Rave Cultural Experience

For the past term the grade 10 history class has been studying the first social history unit about raves. Miss Austin and Miss Ellis have been very excited to immerse us in the topic of historical rave culture. To introduce the topic to our class, Miss Ellis and Miss Austin threw a sample rave for our class that had historically accurately neon lights, police sirens, rave music and vintage style posters from the past. 

We had many highlights this term. Some of these include working together in groups to create zines and hearing from guest speaker Nathan Ess, a rave designer who shared his fascinating personal experience designing raves for his company, Muddled Marauder. Miss Austin also guided us through a verbal walkthrough of an average rave night. With our eyes closed, we imagined the atmosphere, sensations, and energy helping us really understand the power of rebellion and what it take to set up a rave experience of our own.

Preparing for a rave exhibition was very exciting because, thanks to Miss Ellis, we were given a rare opportunity to independently make our ideas come to life, in the form of a school rave. Each group was allocated a space and topic including: The History of Raves, People of Raves, Rave Around the World, and Rave Today. Groups were tasked with designing and creating an informative zine, which is a short magazine used primarily in the 80s. We also had to collaborate when thinking of how to reflect the topics into our spaces and zines.

When designing the rave we knew our ideas had to be realistic. The evening after school most of the class stayed behind and helped set up and prepare for the rave. We collected our set amount of resources and planned logistics, working to make the space immersive, informative and historically accurate.  One of the groups set up a mini tunnel, another set up a pirate radio station inspired by what we learned in class. A third group recreated a DJ's bedroom, symbolising the early days when DJs first had the freedom to produce music independently from their own rooms. My group focused on the theme Raves Today and one of our members performed as a live DJ throughout the event. We also used a projector to screen footage from historic raves to connect our exhibition with its roots.

Overall this unit was one of the class' favourite so far — we had a lot of fun. We are extremely grateful for all the work Miss Ellis and Miss Austin put into this unit.