My passion has always been about the music, but it has also grown to mean so much more. I started attending music festivals and open airs in high school in Chicago, enjoying everything from dubstep and trap to funk and hip-hop. My exposure to techno and club culture was in Singapore. The parties of The Council, Darker Than Wax, and Kilo Lounge, among others, were a huge breath of fresh air for me when I first moved, and they made me believe that I could make a home in Singapore. It was also in Singapore that I started engaging with nightlife more critically. I found myself wanting to learn more and more about Singapore’s nightlife and the rich history of techno around the world—including in my home city.

I am currently working on my senior thesis on nighttime governance in Singapore and how the techno and house scene organizes events and operates venues while navigating the state’s regulations. In other words, how do you throw a party in Singapore, and what makes it so hard? With the advocacy group VibeLab, I have had the pleasure of assisting with various projects such as Rise Up – A Global Nighttime Manifesto, where we brought together over 120 creatives from 55 cities to reflect on a collective vision for the future of nightlife. A big challenge was writing something that could appeal to many communities. I hope that the work I am involved in, now and in the future, contributes to a more informed understanding of how we can navigate our time’s social, political, and environmental concerns to create better futures. 

Without giving away too many secrets, I have loved the never-ending parties at Kater, Barfuß Sundays at Beate, Disco Bizarre at KitKat, and House of Lunacy in the labyrinths of Renate. I loved exploring the soundscapes of different dance floors across the city and discovering new favorite DJs and club genres. Some of my most memorable sets and parties include Exildiscount in Renate’s Green Room, Ouissam at Panorama, Wuza’s birthday party at one of Rummels Bucht’s last events, and the Kater residents MiAs, Mila, Mira and Chris, to name a few. I also hold the bittersweet memory of seeing the late Cats on Crack’s last set in Berlin, a Singapore DJ and visionaire who moved mountains for our scene in Singapore.

Being taken seriously—both on the academic and advocacy front. Many of the challenges that people face within the scene, advocacy circles, academia, and research stem from the stigma attached to nightlife as hedonistic—and perhaps the stigmatization of hedonism itself. On the academic front, I have been questioned about how nightlife can be a serious subject of study or how it  contributes to society. On the advocacy side, there are challenges with getting heard by governments and official stakeholders and by communities, especially in contexts where advocacy work is uncommon or restricted. But the pandemic has shown for many scenes that the future is not guaranteed unless we commit to it and find sustainable ways of working with each other and different stakeholders.

One in which nightlife inspires us to imagine alternatives to neoliberalism and discover regenerative ways of living, relating, and becoming.

While we should not view clubs and nightlife spaces as utopic and somehow exempt from social injustice, there are many ways in which they continue to be empowering. In a time of polarization, digitalization, and war, nightlife culture can bring different people together and provide a sense of inspiration, inclusion, purpose, joy, freedom, pleasure, and more.

The differences between the cities are night and day. Everything from a city’s history and governance structure to its geographic location can impact the kind of nightlife it sees. But what resonates with me is how Kavan (from the Singapore-Berlin label Midnight Shift) described the relationship between the two: “Singapore taught us discipline and hard work whilst Berlin has taught us to release the mental restrictions we have been personally bound to.” What also runs true—in Singapore, Berlin, and many other places—is the love of dance and the amazing potential of a dancefloor to unite and heal.

Eat well and pack my “party backpack”—bananas, bread, magnesium supplements, and contact solution, since only time will tell when I will return home, at least in Berlin. If there is someone I am looking forward to seeing play, I will usually listen to a set of theirs as I get ready. Most recently, that has been Sunju Hargun’s Patterns of Perception podcast in anticipation of Outer Bounce’s inaugural event in Singapore, and Bongomann’s amazing ambient production Wake Up / Kick On before a rare live performance hosted by Blackout Agency. 

Something tapped into the groove of contemporary or classical dance—it does not matter if it is low-pitched downtempo or fast-forward techno.

I went for something chill and sexy—a compilation of mostly new wave and dark disco with some EBM, post-punk, and 80s tracks sprinkled throughout. I was also happy to find a way to include a song by the Ukrainian experimental folk group DakhaBrakha, one of my favorite musical discoveries of the year. The playlist represents a music score that I will gladly listen to deep work or at a party.