Puno y la escuela rural

^ A quote from a much longer story of Valerie's in which she recounts the sensation o f being compelled to dance by the music (see below).

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1

Crowds and Togetherness

There is nothing man [sic] fears more than the touch o f the unknown .... it is only in a crowd that a man can become free o f this fear o f being touched ... as soon as a man has surrendered himself to the crowd, he ceases to fear its touch.

(Canetti, 1973: 15-16)

[T]he age that we are about to enter w ill in truth be the ERA OF CROWDS.

(Le Bon, 1930: 15, emphasis in original)

The individual clubbers' relationships to the clubbing crowds of which they are a part, to the music, and perhaps most o f all, to themselves, and the role of the micro-spacings of clubbing within these relationships, are of paramount Importance to both the clubbers' enjoyment o f the experience and the wider issue o f the role o f clubbing w ithin the times and spaces o f their w ider everyday lives. The crowd-based nature o f the clubbing experience appears critical in any understanding of its constitutive practices and spacings.

The notion o f the crowd as in some way superseding the individual, as enabling the widespread experience of loss of self (or exstasis) amongst those w ithin and o f it, is the point o f departure o f Canetti's (1973) discussion of crowds and power. For Canetti, crowds are about belonging and the power that this belonging can provide and instil. The boundaries around and between crowds - real and/or imagined - are crucial to feelings of belonging and identification. Canetti suggests that those "standing outside do not really belong" (ibid: 1 7), while for those inside sensations o f belonging can be prolonged even beyond the physical experience o f the crowd:

[The crowd] is protected from outside influences which could become hostile and dangerous and it sets its hopes on repetition. It is the expectation of reassembly which enables its members to accept its dispersal. The building is waiting for them; it exists for their sake and, so long as it is there, they w ill be able to meet in the same manner. The space is theirs, even during the ebb, and in its emptiness it reminds them o f the flood (ibid: 18).

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The punctuated and at times almost ritual nature o f first the integration then the

fragmentation o f crowds is itself partly constitutive of the bond through which members of that crowd may consolidate their attachments and identifications. Even whilst not

physically w ithin the crowd, members o f a crowd may identify with certain spaces or sites central to the crowd (see Hetherington, 1996; 1997), specific times, memories,

paraphernalia, and even others of - but not at that moment w ithin - that crowd. Crowds can thus linger even after their dispersal.

Through opening out a complex and at times rambling typology o f crowd forms, Canetti (1973) offers an understanding of crowds which he himself admits illuminates little of the individual feelings or practices o f those w ithin any particular crowd^. Despite not dwelling upon the constitution o f crowds at an individual scale, however, throughout his

"classification o f crowds" Canetti weaves a common thread - the overall domination of all crowds by emotion. It is through the sharing o f emotion - or to put it differently the evolution o f a group ethos or "we-rationale" (Coffman, 1963: 96) - that the disparate individuals form ing a gathering can become bound into a crowd, a "single being" in which a collective mind, albeit transitory, is tangible (Le Bon, 1930: 26). As Simmel proposes, this crowd ethos can exert powerful emotional effects upon the constitutive members o f that crowd, when, at certain times and in specific situations,

... the individual feels himself [sic] pulled along by ‘the quivering ambiance’ of the mass as i f by a force to which he is exterior, a force indifferent to his individual being and will, even though this mass is constituted exclusively of such individuals.

(Simmel, 1981: 116; cited in Maffesoli, 1993a: xiv)

The crowd and the experience of the crowd facilitates and also partially constitutes many forms o f contemporary consuming. Michel Maffesoli (1995) suggests that contemporary social life is increasingly marked by memberships o f a m ultiplicity o f social groupings, gatherings and other coalescences, all of which overlap and in some way contribute toward notions of our own and others' identities.

^ As the title o f his text infers, Canetti (1973) is more concerned with the pow er of crowds as crowd formations than w ith the constitutive practices o f those crowds on an individual scale.

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In all these instances ... a form of being-togetherness is lived out that is no longer oriented to the faraway, toward the realization o f a perfect society in the future, but rather is engaged in managing the present, which one tries to make as hedonistic as possible.

(Maffesoli, 1996b: xiii)^

Empathetic feelings resulting from and concurrently also constituting these instances o f being-together take on a new prominence as a collective sensibility temporarily - and only at certain times and given the 'right' contextual conditions - supersedes the atomized individual. This communal ethic, which foregrounds notions o f proximity and the sharing of times, spaces and symbols (Maffesoli, 1995) is, I propose, particularly prom inent in

instances of the experiential consuming which I introduced in the 'Beginnings'. The group condensations may be based w ithin w ork affiliations, hobby groups, campaign groups, sporting events, consumer lobbies, musical and performance crowds or youth cultures (Maffesoli, 1995); in short, in any social situations where the behavioural codes im plicit in civil interaction may be transgressed or temporarily superseded with those based upon an empathetic and more subtle sociality. I am interested in a specific form o f group

condensation which acts as a context for consuming but which is also a "manifest togetherness" (Bauman, 1995b):

[t]he purpose o f this togetherness is being together, and being together in large numbers ... the higher-than-usual physical density gestates a similar density of sensual impressions: the overflow o f sights and sounds, a higher-than-usual level o f sensual stimulation, but more importantly yet a condensed,

concentrated stimulation - reaching the elsewhere unreachable pitch thanks not only to the massive volume, but also to the monotonous homogeneity o f stimuli: the same colour scarves wrapped around a thousand necks, the same jingle or ditty chanted, the same words shouted out rhythmically by thousands o f breasts, the same twists and turns gone through by thousands o f bodies ... togetherness o f this kind is mostly about the unloading o f the burden o f individuality.

(Bauman, 1995b: 46-47)'*

It should be made clear that Maffesoli is concerned here (and in his 1995 text) w ith the "liberatory" nature o f these social forms. Other o f his texts (1978 & 1979, as yet un-translated, and both o f w hich come o u t of his D octoral thesis on the nature o f conflict in society) cover more destructive facets o f tribalism such as forms of ethnic nationalisms.

Bauman gives as examples o f this "manifest togetherness" protest marches, football matches and discos! I explicitly return to this notion in Chapter Four where I discuss 'playful vitality'.

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Clubbing is one example o f this form o f collective experience in which "com m on sense, the

present and empathy" are dominant (Maffesoli, 1989: 11; emphasis in original). Furthermore, throughout the Night O u t I argue that the clubbing experience can be understood as a form o f togetherness in which a central sensation is one o f 1n-betweeness'

(or exstasis) - this is the flux between identity and identification to which Bauman refers above. On one hand clubbing crowds anonymise due to the sheer quantity o f co-present clubbers and the sensuous overload which can make sight, recognition and com m unication problematic. Yet at the same tim e clubbing crowds can also individualise - something that Bauman does not mention in opening out his notion of "manifest togetherness". Through, above all, dancing, clubbers can trace unique paths through the clubbing experience, distinguishing themselves as individuals. Yet these practices and spacings o f dancing (see below) are overwhelmingly crowd-based^ Through movement, proxim ity to and at times the touching o f others, and - crucially - a positive identification with both the music and the other clubbers in the crowd, those within the clubbing and especially the dancing crowd can slip between consciousness o f self and consciousness o f being part o f something much larger than themself. The social constitution of the crowd, the clubber's understanding of that social constitution, and the mental and emotional approach of the clubber to that crowd, are o f central importance in catalysing this in-betweeness. Furthermore, it appears that individualising impulses are not always founded upon positive and pleasurable notions o f bodily expression.

DW AYNE: A t Eutopia the people were much better than The Shed, so I didn’ t really have a problem with the people ... in the first interview I mentioned that it ’ s a couple o f singular things or events that [yeah] make a night good or bad and at that particular Shed night, I came in and this bloke from my college - whom I consider, just from the way he looks and walks and acts, to be a COMPLETE arsehole - was there [I laugh] and I thought “ fucking hell, I cannot go to the same club that this bloke is at” ... That, in the first place changed my conception o f the place completely, I mean I was with my friends and everything was going right and we had taken some drugs but that just flipped my mental state from feeling w e ll... to feeling really miserable and then I looked at all the other people and I thought “ yeah, these are real West End

^ O f course, not all forms o f dancing practices privilege the crowd in quite this way. In her study o f "C ontra dancing" (a form o f country / line dancing) in New York, Levine (1987: 196) notes how "C ontra dancing is not the dancer w ithin a crow d; rather it is the dancer in a series o f constantly shifting one-on-one dancing relationships"; yet Contra dancing is very much a "group experience" in w hich "you are constantly meeting new people and dancing w ith them " (ibid: 197).

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Saturday clubbers” and they were really boring and .... then I contemplated on the music and then I realised that it’ s such and such music that I really like and now it ’ s mainstream so much, and look what kind o f crowd that it draws .... it was a self-amplifying process, and the music is ... umm ... the key, but people are very important and I think ever since that night I haven’ t really been to a techno club, I think that was like the closing o f the techno chapter for me in some ways, so I ’m going to Lost next Saturday ... that was a very bad experience. I t ’ s very close to Banana Split in the arches where No Room For Squares is.

BEN: Right, so it ’ s people and music ... what about the certain aspects o f the atmosphere, such as ... I remember you saying a while back that ummm ... music sometimes made it so difficult to talk ... that you could only talk to the person next to you ... that’ s a strange thing ...?

DW AYNE: Yeah, that’ s the way I like to be with people, I generally ... the more people that I have to communicate with, verbally, then the less

comfortable I feel, so one-to-one conversations or one-to-two conversations are my ideal form o f communication really [yeah]. That’ s what for me makes clubs much better than bars ... even i f you would go to a bar with one person,

particularly i f you did not know them too well, yeah, in a club it’ s totally okay to umm .. to not talk for ten minutes and then do something else, but you can’ t just sit at a bar with someone and not do something [no, that’ s right - that’ s a

good point], and so it makes communication, at least for me, much easier.^

It starts to become clear in this extract how deeply Dwayne thinks about clubbing, what it means to him and how it works for him. First, the people in the clubbing crowd matter - clubbing is not simply about selecting a musical genre and a club that plays it and automatically getting a good night. It seems possible that potentially good nights can be spoilt by, to use a 'British Rail-ism', the 'w rong type o f crowd'. Second, Dwayne draws out direct links between the music and the crowd, particularly in terms of the mainstream / underground debate / tension. Third, a great deal o f reflection is undertaken by Dwayne, both during the night and at a later stage, although my suspicions that this may have been partly affected by the fact that Dwayne knew he was to be interviewed a second tim e were confirmed by him in the second interview. Fourth, the crowd and the music combine to create the 'coolness' o f a place. This coolness is critical to Dwayne's enjoyment, a crowd

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that is in some way 'cooler than him' seems essential for an enjoyable night in which Dwayne can lose himself in the crowd, can temporarily anonymise himself. Fifth, the density o f the crowd paradoxically constitutes a more comfortable setting for one-to-one

conversations. The notion that to talk in clubs is not always necessary - and is not always possible - is a feature that appeals to Dwayne. To talk becomes a choice rather than a social obligation. Finally, and perhaps most significantly, for Dwayne, the 'w ron g' type or style o f crowd can lead to a dis-identification, a strongly individualising sensation that Dwayne is not - and is not able to feel - part o f the crowd around him. This contrasts with the crowd practices o f many o f the other clubbers, particularly in respect o f dancing (see below).

1 now examine in some detail tw o linked and major facets of clubbing crowds that are especially significant in the establishment o f these sensations o f in-betweeness and which also build upon and progress the notions o f belongings and sociality that I introduced earlier. In particular, I am interested in unpacking notions of identification through

concentrating upon their practical and spatial constitution. In doing this, I discuss clubbing crowds first as musical crowds and second as dancing crowds.

" k “k

2

Musical Crowds

As long as we choose to consider sounds only through the commotion they stir in our nerves, we w ill never have the true principles o f music and o f its power over our hearts.

(J.-J. Rousseau, Essai sur Vorigine des langues',

cited in Cranston, 1983: 289)

MARK: Trance is central and I ’m going to give you the whole spiel now [we laugh] .... basically. I ’ve always liked dance music, but it never quite hit it [um-hum], until I discovered trance, or psychedelic trance... I should be more specific here as that is the proper term for it, or Goa trance which is the normal, the normal generic term for it, okay... and there’s various reasons for that. One, for me, is that it sounds

‘epic’ ... I think is probably the best description .... [right] I ’ve always liked things like, I mean all the way through, like a) film soundtrack music, very groovy music.

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big tunes, like Westerns and stuff, and Goa trance is like that - it just has an important feeling about it, which really is quite hard to describe but you Just get a feel for it [um-hum] okay? U m m m ... it’s also, unlike house which is fairly thumping, and I think this is a key distinction here, house is basically bass-led [rig h t]... errr ... trance doesn’t just excite the body, it excites the brain as well, okay, as you’ll see in glorious detail later [we laugh] ! It’s like you’re standing there and you get into the music and you get into the whole bodily thing, and you’ve got treble, it’s definitely treble, good trance I think is definitely treble, effectively treble-led

[right] okay, which effectively gives something for your brain to work on, okay... especially i f it’s on a bit of LSD.^