Dance | The design of a culture

Electronic dance music is the sound of emancipation. Black and LGBTQ+ communities created a musical genre that enabled them to express themselves freely. That music has since gone mainstream, becoming a multi-billion-dollar industry. Design features centrally in the development of electronic dance music. Take the equipment used to make the music, from the first experiments with electronic instruments in Philips’ NatLab in the 1950s, through the revolution of compact Japanese synthesizers in the 1970s to contemporary laptops. Or the design of the spaces in which the music was (and is) danced to: from opulent New York discos to the dilapidated warehouses in Detroit where techno was born and today’s megalomaniac global stadium productions. Not to mention paraphernalia such as clothing, flyers, album covers, posters, merchandise and tickets. Dance – the design of a culture lets you discover the past, present and future of electronic dance music and see the important role played by design in the development of the most important musical genre of our time.

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