A look behind the scene

Hanging out at nightclubs, dancing until 5 a.m. and fraternizing with disenfranchised 20-somethings might not be what most people think of as academic research.

It also might not be how Tammy Anderson’s students envision their teacher spending her time outside the classroom. But, with several prestigious grants bolstering her research on the dance parties known as raves, the associate professor of sociology takes her fieldwork seriously.

Anderson researches the music, culture and evolution of raves, the large-scale, all-night parties that enjoyed their heyday—and a dubious reputation—in the late ’80s and early ’90s. She received General University Research grants from UD’s Office of the Vice Provost for Research and the Center for International Studies to conduct on-site research at events that typically don’t wind down until the wee hours of the morning.

Her work has taken her to clubs as far-flung as Miami; Washington, D.C.; London; and Ibiza, Spain. This spring, with a grant from the National Institute on Justice, Anderson will begin a comparative study of hip-hop and dance (techno, house and trance) music subcultures. She expects the work to result in a book exploring differences in subcultural style and identity and how shifts in attitudes and legislation have affected them.

“The word ‘rave’ today doesn’t really have much resonance with anyone but policy makers,” Anderson says, noting one of the shifts. “We’re now in what I’d call a postrave era, and I think that’s due to a lot of reasons. For me, this is a project about cultural transformation and collective identity centering on leisure activity. I hope to answer questions about collective and group identity, the issues that connect and bring people together and the purposes they achieve when they do so.”

Although Anderson says she prefers not to pigeonhole her research, for manageability’s sake, she divides it into two main categories—sociological and legislative. She says she plans to take a positive angle on both, partly with the hope of dispelling some misconceptions about raves.

“People are enthusiastic when they hear about the angle I’m taking with my research,” she says. “They’re very excited that someone is going to write about something other than the drugs. They’re also encouraged that someone is trying to capture what this movement is really about instead of just focusing on its negative aspects.”

Anderson has been studying the sociological aspects of the illegal drug culture since receiving her doctorate in sociology from American University in 1991. She says that, although she will touch on the use of drugs, particularly Ecstasy, at dance music events, she’ll place the topic in the broader context of how it plays into the culture.

She describes Ecstasy as both a stimulant and a psychedelic and says it gained popularity during raves. Raves originally were all-night dance events held illegally in fields or abandoned warehouses with thousands of people in attendance.

“But, the most defining characteristic of the original raves—the primary reason they began and why people attended them—was the music,” Anderson says. “They were dance events featuring electronically produced music, and people went for the music and dancing. I want to explore how the rave culture grew around that music.”

The original raves, she says, also gave participants a sense of a community that was outside the mainstream.

“There was something very seductive about this that drew people together,” Anderson says. “Someone had to haul the sound equipment out into the field and charge the generator to keep the equipment running, and this grassroots approach was a very unifying force. I think the kids who staged the original raves believed that they were doing something independent and important. They were organizing an event that existed outside normal boundaries and rules, and there’s universal appeal in that. That’s art. Art exists to push the boundaries, and that’s what fueled the music and the
rave culture.”

This grassroots, slightly subversive aspect has led Anderson to draw connections between raves and the be-ins of the ’60s. It also has invited comparisons between the rave culture’s present state of fragmentation and the dissolution of the “free love” movement.

“The original raves were places where people could connect with other people and experience both individual pleasure and connection to others,” she says. “But, then, they got too big and became commercialized. Nightclub owners saw opportunity in them and wanted a piece of the action, and new legislation established much stricter rules about assembly and permits.”

Although these shifts drastically altered the rave scene and changed the original, large-scale events into the smaller, tamer, commercialized house parties and club dances of today, the driving force of raves remains basically unchanged, Anderson says. “The music and dancing are still the key reasons why people come to these parties,” she says.

Despite the recent legislation and commercialization of raves, they are, at heart, socially driven and community centered events, she says.

“Raves are a cross-cultural phenomenon with deep traditions,” Anderson says, citing an experience from an event she attended last summer. “At the club I went to in Ibiza, for instance, I met and danced with people from 15 different nations in one night. We couldn’t necessarily speak to each other because of the language barrier, but we certainly knew when the bass line accelerated and the break in the music happened. In what other setting can that happen? That sort of communication is what facilitates social connection.”

—Becca Hutchinson