Attend a silent disco

“We each grab a headset and put it on. Music immediately fills my ears—too loud. I search for the volume knob, and a simple lyric moves through my skull: Breathe in, breathe out, everything that makes you worry, just forget about. . . . We begin to dance. It’s impossible not to. The other woman with the dog begins prancing along the path, her head tilted toward the sky, and I turn in an awkward little circle. Passersby look at us curiously as we begin to form a dance floor on this lush grass, in this golden hour. [...] We glance at one another as we move, smiling shyly at first, then widely, connected by the music. It’s somehow different than being in a club or at a concert with speakers blaring at us; the songs enter each person’s body, both private and communal at once.”

“For instance, at UCR’s silent disco there were three stations: Latin music, 2000s-2010s pop throwbacks, and EDM type mashups. Headphone lights changed color depending on what station each person was listening to. Some songs had dances associated with them such as the “Cha Cha Slide”, so even though you cannot hear other people’s music, you are listening to the same song simultaneously. Also, many songs were childhood favorites that everyone still knew the lyrics to and sang together. Personally, I didn’t feel like headphones limited the fun and in-person interaction.”

“Over the weekend, I stumbled upon my first ever Silent Disco, a unique party wherein participants can only hear music by donning wireless headsets. In other words, it’s the most antisocial conceit of all time. The headsets offer users three channels to listen to, each one corresponding to a glowing color (red, green, and blue), which means that at any given moment, people are dancing to entirely different music. In some ways that’s kind of cool, but at the same time, isn’t the fun of the dance floor that the masses are united in one throbbing, rhythmic, sensory experience?”