By Constance van Rheenen
‘City of dance’: would you be just as surprised as me if you heard that this is legitimately associated with Middelburg? Do you not have any plans for this summer? Do you love electronic dance music (EDM)? Did you answer yes to all these questions? Then keep on reading!
Coming July – Saturday the 18th to be exact – this EDM devoted festival will continue its roots in our (how many synonyms are there for little) student-infested city. It will be divided into two parts, the first is the free Festival – that is right, you do no have to pay – which will take place in the inner city, and later in the night the City Party will be thriving in the Hof van Tange. Workshops, theatre, street-acrobatics and live shows will fill the city with life. As for the DJ’s, last year’s line-up included Outsiders, who will be coming back this year, and GirlsLoveDJs, who recently remixed W&W’s Bigfoot with Praia Del Sol and if you have not heard it yet, get on your laptop now. This year, in honour of their anniversary, the festival is developing an impressive line-up which sees some of last year’s artists returning, will also have names like The Partysquad – for all the Dutchies out there –, STTRBSTN whose music is self-proclaimed ‘like a Happy Meal from McDonald’s’, and Shermanology, who have previously played Tomorrowland. As if these names are not big enough, the line-up is still coming through and can be followed on their Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, or the good old-fashioned website.
If last years’ pictures can tell us anything, we can expect the following: pole dancers who take the stage beside their DJs who in turn will be surrounded by miniature Tomorrowland-like setups, stilt-walkers, a fire breather with a great distance between him and the audience, and bubbles that will be larger than ourselves; nothing like the amateur ‘bellenblaas’ that we grew up with. Of course, we would not be telling you about this unless it would easily fit in your student-slash-summer budget, and so early bird tickets are only €12,50 and the late bird (let us face it that is all of us) tickets are going for only €23,50. Do no worry about missing it, the website has an ever moving countdown that you will probably end up staring at instead of writing that one monster of a paper.
For more information, check out http://www.cityofdancefestival.nl for the latest updates, tickets and more!
Constance van Rheenen, class of 2016, is a Musicology major from Doesburg, The Netherlands
