No Lights No Lycra Field Visit - April 15, 2014

I am on the District Line on my way home from my field visit to No Lights No Lycra. I wanted to write my field notes while the event is still fresh in my mind, hence this furtive scribbling on the tube.

As I explained about the premise of NLNL in a previous post, I will get straight down to my experience of the event. I decided to attend this event alone. Reason being that it is my first field visit so I wanted to make it as experiential as possible for myself. I knew that if I invited other research participants to come, they would pull a lot of my focus. The other reason is that as NLNL is an hour of dancing in the dark, it is not a site where I can sit back and record the event visually. It is a site where if I go, I have to take part.

NLNL Flyer

NLNL is based in the Tour de Force Theatre company in Hackney. When I arrive at the designated address, I become lost as there is no evidence of the location. I am on a side street of a busy Hackney road, standing amongst council estates. Fortunately having had instructions from Joanna to look out for the Woolcraft Textiles sign, I spot it eventually and enter what looks like an industrial back lot.

Signpost to NLNL

I see this to the left of the Woolcraft sign

The alleyway.  Entrance to NLNL is on the right

NLNL sign in the alley entrance

I follow the NLNL signage and enter a space which looks like basement studio. The below photo is a fairly accurate depiction of what the studio looked like although there was no grand piano and it was a lot darker. 

This is the venue for NLNL. Take from the Tour de Force website

Inside I find a lone woman setting up who introduces herself as Joanna. I assume this is Joanna, the London coordinator of NLNL. I introduce myself and we fall into an easy conversation about her involvement in NLNL. I find out she is originally from Melbourne, Australia and has lived in London for two years. Prior to that she was based in New York for ten years where she ran the New York chapter of NLNL. She is a graphic designer by trade and organises NLNL in her spare time. I ask her about the overheads of running the event. She says it costs her £30 for the hire of the space and then minimal costs for music. Keeping the entry costs low (£4 entry per person) can sometimes leave her out of pocket, although there are usually ten regulars who attend weekly.

I find Joanna easy to talk to and she answers all my questions quickly and without reservation. I ask her whether she would be willing to be interviewed to discuss NLNL and her thoughts on spontaneous social dancing. She agrees. By this time another person, a male in his late twenties has arrived. Joanna introduces him as the person who is setting up the music playlist for the night and excuses herself to finish setting up the venue.

I take the opportunity to have a closer look at the venue. It is a big basement space with Harlequin dance flooring. On the far side is a curtained off area which I later find out hides a small kitchen and toilet. Alongside one wall are big windows which are covered with blackout curtains. There are a few chairs in one corner of the room as well as a rack with coat hangers for punters to use. There is single green spotlight in a far corner.

A few people have started to trickle in. We smile at each other but do not engage in conversation. They all look expectant, in the way people about to attend a gym class look expectant. There is a woman who looks to be in her mid-fifties, several men in their late twenties to early forties and a woman in her mid-twenties who is dressed like she has come from an office job in the City. Everyone apart from me looks Caucasian.

At the start of the class before the lights are switched off, I count ten participants, five male and five female. Because of the breadth of participants' ages and social demographic, there is an inclusive atmosphere right from the beginning. The sense of expectation of the participants, the lack of conversation and the atmosphere of the venue also brings to mind that I am at the dance equivalent of Fight Club.

A basement scene from Fight Club. Not that dissimilar to NLNL (photo taken from here) The music starts and the room goes dark apart from the small green spotlight in the corner. I can see the outlines of the bodies around me but I cannot see their features clearly. I am hesitant to move around much in case I trip over something. New people come in whilst we have started dancing and they seem like ghostly figures drifting into the dance space. I do not know what they look like and this feels disconcerting. I am slightly uneasy as my bags are in a corner on a chair which I now cannot see. Everything feels slightly surreal. I am dancing but I feel stiff and awkward. I am unfamiliar with the music that is playing. This is the first time I have been out dancing for awhile and I feel very odd. For as well as trying to dance, I am also trying to observe. Normally in social dance situations, I prefer to dance sober but I find myself wishing for a bar. I try to observe the moving figures around me. They all seem a bit stiff too. As the music play list progresses and we all warm up a bit, the dancing starts to enliven. Everyone has stayed roughly within the space that they started out in. There is very little moving around the dance floor. I think this because we can't see very well. I know this is why I am not using much space. I am scared of tripping. I continue not to recognise any music tracks playing. I feel a bit like I am at an aerobics class. I do not feel like I am dancing for the pleasure of it, but more for work, research and a bit of exercise. All of which are true. The music plays continuously, tracks flowing on from one another. About twenty minutes in, I know that the conditions do not make me feel less inhibited or spontaneous. Quite the opposite in fact. I find the darkness oppressive as I cannot space myself how I would like. I find the lack of human noise oppressive too. Whilst I would not necessarily talk whilst dancing, I find it restrictive that we are expected not to chat, only dance. The movements I am doing to the tunes feel similar to what I have done in the past. There is no rhyme or reason to them apart from the fact that I like to use my hips and dance with bended knees. There are a lot of circular hip actions as well as arm movements. In terms of rhythm, I find my reactions to the bodies around me no different to how I react on a standard social dance space. If I do not like the rhythms of their dancing, I either close my eyes to block them out completely or turn to face another way. If someone's rhythm and dancing innervates me, I may try and tap into their rhythm for a little while. I find it interesting that the connection of rhythm amongst people is not wholly dependent on sight. I wonder if this is the kinaesthetic sense coming into play. I'm aware that most people have pretty much stuck to a particular style of moving through the event, despite the different songs that are being played. They might move faster to an upbeat song or slower accordingly, but they use the same steps. For example, the guy dancing to my right started off with a two-step shuffle whilst bobbing up and down. He has stuck with this so far for the entire time, varying the direction he faces, the energy and pace of the move and the height at which his arms are placed. But essentially the core move remains the same. I am getting tired and bored of trying to concentrate and observe whilst dancing. When a punk track comes on, I decide to give in to the music and just dance. I fling myself around as much as I can in the dark without doing damage to myself and others. I bounce up and down. I fling my arms around. I try and give myself whiplash by moving my head violently. If I was to give name to the genre of social dance I am doing, it probably would fall under pogo-ing.                              Deborah Harry explains pogoing (from Youtube) Finally I am enjoying dancing without having to observe. Even so, I still feel repressed. The lack of background noise, faces, colours, makes the dance less joyous for me and more of an effort. In addition, the music play list is all unknown to me and I don't really connect with any of the tunes. I conclude that part of the joy of social dancing for me within a public dance floor is the autonomy of choice within that space. To dance to songs that I like. To talk to people if I wish. To dance how and where I want within the confines of a dance floor. To gauge the other dancers by watching them. All this is removed from the NLNL dance space and so for me, it has the opposite effect of liberation on the dance floor. Whilst my dance style was not greatly affected by the restrictions I felt, my enjoyment and the freedom of the movement were. However I have no doubt that many others find NLNL a space where they can truly let go and dance uninhibitedly. The fact that the event has spread world- wide so rapidly attests to this.  I leave the venue ten minutes before it is due to finish. I am sweaty and thirsty after having danced non-stop for nearly an hour so decide to slip away before the lights come back on.