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How has the Kazakhstan dance music scene modified because you began ZVUK?
It modified drastically – there are extra DJs, extra venues to play and a much bigger viewers. It additionally bought extra adventurous – sounds actually differ and you’ll hear a wide range of genres and experiments! There’s additionally extra creativity about the entire thing – extra digital music collectives with totally different messages and sounds, extra DJs with outlined tastes. There’s extra high quality in the entire thing too – when there’s extra wholesome competitors, one has to maintain creating and changing into extra inventive, which positively makes the scene extra attention-grabbing and numerous.
After I began ZVUK we struggled to seek out DJs to play on the occasion, as a result of there was a really small pool and most of them performed fairly boring units. So I’d simply find yourself reserving the identical ones and a few of them didn’t even match the ZVUK imaginative and prescient a lot. Now there are such a lot of nice DJs which you could actually throw any occasion with and it is going to be nice. It’s been 4 or 5 years since that Mixmag article about Kazakhstan’s underground being on the map got here out. Since then we had our first ever Boiler Room in Almaty, extra artists began to go worldwide, and the way forward for the Kazakhstani scene seems to be brighter than ever.
Learn this subsequent: The New East: Kazakhstan’s underground is on the map
What are a few of the greatest highlights you’ve achieved in six years of throwing ZVUK events?
I feel assembling the ZVUK crew is the most important achievement and spotlight. A lot of the crew has been at ZVUK for years now. We went from having no price range and having to do every thing by ourselves – stuff like cleansing your complete venue earlier than and after the occasion, working the bar and cloakroom – to us now having folks work for us. For the longest time we earned no cash from this. With a few of the events, we even misplaced cash. Everybody was working without cost – simply because they believed within the concept and the values of ZVUK. And right now, we’re nonetheless right here, working collectively.
This entire yr was in all probability one large spotlight for us — we did have a two yr pandemic-induced break so after we had a chance to restart we simply went all in — organized the primary ever Boiler Room in Kazakhstan, had a NYE occasion with Philip Gorbachev in a historic mansion that was closed to public for 30 years, organised Herrensauna and Bassiani showcases. With the showcases, we didn’t merely deliver the DJs, however educated the native viewers about their values and messages. With Bassiani, we talked lots about how the dancefloor is a spot the place folks unite for freedom, and with Herrensauna, we talked lots about how necessary freedom of expression is. We attempt to preserve it mild – we do social media posts and preserve them informative but additionally straightforward to grasp. With Bassiani we went a bit additional — we organized a lecture and a panel dialogue. With the ability to do these large initiatives, not simply occasions, is big, bearing in mind the place we began from.
Events have usually taken place in ‘non-traditional areas’ – what are a few of your favorite spots?
The spot for Boiler Room was my favorite in all probability – we did it in the principle hallway of the State Theatre. It’s a really stunning and historic place which performs an necessary function in Kazakhstani tradition. That place could be very pleasing visually however there additionally was a symbolic that means to picking this location. Digital music and the tradition that surrounds it was not thought-about part of trendy tradition of Kazakhstan for a very long time. It used to actually piss me off and one of many issues I wished to vary was for digital music scene to be taken critically. I feel ZVUK succeeded in that. Having Boiler Room in State Theatre was sort of sending the message that we’re a part of the tradition and we’re right here to remain.
My different favorite spots embody a basement of the functioning cinema, a Soviet bunker, a strip membership, and all the economic spots we used – factories, warehouses. Almaty was once an industrial powerhouse however a number of factories closed down and the areas had been left empty. A few of them are used for storage now, some aren’t. We found various these and did events there. Fundamental inspiration behind these areas was positively historical past of Detroit and Berlin. One other notable location is a toikhana, we did the occasion with Bassiani residents there lately. Toikhana is a standard Kazakh celebration corridor which is filled with conservative traditions. We wished to deliver rave with its values of freedom and acceptance into this conservative house and simply present that it’s not all these traditions and conservatism that separate us however it’s issues that unite us – simply having enjoyable and dancing – that may and ought to be the true goal and that means of toikhana.
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