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Movement Europe was a giant warehouse party with shufflers dressed as pumpkins
House | Tuesday 4th November 2014 | Cristina
For a Halloween festival, it’s safe to say that Movement Europe was one of the biggest events of Italy’s dance music calendar. On Halloween, it scared the life out of Turin’s more conservative inhabitants, filling the city centre with masked youths, loitering in clown costumes to the soundtrack of raucous laughter and smashing bottles. However, to any dance music fan in Italy, it was mecca for the night, drawing fans and industry folk from all over the country and beyond.
Movement Europe, held in north Italy’s Turin, evolved from Movement Detroit Electronic Music Festival, one of the USA’s biggest dance music events. The founder of the event, Derrick May, who needs no introduction, spread the festival to Turin in 2006 to the sound of the Italian underground crying with relief – there had been a serious lack of underground electronic music events in Italy, never mind the north of Italy.
Now in its ninth edition, it’s grown into the biggest event of its kind, encompassing networking and industry events, talks, workshops and of course what may be northern Italy’s most cutting edge clubbing. Run across some of the best clubs in Turin as well as off-beat venues like academic and institutional buildings, the festival ran from the 25th October to the 1st November.
The festival’s smaller events took place throughout the city leading up to Halloween but the festival’s main event was on the 31st October, running from 8pm to 6am. Boasting the festival’s killer lineup, the event hosted huge, global names like Moodymann, Jeff Mills and Steffi. The varied lineup spanned five rooms spread across a labyrinthine conference centre, which had been turned for the night into an old-school style warehouse space, complete with ravers hugging with eyes rolling back in their heads and passing out in corners.
The crowd was as varied as the lineup, understandably, as it was composed of anyone who appreciated good dance music within a five hundred mile radius. Fearsome costumes were just as prevalent as scantily clad Italian glamourzons. Undoubtedly the scariest of the bunch were the men in suits and sunglasses staring menacingly from the edges of the room and the shufflers dressed in novelty onesies, the latter a sight I still struggle to bleach from my mind.
On the Detroit stage, Movement’s homage to its roots, living legend Moodymann was puppet master to an enchanted crowd with a screaming front row until 2am. He clashed with Skream who played the Yellow stage, a room only accessible by a blindingly yellow corridor which visibly blew the minds of those who’d reached a less responsive stage of consciousness. Meanwhile, the Blue and Torino rooms were showcasing an impressive range of local, national and international talent.
Better Lost than Stupid were one of the best acts of the night, with its all-star cast of David Squillace, Martin Buttrich and Matthias Tanzman. The main room of the festival, a vast, aircraft hangar of a space, was rammed and putty in their hands. Ellen Allien, on next, took things up a notch with her serious tech-house set, backing it up with energetic moves which were hilariously oblivious to the beat.
Allien and Squillace also played at the after party, a short cab ride away from the main event. Cushioning the blow of the festival’s 6am license, festivalgoers were grateful for its 10am closing time. Club Loud hosted the festival’s closing party the next night, headlined by deep house originator Kerri Chandler, who ignited a crowd who’d been flagging slightly, roughed up by the night before.
It was a weekend of hedonism justified by innovation, a rare thing in the northerly climbs of Turin. Continuing to spread the gospel of real dance music, Movement Europe saw out October with another smash party under its belt. The house and techno based lineup of Movement is drawing more interesting names every year, and with one more room this year than last, it looks like a festival growing exponentially. Find out more about Movement Europe on their Facebook and website.
