South African Psy Culture documentary.

On 2010-05-28 12:41, Chemogen wrote:
"Trance Africa Express
A history of the development of Psychedelic culture in Cape Town.
Article by Traveler Joe

Goa or Psychedelic trance is a form of electronic music that developed on the beaches of Goa India in the early 1990s.With the worldwide explosion of this form of dance music beyond the borders of India, the first reported outdoor Trance party in South Africa was a small gathering of traveling friends with a ghetto blaster celebrating a birthday on Sandy Bay beach. The year was 1994 & trance had arrived in Cape Town South Africa.

In that same year a young French trance DJ, Dhya visited Cape Town after a life changing Goa experience. On 26 November 1994 he was went to the first Vortex ever produced, an indoor warehouse party called “The Essence of Fluorescence” & introduced to the organizers by mutual friends. A chance meeting that was to have far reaching implications with regards the direction of dance-culture in Africa. At this time dance-music was in its infancy in South Africa with Vortex & Pharcyde producing house orientated monthly warehouse raves.

In February 1995 electronic music enthusiasts were treated to the first outdoor party ever held in Cape Town. Stardust, produced by a German DJ, Fresco-X, was held on the green patch at Scarborough. Suddenly the great outdoors seemed like the place to hold parties. Firmly bitten by the Goa bug & inspired by the blossoming dance sub-culture down here Dhya returned to Cape Town in February that year with a fellow Israeli trance DJ, Yulchi. Armed with DAT’s & hours of psychedelic music they approached Vortex with regards DJing at one of the parties. Even though Vortex was doing big warehouse raves, when they heard the music it was an easy step to agree to let the music be heard.

The first psychedelic trance to be played to an audience happened soon after, at Vortex’s Mayday party at Culemborg in May 1995 to a crowd of about 4000. Needless to say the jump from house to trance in an indoor environment was a huge shock for many people attending & therefore Vortex continued to produce indoor raves through 1995 winter. In September 1995 the Vortex crew, for the purpose of promoting outdoor parties & trance music, formed a splinter organization, called Progression. Three successful Vortex outdoor Progression events were held in the months September to December 1995.

Dhya formed his own party organization, Moonchild Express & began throwing trance parties. In November 1995 the first true outdoor psychedelic party was produced by Conscious Dreams, a collective of foreign travelers in collaboration with Moonchild Express, at East Fort on Chapman’s Peak. They continued to throw parties on a monthly basis usually on or around full moon.

March1996 saw St. Pierre from France booked by Vortex to play at their “Let There be Light” party. He was the first international psychedelic artist ever brought to Africa. In March 1996 Moonchild Express & Conscious Dreams brought out Goa Gil & August 1996 saw Tsuyoshi Suzuki play at Vortex’s “The Art Of Sound” party. Towards the end of 1996 the Conscious Dreams / Moonchild Express collective ended & out of this Alien Safari was born, producing their first event in December 1996.

The millennium saw Vortex produce a hugely internationally acclaimed party on New Years Eve. In collaboration with Etnicanet this party was promoted worldwide & saw over 2000 international travelers attend from all over the world. This was a worldwide groundbreaking event, featuring all the formulative bands of the trance scene. Hallucinogen, X-dream, Total Eclipse, Pleaidians, Kox-Box, Cydonia, Etnica, Tristan, Tim Schuldt, Infected Mushroom, Droidlock, California Sunshine, Bamboo Forest & was at the time the biggest trance party ever held out of Europe. This put South Africa firmly on the map as an international trance destination.

The year 2002 saw a total eclipse on South African soil. Vortex in collaboration with Alien Safari & Etnicant produced the legendary South Africa 2002 eclipse party in tribal lands on the border of the Kruger National Park. The rest as they say is history. With multiple organizations promoting outdoor psy-trance parties on a regular basis, psychedelic culture in Africa was on the go. At present there are outdoor parties almost every weekend through the summer months & trance is firmly established in Cape Town as one of the leading forms of popular youth culture."

In response to Elisdee's comment that "It is the blacks wondering around the parking area you have to worry about.. in this case i'm not stereotyping."

I don't think this boils down to skin colour. The people that'd mug you in the parking lot are often impoverished farm workers (most of the time not even black in the general sense of the word) who see a bunch of middle class inebriated young people as easy targets.

I'd be more worried of the white guy in the throes of methamphetamine psychosis than a poor worker resorting to desperate measures to make some money.

Also, I'm speaking from a Cape Town experience, never been to Joburg so I can't comment.