In these meetings preparing for intergenerational "techno" and indiginous-oriented tribal musical ritualism there are participants who are impassioned by movement work, ritual integration, liturgy and musicianship.  Each type of participant brings with them a host of ideas, experiences, potentials, and synergistic energies.  However, quickly it became clear that none of us was on the same page about how to foster a collaborative event, at least in the sense that each of us brought with us a certain sensibility directed by our previous involvements in events which focused primarily on one of these types of expertise.  The movement artists had all sorts of fantasies about how the dj's should incorporate music with other live musicians, without having any under-standing of how dj'ing works or how live musicians count beats and play off improvisational energy.  The dj's (myself included) had mostly non-dogmatically based or pagan/ritual magick backgrounds and had difficulty engaging in the "visionary" ramblings of the New-Agey ritualists. The organizers and advertising experts laid plans for marketing to various subsects of the culture which many group members felt were inappropriate target audiences, or at least too limiting.  So clearly, although the intentions were always cooperative, what began to unfold was a drama of miscommunication and misrepresented/perceived ideals. Inevitably, it became easy to step on another party's toes, which was certain-ly never the group's overall intention. Without genuine respect to individuality within the group, genuine cooperation never gave rise.

Within my reality-tunnel, I gradually realized that throwing a typical rave is simple;  it contains specific parts:  you identify the location, you set the date, you book the talent, you specify points-of-sale and areas in which to flyer.  (These are some of what I would consider the now-developed mundane aspects of “th’ scene”.)  For this experimental, larger group, everyone collectively conjured so many various ideas, marketing targets, and integral components of the party, that it became difficult to fall within the same constraints that a normal rave party generally requires. My revelation was that me and my cohorts were “of” the scene in the sense that most elements were tangibles known which we had grown into, while the way the “ritual” of each party unfolded was individuated by the event and the participants itself. Coming together to gather was simply the purpose. For this other group looking towards liturgical religious settings and to raves as the guideposts by which to determine the internal structure, the process was much more undeveloped and needy of countless meetings where individual participants stressed their desires and concepts ofhow the event should unfold—how to create purpose within this pre-existing structure.  On one hand, the ongoing conversations seemed an endless bar-rage of unnecessary nonsense; on the other, it became clear that while our intentions remained similar, our methods were vastly different and difficult to rectify. One group thrived on improvisation; the other required rehersal.

My overall conclusion is that the intergenerational party concept is immensely complex. That participants in the 15-30 yr age group mostly function as drop-outs from many conventions of the subculture understood by the Baby Boomers and their elders. Each deals with a subculture that has required no parenting from elder generations and has developed independently through means which established orthodoxies repress and criticize. However, now there exists an impetus for the generations to share in a way which has never been actuated before and therefore requires entirely new modalities of cooperation.  In that sense, no paradigms truly exist, and so the territory remains largely unclear and unmapped.

Most importantly, "th' scene" is approaching a time where intergenerational relationships must actively inter-face if some of its original players are to continue thriving within it - there's no avoiding it.

And this is a tremendous challenge, especially when considering that even within members of my own age group there are countless divisions in the  respect that some are entangled in the rave subculture, while others are involved in Hip-Hop culture, some part of the more conventional New Age precepts, while others are more engaged in ritual magick, buddhism and complex metaphysics; some listen only to Christian Death, while others devote their lives to Christ; some are straight-edge, some are strung-out, some are vegan and work in organic foods markets, and some eat steak and work for Microsoft or Sun and play the stockmarket.  I have had to learn to drop my guard with some of my peers whose visceral experiences are absurd to me, and have had to tackle the idea that their own perceptions are as valid as my own. Yet it does not stop me from somehow feeling disengaged.