participation in events as well as the agency of others. But because the narrative of a
DJ’s set is cyclical and liminality is always revisited, underground dance music
events allow a fluidity of fully engaged participation and unregulated reintegration
into dancing at any point. In most cases it was observed that, within the span of a
single, complete mix, most participants returning to the dance floor found
themselves fully incorporated into that cultural space.
During his set, beginning at 10.30.p.m. and finishing with Donald Glaude
playing his first record at 1.00 a.m., Patrick played a total of 22 different records
with 21 mixes connecting them. With 21 opportunities to encourage liminally
located interactions between dancers, it took 90 minutes for Patrick and a
particularly lethargic Toronto club crowd to find some sense of collective expression.
After he dropped the bass out of the first eight bars of Harley & Feller’s ‘Deep
Sensation’ at midnight, more than 200 people were on the dance floor. For the next
hour, Patrick managed to lead dancers further away from the world they left behind
at the door and closer to club culture’s promised land of transcendent dance.
Although it was not Turbo’s most successful night, Tim Patrick maintained his
status as a DJ cult leader, and 600 people were well on their way to becoming
‘essentially us’. Even the four college girls had broken a sweat and their circle.
H a v i n g p a r t i c i p a t e d i n t h i s r i t e t o o m a n y t imes to count, I call it a night at 4.00 a.m.
Donald Glaude has whipped the crowd into a frenzy with a set of progressive, funky
breaks, and Stretch & Hooker have just mixed their way into their third record.
Temporally, my incorporation might be somewhat premature. This party will
continue until sunrise and, while other patrons will also drift out of the club before
closing, many will celebrate something of a triumphant return to the world upon
greeting the dawn. For some, incorporation might be prolonged at private after-
parties where, over breakfast and before returning home, talk of the event serves to
interpret the performance both within the framework of group and individual
participation and within the context of past performances. Spatially—past security,
out of the club and into the almost deserted street—my return to the everyday
world is marked by the knowledge that I can always return next weekend. While less
frequent and more anticipated summer events such as the World Electronic Music
Festival^13 perhaps fit more neatly into van Gennep’s spatialization of ritual passages
(an extended pilgrimage to the site, a longer period of being sequestered in the
bush, a protracted return home), the frequency of Lifeforce Fridays at Turbo
suggests a less idealized version of incorporation. The reality is that the orthodox
boundaries set by choice and obligation, seriousness and play, or agrarian and
industrial prevent underground dance music events from being ‘airbrushed’ (Grimes
2000:94) enough to match Turner’s inclination for viewing activities in popular
culture through the lens of tribal ethnography. Instead of efficiently returning to the
mundane world as adults or other elevated social categories, participants receive
their incorporative recognition as valued initiates only by returning to the ritual
community itself.
178 MORGAN GERARD