Rave Revolution: Southeast Asia’s Underground Dance Culture

Rave on

A rave isn’t easy to define. While no two people can give you the same answer, everyone can point out a rave when they see it. Some say a rave is simply a collective of people in a car park, warehouse, or any massive inconspicuous venue, where they’re dancing to electronic music mixed by featured DJs. Others think it’s a party that tries to blend subcultures, art, music, and fashion into one. Defining a rave is like trying to describe the feeling of sex to someone who’s never had it—you can try, but you’ll never get it unless you experience it firsthand.

And when you do experience it, the sensory overload makes you understand—and dance the night away. There’s the deafening techno music, reverberating toward your core. Blinding lights and bold fashions make for an exciting visual feast. And the rules? Almost nonexistent. In Southeast Asia, the raves held decades ago in places like Insomnia and the Verve Room in Manila and Deeper in Bangkok championed the kinds of people your mother warned you about, from buff men in tight leather looks to little Lolitas with piercings too many to count. The weird and the misunderstood flocked these places to do one thing: to celebrate. Celebrate music, in all its different forms, and celebrate life—life that’s free from societal constraints.

Within Southeast Asia, Manila’s raves in the 1990s—the beginnings of the regional scene—are worth looking into. According to James Go, music director for Annex House, “In those days, Toti Dalmacion’s Groove Nation and NBK were at the forefront.” Dalmacion is highly regarded in the scene as having been the first few to bring the idea of rave back from the US, particularly Los Angeles. “Then, Big Fish and several other productions would keep the rave scene going through the early 2000s” James continues. “It took a bit of a dip [in the 2010s] until EDM and corporate raves came about. Then, UNKNWN brought the light back to house music.”

In that stretch of time, rave’s influence on popular culture became more pronounced. A lot of early 2000s fashion, specifically from too-cool brands such as Riccardo Tisci’s Givenchy and Hedi Slimane’s Dior Homme, are referenced from rave culture. The prominence of percussion, jungle, and techno beats in genres like K-pop also alludes to rave’s influence all the way up to the 2010s.

Modern tribes

The lockdown gave rise to various online “tribes” and diverse identities coming together through shared experiences, and post-pandemic, the scene provided avenues for them to come together in safe spaces. Now, the resurgence of raves in Southeast Asia is also seeing the incorporation of local sounds and sensibilities.

For Mafia, a Manila-based DJ and organizer of the rave party Rerotica, collectives like Fluxxe, B-side, Today x FUTURE, and UNKNWN are responsible for revitalizing the rave scene in Manila. “The latter collectives are the ones that helped shape what we currently have now—but of course, with learnings and guidance from the former.” Across Southeast Asia, collectives like Bussy Temple in Singapore and Red Room in Vietnam are doing the same, giving peculiar souls the spaces they’ve been craving for.

I asked a coworker once, a barista, as she was closing up the café, why she enjoyed going to rave parties like Kaput and UNKNWN. She replied: “I just want to dance! Rave is a journey. It’s literal murder on the dance floor, where you pour all your frustrations and anger out with every drop of the beat.”

The underground worlds that raves introduce can be dark and daunting, but these dimensions are a Dionysian answer to society’s burdensome expectations. With grit and glamor combined, raves are places for chaos instead of order. It’s where the fearless go, where freedom of expression is favored over the confines of conformity.

This culture story appears in the pages of VMAN SEA 01: now available for purchase!

Photography Ennuh Tiu