Orphic on building community: better not bigger
Ferdgie (left) en Frans (right). Picture Hedon Sonance / Annelies Kietselaer
Orphic started throwing parties in Amsterdam just two years ago, but very soon evolved into community-based events and a platform for up-and-coming DJ’s. They also started making podcasts and livestreams and there are plans for hosting stages at festivals. We sat down with founders Ferdgie and Frans to talk about what inspires their values of community and inclusivity and how it all started in the first place.
On a Wednesday night, just after clubs reopened in the Netherlands, Frans lets me into the ACTA building in Amsterdam’s Slotervaart district. In the brutalist building countless dentists have been trained, in its former capacity as a part of the University of Amsterdam. Now it houses club Radion, student housing and some studios for artists. One of them is Orphic headquarters, a cosy space with some old couches and closets reminding me of a student association. A door gives access to a soundproof room where a DJ set is set up for aspiring DJ’s lacking professional equipment. After Ferdgie goes through some trouble to fix me a coffee, we sit down at a table for the interview.
Could you explain the basic concept of Orphic?
“After we did two very spontaneous raves together as Orphic, we wanted to become more professional and started thinking about what we really wanted to do with it. It’s very important to us that all kinds of people feel welcome at our events and feel safe and free to express themselves on the dancefloor. We also felt there were little to no events focusing on Dutch talent. A lot of events fly in the same household names over and over. We don’t want to go big necessarily, we want to help grow a scene with new surprising DJs”.
“The next step was our DJ nights. These are social gatherings of DJs where they can exchange knowledge about skills and hardware and expand their networks, for instance. They also give feedback on each other’s music, when they’re producing as well. It’s so much easier for them to grow when they’re not just on their own”.
“Besides the DJ nights we started organising days where DJs can get good press pictures taken. And we make podcasts of sets by our residents and other people we like. There’s also an international series of podcasts, Orphic breaks ground. But like I said, the main focus is on the Netherlands”.
Frans. Picture Hedon Sonance / Annelies Kietselaer
How do you select DJs for your community?
“Every DJ is welcome to be part of our community. For the events we select artists that fit our sound. We love groovy, sexy techno, not the industrial ‘pots and pans’ type. In our musical direction we are supported by our residents: Thoms Traxx, Jaipa, Tromp and Lobster. They suggest DJs we should approach. It’s just as important for us to like the people themselves. Orphic tends to draw people that match with our values and the music we already promote.”
Tell me more about your values!
“We want our events to be as inclusive as possible. Everybody should feel welcome to attend, not just the average person. And more importantly, everyone should feel free to behave and dress like they want. We want to be a safer space.”
How do you do this practically?
“We talk about it at every step we take. It’s very easy to ask people that are like us, so we consciously make sure all kinds of people are represented among DJs, staff, everybody involved really. We take the same approach to organisations we work with, they should share our values and act on them. For instance, when we organise an event we speak at length with the people working in security and with the bar staff. We make clear there’ll probably be some feminine guys around or women wearing very few clothes. We don’t want them to be surprised and stare, but to just act casual and be protective. This is also of great importance because we aim to change the location of our events regularly”.
“In addition, we communicate our values on our social media. We do this by paying attention to events as diverse as Pride, Black Lives Matter or Eid-al-Fitr. But we also discussed pollution by festival organisations. We talk about what concerns people in our community. That way, people who don’t recognise themselves in these topics probably won’t show up at events. We always say ‘everybody’s welcome, but not everyone should come’.”
“On the other hand, we noticed many times that people with no experience with events this diverse and free, tell us at the end of the night how wonderfully free they felt themselves. That’s what we’re here for as well!”
Ferdgie (left) and Frans (right). Picture Hedon Sonance / Annelies Kietselaer
Do you have a door policy?
“No, because we don’t want to exclude anyone at face value. Everybody should be able to get in when they respect our values and our guests”.
How was the first event? Did you have this inclusive approach then already?
“Oh yes, but at that time, we didn’t give it as much thought as we do nowadays. The open atmosphere just came natural because of the people that were present. People we knew, and people they knew. The first one, Orphic #001, was 700 people strong, we would have been happy with 200! It was at De Nieuwe Meer, we just claimed a little island on that lake accessible by a bridge”.
How did Orphic start?
“We started as a group of three people, with Sharon Ursem, who also came up with the name Orphic. The three of us know each other through de Fik, an organisation supporting illegal raves around Amsterdam with equipment and knowhow. Sharon was friends with both of us before we knew each other”.
“We realised we complement each other. I come with an idea, a creative spark, and Frans sets things in motion to make it into a reality”, Ferdgie says. Frans: “I had to get used to working together though, I did some raves on my own and wanted it to stay like that at first”.
I’d like to know more about your inspiration for Orphic. Frans, what did you do before that made you want to be part of Orphic eventually?
“I grew up in Apeldoorn, a provincial town in the east of the Netherlands. I didn’t know why at the time, but I always wanted to go to Amsterdam. So I went to study there, and noticed that I felt at home in all kinds of jobs in bars and restaurants. When I was twenty years old, I went to my first big dance festival, Welcome to the Future. I was very impressed, people were so happy there, that’s what I wanted to do. So I started organising events, first Super Duper Disco in a small room of Chicago Social Club. Later on I organised events such as Mi Casa Su Casa with someone else, at Ruigoord. Big events with a lot of decoration, we even did a pillow fight one day. But it didn’t click with the people involved. So I kept searching for good people to do the things I wanted to do. I started volunteering at de Fik and from there started doing raves on my own. These gatherings represented the total freedom I wanted to give people. I’m very happy I can do this together with Ferdgie now at Orphic, sharing these same values. And I also enjoy my current job at club Marktkantine”.
Ferdgie. Picture Hedon Sonance / Annelies Kietselaer
And Ferdgie? What’s your story?
“I always was interested in events and festivals, first house events, later techno. It was the time when club Trouw started, and later de School. It felt like a scene, a group of people that went to these things in which I could feel free. I’m not an eccentric guy myself, a bit introverted even, but when I’m surrounded by people dressing up (or down) how they please, I too get the feeling I can do anything, even if it’s just in my head. I really think I grew as a person because of these experiences. In the past, I would have thought it was strange to expose yourself like that as part of my own discomfort, but now I think it’s beautiful. We both are very aware that we want to preserve an atmosphere in which anything is possible and people feel safe. We also cater to an audience that can’t be comfortable just anywhere. So we don’t work with just any organisation or go with every trend, because then our events would just become a representation of dominant culture. And a large part of our community wouldn't feel safe anymore. Because current society doesn't deliver that kind of safety”.
Where do you two want to go next with Orphic? What’s your dream?
“We want to become better, not bigger: better at expressing our values, better quality in every aspect, not just the music. Our aim is to improve our name, which is symbolic for our values and the intimate nature of our events. We also want to keep going as a platform for talent. Other organisers should feel that whenever a DJ is linked to us, it’ll be good. And maybe we’ll do events in other countries, in places where you don’t expect a techno event”.
As always, we ask our guests to name three tracks that are important to them.
Hiroaki Iizuka – Drum Unit
Ferdgie: “This track reminds me of some people that taught me a lot about quality in music, amongst other things. I talk to them about the scene and events, sometimes even before I discuss them with Frans”.
Tromp – Blazing Sun (unreleased)
Frans: “A track by one of our residents, also a good friend who’s been with us from the beginning. I really feel we grew together”.
“A very talented Dutch producer who deserves more time in the spotlight!”.
Text André Kamphuis