intensify the process, creating effects ‘so that sounds seem to caress the listener’s
skin’ (Reynolds 1999:84).
As rave’s transgressive medium of embodied expression, the significance of dance
(and especially new forms of dance) was early recognized by scholars of rave culture.
As McRobbie noted, while dance ‘is where girls were always found in subcultures...
[n]ow in rave it becomes the motivating force for the entire subculture’ (1994:169).
Pini (1997) also highlighted rave culture’s creation of new socio-sexual spaces, in
which women are free to explore new forms of identity and pleasure through dance.
Yet dance is not only a prime agent in the rave’s remoulding or dissolution of
gendered spaces; it catalyses the experience of connectedness. In This is Not a Rave
(2001), Toronto raver Tara McCall repeatedly highlights connectedness or
‘connection’ as the essence of the rave experience, and specifically, connection
through dance:
This is what lies at the foundation of rave: everyone in tune with the same
rhythm. Once you feel this connection you bare part of your soul by dancing
your dance. Once you get inside the music it’s like a heartbeat in a womb. It
validates your existence with a constant reminder that you are quite literally
connected to all that encompasses you.
(McCall 2001:18)Malbon too emphasizes the centrality of dance to club (rave) cultures, and of
attending to ‘embodied information’ (1999:27) in studying them. Like McCall, he
also directly links dance to the production of the ‘unity experience’ of clubbing.
Along with being intractably embodied, the experience of unity in rave is also an
intensely emotional one. Fuelled at least partially by ecstasy, raves are sites of intense
outpourings of emotion, especially empathy and compassion. Popular sources on
rave culture are filled with countless testimonials by ravers of the experience of deep
and powerful emotional states during events: ‘...deep feelings of unlimited
compassion and love for everyone’ (Fritz 1999: 43; see also Silcott 1999; Reynolds
1999; McCall 2001; Malbon 1999).
As many have noted, the experience of unity with the crowd while raving or
clubbing, paralleling other religious experiences, is intense and ineffable.
Discussions with informants reinforced this:
MC (24-YEAR-OLD
RAVER FROM
TORONTO):
If I could have a wish, and it would be coming from my
experience with raves, I would give everybody what I have
been able to experience. One night. And they could take that
information and do whatever they want with it. But, I can’t
believe that it’s possible to live life and, not, wow, not have
experienced that. Like, I feel fortunate. Really, I feel, like,
especially, we really didn’t know what we were involved in in
‘92 [in the Toronto jungle scene], we didn’t realize. And nowRAVE AS NEW RELIGIOUS MOVEMENT? 89