt om zichzelf tegen het licht te houden, zegt Sara Dziri van Not Your Techno. “Er is nog veel werk qua diversiteit, er is nog veel seksisme en racisme in de scene, maar het gaat de goede kant op.”
Après 567 jours, les boîtes de nuit et les cafés dansants de Bruxelles peuvent enfin rouvrir leurs portes. Les DJ’s pourront balancer sur la piste de danse leurs morceaux les plus chauds pendant que vous vous déhancherez le corps en sueur. Entassés et sans masque buccal, mais en possession d’un Covid Safe Ticket. La vie nocturne reprendra-t-elle là où elle s’est arrêtée, ou cette pause a-t-elle ouvert de nouvelles perspectives ? « La plus grande avancée est la création de la Brussels By Night Federation », déclare Lorenzo Serra. « Nous avons désormais une voix. » Le monde de la nuit a également profité de ce temps ralenti pour s’autoanalyser, explique Sara Dziri de Not Your Techno. « Il y a encore beaucoup de travail à faire en termes de diversité, il y a encore beaucoup de sexisme et de racisme dans le milieu, mais ça avance dans la bonne direction. »
NL
FR
D
98.8 FMIO
of via BRU ZZ.be/live
DOWNTOWN VAN MA TOT DO VAN 16U TOT 19U
MET GUNNAR CHEYNS
MET EEN POTIGE MUZIEKSELECTIE EN GRATIS BRUSSELTIPS LOODST GUNNAR JE DOOR DE AVONDSPITS
INFO tekst