Movement Festival, 2010, Happiness

This was a really happy festival for me. Just joyous. And not because every single sound or set was fabulous, but the whole weekend, both inside, and especially outside of Hart Plaza, was filled with great things.

I'll start you with this message from Peaches. Not the pink electro fuck Peaches.



Outkast Peaches.



I have loved this album since high school and this intro expresses how I feel about Detroit and this whole May weekend. You know what I'm talking about, I know you do.

So, for starters, Friday night. We began our weekend with 2010: A Detroit Odyssey hosted by Carl Craig, Planet E, and the Detroit Techno Foundation.


The films were excellent. The event was free. It was such a creative, educational, inspiring, and exciting event. I hope these kinds of events happen every year! Cycles of the Mental Machine was an interesting film. I'll definitely use that when I teach in the future! Mike Banks was interviewed for the film with his back to the camera in front of a photograph of Jeff Mills' hands. It was lovely. I had seen Metropolis before, but never with Jeff Mills' score. Well, I partially slept through Metropolis before. I was very pregnant and it was a quiet, dark theater! This time around, there was no sleeping, I was enthralled. Suite for Ma Dukes was inspiring - particularly the visual aspects. Nice to see lots of Detroit faces in the film performing. And The Drive Home was a film documenting the first year of the Detroit Electronic Music Festival. Definitely fun and interesting to watch. Particularly paired with RA's oral history of the festival. Carl Craig introduced each film. And the filmmakers of both Suite for Ma Dukes and The Drive Home were present to speak before their films. Derrick May rose to conclude the film portion of the night and prepared the audience for Timeline. Finally, Timeline played featuring Mike Banks, DJ Sicari, Jon Dixon, and De'Sean Jones. It was really exciting to see Mike Banks playing in Detroit! They were all having a great time, and everything sounded great.

It was really moving to be at this event. The crowd grew slowly, but by the time Suite for Ma Dukes began, the Detroit Music Hall was pretty full. The week prior to the Movement Festival, Carl Craig held music workshops for high school students at Detroit School for the Arts, from which Kyle Hall graduated just last year. One of these workshops was hosted by Jason Huvaere, president of Paxahau, on event planning. I was so impressed to learn about these workshops. I truly hope that these kinds of events happen every year during the festival. Free events that have the potential to reach Detroit residents, but also to educate visitors from out of town. Kenny Dixon Jr.'s Soulskate definitely accomplishes this. Maybe next year, there could be a block party outside of Submerge, or somewhere around Techno Boulevard - 1486-1492 Gratiot. Theses addresses housed the studios of Juan Atkins' Metroplex Records, Derrick May's Transmat Records, and Kevin Saunderson's KMS Studios. The party could be off Gratiot somewhere around there. The Heidelberg Project is a few steps from there too.



Or a picnic on Belle Isle, on Sunday, with a serious sound system blaring old Mojo radio shows.

There's much more that I have to tell you about, but my boys, they run me ragged...because they're so damn awesome. You'll have to wait until tomorrow...