A scholarly affair: proceedings of the Cultural Studies Association of Australasia 2010 national conference

Abstract

This paper explores the tension between traditional definitions of (commercialised) entertainment and (‘pure’) art, within a contemporary creative industry. To do so, it draws upon the early stages of the author’s research project which seeks to document and contextualise dance and rave culture in Adelaide as a marginalized art form and communicative space. The late 80s and early 90s spawned a period of extreme creativity in a city whose dance scene was globally innovative but receives scant attention 20 years on from either the mainstream media or traditional art funding sources. Dance Music culture has, however, developed a recent body of scholarly research from cultural studies and popular musical studies and drawing on this I will argue that the nightclub venue (and various dance events) although commonly associated with the entertainment industry, is a space of performance art or a ‘happening’ more in touch with innovative art practice, and vibrant, lived creativity than any government subsidised theatre or gallery. As such, the paper will challenge Adorno-inspired orthodoxies regarding the so-called purity of arts-based practice, especially as compared with innovation in marginal commercial spaces. In Manchester, UK, in 1988 the innovative nightclub the Hacienda was the centre of a youth culture phenomenon based on a form of music called acid house. This movement broke globally and was soon generically referred to as the Second Summer of Love (Redhead, Wynne and O’Connor, eds, 1997, Reynolds 1998, Reitveld 1993). This period, the late 1980s to early 1990s, saw an explosion of new forms of electronic dance music (EDM), predominantly developed in the US with UK and European influences – Chicago house, acid house, Detroit techno, and hip hop were being played in clubs and one-off dance parties giving rise to a related design and dance aesthetic. The one-off dance party or rave that had developed by the early 1990s is a defining feature of this movement. It is a contention of my research that this era is also an important part of Adelaide's artistic and cultural heritage that deserves wider recognition and serious documentation. Adelaide's musical contribution to the genre was formidable, with talented DJs and producers and labels, nationally and internationally recognised, such as DJ HMC, Groove Terminator, Damien Donato and Dirty House Records. On the basis of my long-term immersion in this scene, I document the ways in which dance music and the Second Summer of Love manifested in Adelaide and continue to enrich the creative industries. In this paper, I explore the tension between traditional definitions of entertainment and art, within this contemporary creative practice. The late 1980s and early 1990s were a period of extreme creativity in a city whose dance scene was globally innovative but 20 years on receives scant attention from either the mainstream media or traditional art funding sources. However, a body of scholarly research has recently developed on dance music culture from 1 The Second Summer of Love was an ironic reference to 1960s hippy counter culture known as the First Summer of Love or the Age of Aquarius, which influenced much of the early psychedelia of the scene.

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