Dance dance revolution

From the electric beats of techno to the chest-thumping bass of hip-hop, one thing is certain about the Bloomington dance scene: It’s mobile.

With the exception of bars like Jake’s and Kilroy’s Sports Bar, dance parties have no permanent home. The weekend dance crowd slides everywhere from places like the Econo Lodge to house parties and fraternities.

One positive result of the mobile dance scene is the opportunities it provides for the local DJs.

“The parties really showcase a lot of the local artists that are just as good and better than I am,” said Adam Kabe, a DJ for 96.7 FM, a.k.a., B97. “These dance parties that get put on all around town really get the message out.”

Kabe works the turntables for the 5 o’Clock ROAD RAGE, a program that focuses on drive-time mixes, and he also has a 10 p.m. to 2 a.m. show Fridays. The shows get about 20,000 listeners between them.

Kabe got hooked on techno when he discovered the song “Sandstorm” by Darude.
“It was pure energy, without saying anything. I got really interested in the idea of music like that,” he said.

Once he had the equipment and software he needed, he started DJing for his high school and friends. Kabe said the feedback from a live crowd is the “ultimate high.”
He and a few other DJs have taken the dance scene into their own hands by coordinating their own parties, because the current dance scene wasn’t drawing them in.

He said his favorite dance parties are the ones thrown by the WIUX, the IU student-run radio station on 99.1 FM.

“The people who go there don’t want to get high, they don’t want to get drunk. They just really want to dance,” he said.

Mike Quick, a graduate student and one of the DJs at WIUX, said he and his cohost Craig Shank threw about 10 dance parties last year at WIUX headquarters.

“In my humble opinion, I think Bloomington dancing is very much underground,” Quick said. “We spend a lot of time digging for things you can’t find, like UK dance music. Most people, when they hear it, are surprised at how fast it, is or don’t even understand how it works.”

Quick and Shank have a 10 p.m. to midnight show Tuesdays on WIUX. Half the time slot is devoted to house and disco, while the other half is given to drum ’n’ bass. The two DJs have recently gotten in on another part of the underground dance scene: a Facebook group called Sneak Attack. Members of the group receive messages about spontaneous house parties around Bloomington.

“It’s kind of put together last minute, but it always turns out pretty well,” Quick said.
Ben Jackson, a.k.a., DJ Action Jackson, has focused his attention on the bar scene. A DJ at Jake’s, the 2005 alumnus recently started a weekly Saturday night dance party.

“We had a really big crowd the first night,” Jackson said of the event’s first night Aug. 30, “so I think it’s really going to take off.”

Jackson, who does shows from coast to coast, also plans on continuing the parties he threw with DJ Flufftronix, who recently transplanted from Bloomington. The crew plans on throwing the next one Sept. 26  at Rachael’s Café.

As far as the bars go, Jackson names Jake’s as the best place to dance, especially because of the variety of music and people.

“They bring in DJs from all over,” he said. “They brought in a DJ from France, once. Plus you get everybody from the frat guys to the art school hipster cats.”

Across campus at the underground hip-hop scene, senior Bryan Sanders, a.k.a., DJ Big Smooth, heads shows at parties thrown by the fraternities and sororities. Sanders’ big break came when he decided to take the idea of a graduation party to a new level.
“It started off as I just wanted to throw the biggest graduation party the world has ever seen,” he said. “There was about 1,000 people there.”

Even though Sanders was leaving for college, they continued the parties at a warehouse in Indianapolis as Club H2O, but the operation closed after a year when Sanders’ friend also left for college. Sanders said he believes the Greeks he DJs for “definitely 100 percent” throw the best dance parties.

The boundless energy and eagerness to dance of the legions of people at those parties create the ideal dancing atmosphere, said junior Kelsey Pumel, a member of the IU Essence dance team.

Pumel said she knows what makes a successful dance party.

“You need good music, a big area, you need a lot of people,” she said, “and at least one crazy, energetic person to get out on that dance floor and start dancing when nobody else is.”