(notes for the paper on �?liminality in Electronic dance music culture’)

A party has a fractal-like structure with at least three levels of liminality\intensity oscillating and fluctuating in and out on each level — track, set, whole party

• “Thin space of the limen is expanded into a wide space both actually and conceptually” [ 1] - that’s exactly what happens within a track when a rhythmic loop is replicated-repeated to suspend listener/dancer in a state-of-flux. [ 2]
• just as the very tracks that are mixed during a set, each dj-set has similar structure of varying intensity – and varying liminality. Liminality is also directly manipulated by techniques of mixing tracks [ 3].
• the whole party has several phases with different levels of intensity and varying music styles for each phase: warm-up; hard\ full-on\ dark\ hardcore\ whatever; deep \’morning sound’ [4 ].

[ i had a dream once – image of this 3-level structure. will post it later. too lazy to draw.]

Also: the whole party is a liminal space/time/situation, separated from “profane” world, wrapped by boundaries – be it walls of a club or magic light/shadow border at a forest �?open-air’ festival.

Another possible application of liminality\communitas concepts: EDMC communities, after all, truly exist not in the �?profane world’ of everyday, but in two interconnected �?liminal spaces’: one of the party and that of a community-website (forum or blog) . [5 ]

Web-forums with their standardized format turn persons into liminal beings – anonymous �?newbies’ who initially have no reputation, no status [ 6] - their identities are to be built through regular participation in communal rituals of �?party’ (dance, smile, communicate) and web-space (trip-report, discuss, share: photos, video, music, jokes, tips & tricks and other shit info).

But: as neophytes in any rite of passage, newbies are ‘by default’ at the bottom of hierarchy – that (yes!) exists at web-forums. How this relates to liminality? Is forum a �?double liminal trouble’?

• (firstly) - separated from �?profane’
• (secondly) forum is a non-stop-running �?rite of passage’ machine transforming a �?newbie’ to “respected community member” [via �?exchanging symbols’ and undergoing �?ordeals’ of sneering, scorning, flaming and censoring] - and thus includes separate internal liminal phase(s). or not transforming - but banning, deleting, and compelling an ill spirit to reincarnate and take revenge

I guess we get another fractal or russian ‘matrioshka doll’ here.

Nevermind. Just playing with words.

—

[ 1] - Richard Schechner - “Performance studies”, p.58

[ 2] - “Bare repetitive rhythm is self-sufficient. It absorbs attention, fixes it on itself. Monotonous repetition of a loop (”outer- or exo-mantra”) frees you of time - cuts you from time-flow, frees you from outer-time, and locks in a cycle, endless groove, eternal loop. Pure intensity play. Energy without time. That’s the simple magic of minimal techno.”

(remix of “Rhythm’n’Color” – my essay on psychedelic photo and repetitive rhythms)

[ 3] – Morgan Gerard - �?Selecting Ritual: DJs, Dancers and Liminality in Underground Dance Music” in “Rave Culture & Religion”, Routledge Advances in Sociology, 2003, pp.174-176

[ 4] - Eric Davis - “Hedonic Tantra. Golden Goa’s Trance Dance Transmission”

[ 5] – see: Toni Sant - “Liminality and Altered States of Mind in Cyberspace” , and Theresa M. Senft - “Performing the Digital Body — A Ghost Story”

[ 6] - compare it with (Turnerian) description of ritual subjects:

“ritual subjects are given new names to denote their “no longer/not yet” status […] during the seclusion period disguised or hidden; they are considered neither male nor female, deprived of rank, status and property. They are all treated equally and are subjected to the rest of the community”

- Mathieu Deflem – “Ritual, Anti-Structure, and Religion: A Discussion of Victor Turner’s Processual Symbolic Analysis” , Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, 1991, 30 (1), p.13-14