Chronicle “It’s Back”
Organizers, DJs, establishments, night owls, observers… Every Wednesday, “Libé” gives a voice to those who live for and through the night. Today is the author, singer, DJ and co-founder of the association Beyond the Club.
With Beyond the clubSon “Laboratory” Founded in 2021, Sarah Gamrani, 27, is looking to think “The Futures of the Night” after covid. Now, alongside Laure Togola, she is questioning, among other things, the representation of scaled-down artists in program design or the architecture of festive spaces. This is done, for example, by a new fanzine Flashes, the first issue of which just came out in mid-February, but also exhibitions and other creative projects. She has been involved with nightlife since studying urban planning in Bordeaux and Brussels. This resulted in a self-published theoretical-poetic book, Beyond the club, sold to 600 copies. The feminist author, who is also the singer of the electronic duo Baraka and DJ under the pseudonym Hawa Sarita, first encountered a version when she was a student “classic” Parties in the bars of Toulouse, the city she comes from. Before discovering its alternative and militant dimension during his Latin American wanderings (in Mexico and Chile), he began to mingle upon his return to France just before the pandemic.
Your definition of night
“It might be a little theoretical, but I would say it’s a separate space-time where anything is possible. The night is political, emancipatory and transformative, but also dual. It is both a space of freedom for bodies and constraints, of letting go but also of violence. That’s what makes it so compelling.”
your first trip
“I grew up in Toulouse, so my first big excursions and introduction to electronic music were in Bikini in Ramonville-Saint-Agne. The sound system is awesome. On the other hand, it is far from the center of Toulouse. You have to take the subway to the terminus and then walk along the canal for 15 minutes in the dark. It’s a place that has to be earned. I must have been 17 or 18 and it became an unmissable event for me. I went out very carefree, didn’t ask myself any questions and got a musical slap in the face every time. On the other hand, I hadn’t yet integrated all the political or militant dimensions of a festive space. My prism was pretty naive. It was very nice.”
Previously on “It’s back”
Ta BO
“The remix of Big time sensuality by Bjork from Fluke. We hear the singer’s voice and a very progressive instrumental that moves towards trance. It can set off a festive mood. I’m obsessed with too Miss from Everything but the Girl, it’s really the representative sound for the nostalgia there is in the night, that nostalgia for the day before and the next day and for not being there anymore.
your place
“It’s a secret place, a place where we organize a small festival with Cristofeu, half of our baraka duo, at the beginning of summer. We only bring our close friends, usually we’re a little over a hundred at most. Everything takes place in an old rose greenhouse, derelict, half open and where nature reclaims its rights. Next to it there is a big river where you can swim. For me it’s the definition of a party, with friends, people you love and who love you, in the middle of nature, where you can dance freely. It is our little cross-generational summer utopia and sets the tone for the coming season. I have not found these conditions anywhere else.”
your next weekend
“On Saturday I will be at the Machine du Moulin-Rouge [club adossé au cabaret parisien dans le XVIIIe arrondissement, ndlr], where the evening of the red light district is organized. All the spaces of the club are open and this time it’s a Barcelona collective, Maricas, who are invited. A friend, Hewan Aman, and my favorite artist, Australian DJ Roza Terenzi, are also playing: it’s going to be a great evening to listen to quality music.
