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High-tech cyber hippies seek a higher consciousness through massive dance fests in the wild
Thursday, March 8, 2001
By WINDA BENEDETTI
The Moroccan police officer in the gray uniform says he's sure le grand festival is going to come off just fine -- never mind the fact that his small city on the edge of the Sahara Desert is about to be invaded by thousands of freaks from Allah-knows-where, wielding loud music, wild ideas and a desire to dance like dervishes for four days straight.
The policeman sits at a cafe sipping mint tea and agrees that, yes, there may be some problems with illegal drugs. He swooshes a fly from his cup and insists, again, that he's not worried. It's as if to say, "we survived invasion by the Phoenicians, the Romans, the Spanish and the French, so what's a few thousand debauched loonies preaching peace, love and universal enlightenment through techno music?"
They are cyber hippies, trance travelers and techno-bohemians wearing fuzzy cowboy hats, disco-sparkly shirts, tie-dye and dyed hair. Many are highly educated and high-tech employed, and they're in a global pursuit of adventure, freedom and a state of higher consciousness.
They came to the town of Ouarzazate, Morocco, in a stream of cars, buses, taxis and airplanes from places such as London, Tokyo, Moscow and Seattle. They traveled there on the eve of the new year to take part in the most recent in a string of giant "gatherings" or "trance festivals."
It's here that a combination of music and dance, an array of psychedelic drugs and the embrace of Mother Nature become, for some, the path to a spiritual transformation.
"It's not a party and it's not a rave. It's much more. It's an experience," says William Miller, creator of Solipse, a gathering that brought 20,000 people from 48 countries to the wilds of Hungary in 1999 and is expected to bring unknown thousands to the wilds of Zambia this June. "This is for people who appreciate real traveling. It's not for tourists."
Tourists, for example, might expect a roof over their heads, a soft bed, a warm shower. Trance gatherings, on the other hand, are done lowbrow bohemian style -- backpacks, tents, Porta Potties. Showers? What showers?
These events are a circus of self-expression, and cyber hippies aren't afraid to let their freak flags fly. They dress like gossamer-winged nymphs and pixie-sparkled gods and goddesses. Some don't wear anything at all. Like the long-lost children of Never-Never Land, they frolic amid multicolored tapestries adorned with Sivas, Ghaneshes, Celtic designs and fractal patterns. Think Dr. Seuss meets "Alice in Wonderland."
"The hippies before would shun all technology, but this movement has really embraced technology and used it for all its worth," says Nicole Eways, one of the three organizers behind "Morocco 2001: A Universal Tribal Gathering" (the trance gathering dubbed le grand festival by the locals). "This wouldn't work if e-mail and the Internet wasn't possible."
Technology is the lifeblood of the cyber-hippie scene. Information about trance gatherings is disseminated via the Internet. At the festivals themselves, giant screens billow in the wind as dancers bliss out to fantastical computer-created video sequences.
The electronic music genre -- under which trance music falls -- wouldn't even exist without elaborate synthesizers, computers and the latest high-tech sound equipment.
"It's a weird mish-mash of high-tech and hippie," says Paul de Goede, who is, himself, a weird mish-mash of high-tech and hippie.
De Goede has trekked to festivals in Morocco and South Africa and has been to Burning Man -- a behemoth weeklong arts carnival in the Nevada desert that isn't precisely the same but is a kindred spirit.
He's also a computer programmer who used to work for Microsoft. He had a healthy paycheck, stock options and a black Jetta with a sunroof before he gave it all up to travel around the world with a backpack.
Although the trance scene draws people from all backgrounds, it's high-techers like de Goede who make up a surprisingly large number of cyber hippies. Like prisoners on a jailbreak, they're fleeing their beige office walls and grueling work weeks to spend weekends and vacation time in the uninhibited rapture of trance.
"Trance music is electronically created music -- it's a creature of technology -- so the nature of the music lends itself to an audience that embraces technology," says Brian Fan, founder and CEO of Musicfans.com in San Francisco. His Burning Man camp last year included six dot-com CEOs. "It's really struck a chord with a very creative, successful, technologically savvy generation."
High-paying tech jobs certainly make it easier to afford pricey airplane tickets to distant lands. But there's more to it than that.
"These people are dealing with dog-eat-dog business environments," de Goede says. "They like the fact that they can go to these places where it's not about making money or about making a product. It's about being good to people and about people being happy."
The cyber hippies know how to trip. They go to the Boom Festival in Portugal, the Voov Experience in Germany and Earthcore in Australia. On the eve of the year 2000, more than 10,000 tranceheads flocked to a valley outside of Cape Town for a festival called, simply, South Africa 2000.
Not all trance events are so massive or, for that matter, so far away. Last summer, a gathering called the Phoenix Festival drew nearly 1,000 people to a private farm near the Oregon border. It will return this July at a location yet to be determined.
As for the music, the artist names alone conjure images of phantasmagoric cosmic excursions. Infected Mushroom, X-Dream, Total Eclipse, Hux Flux. They play psychedelic trance and Goa trance -- a rolling brew of synth rushes, mind-bending noises and irresistible beats.
And for two, three, four, sometimes 10 days, it thumps and pumps and fills the dance floor (i.e. the nearest flat spot in a field or clearing in a forest) with smiley-faced trancers who stomp and twirl with the stamina of 20 aerobics instructors.
"For a short time, in one place, you are truly free," says Landon Fuller, an 18-year-old from Seattle who trekked to Morocco, Burning Man and the Phoenix Festival.
Fuller is a bona fide computer wunderkind. He dropped out of high school at 16 to work for RealNetworks and is now an Internet systems engineer at InfoSpace Inc. For Fuller and many like him, trance gatherings are about reaching a state of heightened consciousness. He uses the words "catalyst" and "turning point" when he describes the effect these gatherings have had on his life.
"I want to change the world," he says with not a lick of insincerity. "I want to shine bright enough to illuminate the world."
Although he's not entirely sure how to do that yet, he figures trance gatherings are a good place to start. "What we're trying to do is, one person at a time, make things better for the world," he rhapsodizes.
Like their psychedelic forefathers, cyber hippie politics are left-leaning, environment-friendly and peace lovin'. Their message is simple: Be nice to the planet. Be nice to each other. Smile. Hug. Try it. And if you want to use drugs, be careful.
LSD, psychedelic mushrooms and, especially, ecstasy are an accepted but not a required part of these gatherings. And while some people use these substances for no reason other than to feel good, serious trancers argue that drugs are meant to be used as a "means of opening a door," as a way "to think of things you never envisioned before."
"The ultimate goal is not to escape into some alternate reality or to ignore the one that exists by sitting around high all day," Fuller says. "The ultimate goal is to fully explore our entire reality."
The trance scene embraces a neo-pagan ethos and soul-searching mysticism. The gatherings themselves are tribal-themed and reminiscent of ancient native rituals.
With that in mind, the gatherings are usually scheduled to coincide with some natural phenomenon -- a full moon, the summer solstice, the New Year. This year's Solipse gathering is scheduled for June 15 to June 25 in Zambia so that attendees can view a full solar eclipse.
"It's very primal," says Dominick Meissner, a 28-year-old Seattle video game designer who's been to Japan five times for trance gatherings.
Over the past 10 years, the dance music genre has gone from underground novelty to unstoppable juggernaut. But during this meteoric rise in popularity, it has attracted just as many critics as it has followers.
Authorities hear the words "electronic dance music" and envision one thing only: hordes of glassy-eyed kiddies gorged to the gills on pills and crammed into airless warehouses. They don't distinguish between the "rave scene" and the "trance scene."
But there is a difference. Just ask any real trancer -- you'll know them by the way they cringe at the word "rave" and patiently try to explain, as if speaking to a child, that they'd rather jam a glow stick in their ear than dance around in a warehouse crammed full of 14-year-olds.
"It's not a fashion, it's a way of life," Miller says.
Trancers prefer to boogie in wide-open spaces and are typically older (the median age is mid-20s and ranging on up to the 40s). Most have good jobs at "respectable" companies and approach drug consumption with caution and in moderation. While overdoses and LSD freakouts are not unheard of, they are rare.
Trancers may be tuning in and turning on. But they're not dropping out.
Besides, cyber hippies point out, trance traveling is as much about the traveling as it is about the trance.
"A big part for me was just going somewhere I'd never been before," says Laura Newlon, a 21-year-old Seattle student who traveled to Morocco. "It was an adventure, and that's what I was there for."
A key aspect of trance travel is making the effort to go someplace unique, exotic and, perhaps, a bit difficult to reach.
"It's for the people who really want to be there," Miller says. "I remember doing a party in India on a plateau that people had to walk six hours through the jungle to get to."
The first Solipse, thrown in Hungary, took place less than two hours driving distance from the war in Yugoslavia. This summer, the gathering in Zambia will be none too far from bloodshed (in Zimbabwe to the south), violent civil unrest (in the Democratic Republic of Congo to the north) and ongoing military action (in Angola to the west).
The skittish U.S. government warns its citizenry that, even in Zambia, "crime is widespread" and "armed carjackings, muggings and petty theft are commonplace."
Miller says he and his fellow Solipse organizers will do everything they can to ensure everyone's safety. But, "If you're looking for total security, you may as well stay home and sit in your apartment."
Difficulties and dangers aside, trance festivals are an unparalleled opportunity to mingle with people from faraway places.
"I've got Japanese friends, Danish friends and Swedish friends. I'm meeting people who come from Russia and Poland," says Peter Russell, a photographer from Cape Town who has traveled to Portugal and Morocco and intends to go to Zambia. "Who knows when I'll see them again, but you realize it's a small world."
These festivals also tend to result in the unlikeliest of cultural exchanges. Miller says the Zambians have been very receptive to the Solipse festival -- the country's first-ever trance gathering. But it hasn't been easy explaining to them exactly what a trance gathering is. "You might as well be explaining to a blind man what a flower looks like," he says.
On the other hand, the residents of Goa, India, and certain beach communities of Thailand are very familiar with ravers, trancers and a constant barrage of bohemian backpackers who come to their countries to cut loose. Some are rankled by what they consider decadent "drug parties" and by the environmental destruction sometimes left behind.
In Morocco the residents are friendly, if a bit reserved. It helps that one of the festival organizers -- Amin Lahlou -- is Moroccan and planned the gathering as a way to show off his country. Still, the locals stare openly at the trancers who meander through their town before heading to the festival 15 miles away. In this primarily Muslim country, they're used to seeing women covered in robes from head to toe rather than sporting nose rings, purple hair and tank tops.
"I have never seen anything like it with my own eyes," says Hicham Mahraoui, a Moroccan who attended the festival.
Mahraoui says the music is "very good," but he doesn't like the drug consumption. "That is bad for Moroccan. When he sees that, he will need to do the same."
As the police officer promises, they have no trouble handling drugs. Judging by the hippie smoking hash in open view, the police simply ignore the presence of illicit substances.
The fact is, Moroccan officials want these invaders to have a good time. These people, however funky and weird, come from rich countries with money to spend. And that money is good for the Moroccan people.
The police officer says he hopes le grand festival becomes an annual event. Abdula Laamirni works in a shop selling Moroccan goods and agrees. "They come in here, they buy many things. Is good for business."
P-I reporter Winda Benedetti can be reached at 206-448-8223 or windabenedetti@seattle-pi.com
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER REPORTER
And so, on a sunny afternoon in a small town on the edge of a vast desert, Morocco becomes the latest country to meet the Deadheads of the new millennium. 
These massive dance fests, cropping up with increasing frequency around the world, last days on end and feature non-stop trance music -- heavy-beated, hard-driving, intricately layered electronic music. They take place in out-of-the-way natural locales -- a forest in Portugal, a grassy field in Zambia, a mountaintop in Japan. 
Camels carry travelers into the desert one afternoon on the start of a three-day trek.
Laura Newlon / Special to Seattle Post-Intelligencer
Click for larger photo
Although this movement embraces a fair bit of the '60s psychedelic counterculture, this ain't your parents' hippie happening. Trance travelers are part of the cutting edge. They're plugged in and cyber-savvy. And they're spreading their message of peace, love and personal freedom with technology that flattens international borders in the click of a mouse. 
Nomadic Berber families, like this one, live in the dunes of the Sahara herding goats and camels. Berbers and their ancestors have long populated Morocco, and are fiercely independent people.
Laura Newlon / Special to Seattle Post-Intelligencer
Click for larger photoHigh-tech meets hippie
"I run into these guys from Microsoft stripped down naked, covered in body paint and running around in the forest," says Josh Daley, a 29-year-old multimedia specialist and an avid trance fan. Daley was one of 18 Seattleites found at the Morocco festival, all but four of whom worked in tech.
The sun rises behind the ruins of an ancient kasbah. This kasbah set the backdrop behind the main dance area of the Morocco 2001 festival.
Laura Newlon / Special to Seattle Post-Intelligencer
Click for larger photo Tripping around the world
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