The “Amsterdam Electronic Dance Music Research Group” is dedicated to the study of all aspects of electronic dance music culture(s). Amsterdance departs from the field of popular music studies, from which it sets out an exploration of the material and social resonances generated by the sounds of electronic dance music in time and space. Though based in Amsterdam, the group is open to electronic dance music researchers from all around the world and also traces the music’s global footprints in an effort to put both local and translocal occurrences in conversation with each other.

Coordinators

• • Dr Oliver Seibt, Sydney Schelvis, and Alina Tomesc

Amsterdance ‘Graduates’ and their Theses

• Alina Tomescu

Institutionalizing nightlife: a close reading of discourses about the night in Amsterdam (MA Comparative Cultural Analysis, 2024)

• Anna Horan-Murphey

Queer-identifying DJs in Electronic Dance Music: Investigating the Construction of Musical Personae (MA Music Studies, 2023)

• Ella Gwendolyn Pienkoß
  Whose House is it Actually? Describing the forms of communalization around electronic dance music through the experiences of Amsterdam’s clubbers (rMA Art and Performance Studies, 2023)
  • Gavin Mooij
    Memetechno: a short-lived hype or brand new genre? A discourse analysis of the formation of memetechno (BA Musicology, 2023)
    winner of the IASPM Popular Music BA Thesis Prize 2023
  • Olle BeenhakkerRaving Through Rosa’s Glasses: Using Resonance Theory to Study Rave Culture (MA Music Studies, 2022)
• Rick Kooijman
  The Sacred Rave: A Review of a French Sociological Tradition in EDMC Studies (MA Music Studies, 2022)
• Phoebe Janssen
  This Must Be the Space: Mapping Spaces of Post-1989 Berlin and Their Relation to the Local Club Culture (MA Music Studies, 2021) 
• Jacob Tucker
  Excavating the Bass: A Critical Historiography of UK Dance Music (MA Music Studies, 2021)

winner of the UvA Faculty of Humanities Thesis Prize 2022

• Sydney Schelvis
  4DSOUND: A New Technology? On the Ontology of Techno in Space (rMA Art Studies, 2020), winner of the IASPM Popular Music MA Thesis Prize 2020

Contact

For all the latest information, see our LinkedIn page.

Want to join or have questions, send us an email at amsterdance-fgw@uva.nl.

Research Interests

Over the last half-century, electronic dance music has become one of the central sonic forces in the field of popular music and set in motion the development of a number of cultural formations. The physical impact of its repetitive rhythms instigates a profound synchrony on the dance floor. Yet, perhaps due to historic stigmatisation and associations with hedonism, the sounds and cultures of electronic dance music remain relatively side-lined in academic research. The Amsterdance research group explores the social significance and the cultural and political potential of contemporary electronic dance musics in a variety of settings and contexts. In terms of methodology, Amsterdance is thereby inspired by the logic of electronic dance musicking itself: sampling, mixing, and remixing materials.

Envisaged Results

The central ambition of Amsterdance is to provide a home to researchers interested in electronic dance musics and their cultures, and to connect them to related research networks. Amsterdance aims to benefit from the insights of guest speakers and welcomes any external contributors to join the meetings and complement discussions.

Work Plan and Time Schedule

Amsterdance was launched in February 2021. The research group meets on a regular basis to discuss the research projects of its individual members, to support their undertakings with constructive feedback, and to jointly read relevant publications. Since April 2021, Amsterdance has been organising a series of lectures with outstanding international electronic dance music scholars and practitioners.

Past Events and Activities

20 April 2021
AMSTERDANCE meets IASPM Benelux POP TALKS 3: Beate Peter on “Experiential Knowledge and Popular Music Historiography”

29 September 2021
AMSTERDANCE meets IASPM Benelux POP TALKS 5: Hillegonda C. Rietveld on “Spectacular Noise: The Case of Gabber”

20 January 2022
AMSTERDANCE meets IASPM Research Seminar Series: Ian Pocervina, Jacob Tucker, Phoebe Janssen, and Sydney Schelvis on “AMSTERDANCE: The Amsterdam Electronic Dance Music Research Group”

21 June 2022
AMSTERDANCE meets 7th IASPM Benelux Student Conference: Graham St. John on “Apocalypse Raver: Terence McKenna as Medium”

22 June 2022
AMSTERDANCE workshop with Graham St. John

23 June 2022
AMSTERDANCE meets IASPM Benelux POP TALKS 7: Graham St. John on “Event Cultures and Meta-Liminality from Psytrance to Burning Man”

20 October 2022
AMSTERDANCE meets the UvA Musicology Colloquium series and ADE: Femke Vandenberg on “‘Dancing on my own’: The Transition of Live Electronic Dance Music to the Digital Realm”.

This research group is active in the following constellations: