Bassiani / Sentimental Rave / Lucid

We dance together, we fight together! DJs from Tbilisi, Paris and Hamburg celebrate hard techno’s resistive potential, and the power of bodies dancing together.

Despite all obstacles, one of the world’s most exciting electronic dance-music scenes has developed in recent years in the Georgian capital of Tbilisi. Here, partying is political. Every weekend, people pour into the clubs, which also serve as safe spaces for the LGBTIQ* community, to dance off the repressive post-Soviet present to the music of the future. After brutal 2018 raids at, among others, the legendary Bassiani club, large protests took place in front of the Tbilisi parliament, accompanied by demonstrations of solidarity throughout the global club community. These events are also broached in the festival’s opening dance piece by (LA)HORDE, MARRY ME IN BASSIANI. After the last performance of this piece, the Georgian DJ Lilith (a Bassiani resident) as well as (LA)HORDE composer Sentimental Rave from Paris, and DJ Lucinee, a producer and organizer of politically informed techno parties in Hamburg (e.g. LUCID), will put on a joint club night that explores the liberating potential of hard, dark techno. We dance together, we fight together!