‘A whole-body experience’

Emma Warren, author of Dance Your Way Home and co-curator of the festival: I remember someone asking me, ‘Where’s your happy place?’ I said it’s in the middle of the dancefloor. They thought that was funny, as most people would think of somewhere solitary, in nature, under a tree, but I was like, no, my happy place is in the squash, surrounded by a lot of people, where your movement is connected to everybody else’s.

I’ve been on so many dancefloors. I remember a very intense drum’n’bass night in Manchester in 1996, Phenomenon One. It was tropical hot, extremely loud, and I had this whole-body experience. It’s the state you reach when you’ve been dancing for a long time, for hours on the spot. Some people might call it trance, but I would just call it really connected, really grounded and really “in” yourself in a collective way.

Dancing is universal, and even when it’s legislated against – with the Public Dance Halls Act in Ireland in the 1930s or the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act in the 1990s – people find a way. Because it’s about friendship, it’s about internal strength, collaboration, all those things that are as much to do with the village green as they are to do with a rave or club. It’s just a really normal human thing to do. Dancing makes me feel connected to myself and the people I’m with at a time when my attention is always being drawn away by those who are being paid huge amounts of money to grab my attention. It brings me back to myself and allows me to feel what I’m feeling. And I know that after just a very short amount of time of a very simple groove, I’m going to start feeling better.

‘It was empowering to be dancing to the sounds of protest’

Dennis Bovell, producer, DJ and musician: I had a sound system in Battersea, south-west London, between 1969 and 1974. It was around that time the Lovers Rock genre started to blossom and my generation were learning to dance with each other. I remember a song of mine called Smouche, and they did smooch, gladly! There were sound systems all over the UK – London, Manchester, Birmingham, Bristol – meeting each other and having what’s now known as a soundclash. But they were peaceful clashes, displays of who had the danciest records, who could get more people on the dancefloor.

Anyone who ever ran a sound system came up against the police, because people would complain about the noise levels. The police would come and say “Turn it down”, and you would, and then when they were gone you’d turn it back up. They weren’t used to the volumes that reggae music was being played at. But look at it now. In those days, I think an amplifier would have been at most 2,000 watts, now it’s 22,000 watts.

My favourite dancefloor memories? As a teenager, when Freedom Street by Ken Boothe came out, it was an empowering moment to be dancing to the sounds of protest. And then Eddy Grant comes out with Black Skin Blue Eyed Boys. His band the Equals had black and white musicians, there was racial integration. I thought it was tremendous that these kind of topics had entered the dance arena and were being celebrated by people dancing.

With my band Matumbi, our first gig was at the joint US-UK airbase in Alconbury. We were warned we should play soul music because these US airmen were not really into reggae. We thought, “They should be into reggae!” So we played one soul tune to start the show and then started playing reggae. We showed them some dance moves and by the end of the evening the whole airbase was rocking with American servicemen discovering reggae from being stationed in the UK.

‘The heavy bass and consistent rhythm is transcendental’

Saskia Horton, founder of Sensoria: My background in dance is hip-hop, house, waacking and krump. My biggest learning ground were house music dance clubs in London, from around 2014 to 2019. It was like an incubator, it’s really deep for me: it’s where I found myself, where I found my family. What makes house so transcendental is the four to the floor, the heavy bass and consistent rhythm. Once you’ve lost yourself in the music, it’s a journey the DJ takes you on. I’d be dancing three to four hours straight in a cypher [a circle where dancers take turns to share their moves].

I got sick in 2019 and my life changed for ever. I have a chronic illness. My company Sensoria is all about advocating for disabled and chronically ill folks to have a space in dance and music. It started from the point of me becoming sick and losing access to the spaces that I loved. We’ve created the Sensory Safe Cypher as a place for people with sensory difficulties, neurodiversity and various physical disabilities to get involved in cyphering. Hip-hop has a “go hard or go home” sensibility, but with Sensoria, the values are slowness, sustainability and de-growth. It is also just about the purely logistical barriers that prevent chronically ill, disabled or neurodiverse folks from getting to mainstream dance events, whether that’s access to the building, or the lack of a quiet space, or no seating. Basically, this is me finding my way back to what I held so dear.

‘I felt free. No constraints, no right, no wrong’

Jeremy Nedd, choreographer: I come from a formal dance training but my beginnings, my true connection to dancing, was at family events. I grew up in Brooklyn in a big Caribbean family, we would dance to Soca and a lot of the old soul hits. I felt free, no constraints, no right, no wrong. There’s what the youth are now calling “aura”: when you see someone move and they have a sense of self, a kind of ownership of how they can handle a dance move and they just glow, it creates a certain energy around them.

I try to carry that same feeling from those family events into what I make now. In my piece From Rock to Rock we use the Milly Rock, among other social and viral dances. It started as a joke with a couple of friends: what happens when you take a dance that is not considered rigorous or virtuosic and really start to mine it and see what else is there?

The Milly Rock was created by the rapper 2Milly: it’s essentially a gesture where you swipe side to side, and it got caught up in a court case with the video game Fortnite, around copyrighting movement and intellectual property. Who can own a dance movement? There’s a whole history of appropriation where folks aren’t getting their dues from things they created. Especially when they come from black spaces of creativity. The dancefloor is a beautiful space, a space to be in exchange, to share energy and joy. But the dancefloor is very digital now. Milly Rock comes from Brooklyn but I’ve watched people gives tutorials on it in eastern Europe, and they acknowledge where it comes from.

‘The power of sonic healing is not to be underestimated’

Linett Kamala, DJ, academic and interdisciplinary artist: I was the first woman to DJ at Notting Hill carnival – I was actually a girl at the time, 15, in 1985. I was born in Harlesden to Jamaican parents, and grew up around sound system culture. I was the type of girl who was like, “Why can’t I do that?” I remember saying “Make some noise!” on the mic, and they cheered and blew their whistles. And when the bass dropped, that’s when the crowd were like, “OK, she knows.” I just grew in confidence from that very moment.

Even though I’ve been doing it for 40 years, I never take it for granted. I call myself the People’s DJ. I will look at my crowd and be like, “OK, let’s feel the vibe here.” I am there to make sure you have the most incredible time. I have an audience from little ones to people in their 80s. I used to be a headteacher, I was super-strict in a grey suit, turning around these tough schools in London. My students would come to carnival and nearly pass out when they saw me behind the decks.

Now I’m one of the organisers at Notting Hill, and I run South Kilburn carnival. I’m playing at the Grief Rave at the Southbank. To me, a Grief Rave is not unusual because we have “nine nights” in Jamaican culture, where we celebrate someone’s life, play the music that they loved, and there’s a party atmosphere. If you’re going through a tough moment, a tune can come on that makes you want to cry your heart out, or it can trigger so many interesting, incredible memories. I think the power of sonic healing is not to be underestimated. It goes back to the heartbeat of the mother in the womb, the vibrational element, and that’s why on the dancefloor we all feel so connected.

• Dance Your Way Home is at the Southbank Centre, London, from 23 July to 29 August