The dance floor at Mortimer’s Bar in Minneapolis feels like a sauna on Pride weekend. Dani (aka Starthirl) is mixing hard-groove techno behind the decks on stage. The packed crowd of energetic dancers shuffles to the pounding kick drums. Bodies slick with sweat slide past one another toward the patio for fresh air and a smoke break. Metallic streamers dangle overhead. Joey (aka TECHNODOLL) jumps behind the decks next to turn the bass up even harder.
Hosting the party is Body High, the DJ collective that plays a Mortimer’s residency every third Sunday of the month from 10 p.m–2 a.m. If you frequent DIY events around the Twin Cities, it’s hard to miss Body High members: On a cold night in March, Joey welcomes people to a dark, industrial show at Gateway; Dani, Jamila, and Emma (aka Girl Blunt) jam under a bridge in St. Paul as autumn leaves fall; Emma curates the Synastry dance party, formerly at VFW, now at the Terminal Bar.
The four DJs played their first show together last August. Emma and another DJ at Synastry wanted to book a gig at Mort’s, and by the time the venue gave them a date, that DJ had left the country. Emma looked around her circle to find a line-up: Joey was her hair stylist, she met Jamila through friends, and Jamila recommended Dani, who had just released their first mix.
“It didn't start as a collective or a residency,” Emma says. “This was gonna be a one-off show, giving newer DJs—newer femme, queer, non-binary DJs—a chance to create a dance floor, and it was such a success and natural connection and synergy between. We got the residency offer and we said ‘Yes,’ and then one day we realized, ‘Are we a collective?' It just clicked.”
Jamila explains that the first few Body High shows felt like an afterparty to Communion, the weekly Sunday evening party at Cabooze produced by Intellephunk organizers during the summer. The event ends at 10 p.m., so the pitch sounded like, “Hey, if you guys still want to hang out and dance… come to Body High.”
A party that starts at 10 p.m. on a Sunday night can sound like a hard sell. But the DJs, like many others who go to the shows, have service industry jobs, so Sunday night can feel like what 9-to-5 people call the “weekend.” (Writer’s note: This 9-to-5 worker has left Body High at the modest hour of midnight.)
When we log on for a Zoom call a few weeks after the Pride party, Joey and Emma have come off a B2B at Mortimer’s the previous night. “[We] played one of the most fun back to back sets we played before,” Joey says. “Emma went a lot harder than she normally does, and then I brought a lot of the freaky electro stuff that she normally brings.” Jamila has been busy mentally preparing for her debut at the Great Beyond festival the upcoming weekend.
There’s a sense of platonic affection when the DJs speak about meeting one another. Joey remembers dancing next to Jamila at a warehouse for hours one night, giving her a candle bracelet, and becoming close months later. She recounts meeting Dani before the first Body High show: “I was rolling a joint in an abandoned building at a rave, and Dani came up to me and was like, ‘I'm Starthirl, we're playing on the same bill together!’” Joey thought, "Oh, Dani's cool as hell.’”
Dani met Jamila at the last Future Classic, an invite-only warehouse party series in Minneapolis. “We were in line for the bathroom together, and we just started yapping,” Dani recalls.
Beyond the interpersonal chemistry, Body High gives the members a place to play around with new music. “It's not like I'm playing a warehouse at three in the morning, and I have to play dark dungeon music—which, love—but I also have a lot of different kinds of music tastes that I get to explore through Body High,” Joey says.
When asked if they felt a gap in the local music scene before they began the collective, Emma responds, “Oh my gosh, yes.” The other three nod in unison. Each has had negative experiences regarding organizers turning a blind eye to concerns at parties. Emma has been partying in the Twin Cities for over a decade and recalls recurring experiences.
“I eventually stopped dressing cute because it was really uncomfortable to go out as a femme… it really was like not a safe world or place to go out in,” she says. “I wanted to wear a skirt and be sexy with my friends. I wanted to kiss another woman, or my friend, or someone on the dance floor and not be objectified.”
After moving away from the Cities for four years, living in Denver, New Orleans, and Mexico City, Emma returned with a new perspective of community-minded partying spaces and hopefulness to bring that energy to Minneapolis. ”It feels good to be able to usher that into a new generation of having a safe party place, having a fun party place, and having a safe space for queer partygoers, fun queer partygoers, BIPOC partygoers,” she says.
Dani started going out around two years ago and recalls their reports of concerning scenarios to security, promoters, and staff resulting in no further action. “What I feel that we do so differently with our [Body High] parties is that we are so adamant and so clear about our conduct of safety and looking out for one another,” they say. “I think that's also the culture of the people that go to our parties.”
Even those who are skeptical about the possibility of truly “safe spaces” appreciate what the collective is doing. ”Something I really love and trust the collective of Body High to do is to do their best in the moment every single time to try to make sure that the people in their spaces feel comfortable,” says Cat Grimm, consistent Body High partygoer and part of the deco team that designs spaces for the parties. “I think it's less about trying to achieve the perfect space where nobody gets hurt, and more so when situations do occur, they just get handled accordingly with care.”
Body High members have also sensed a difference between who is on the dance floors and who is hosting, promoting, and playing on bills in the Cities. “I'm not saying that it didn't exist; I just didn't see anything consistent where there was a party being thrown [with] no men involved,” Jamila says. Though "there are definitely femme people and queer people running shit in Minneapolis,” she says, “in any capacity in techno, electronic music in Minneapolis, the lineup is majority men. I think the scene is getting a lot better now, but majority white men, and the majority [of] the dance floors don't reflect that.”
Julian Green, DJ and former content director for the MPR Black music platform Carbon Sound, sees the collective’s residency as a third space. “Minneapolis has grown a lot in terms of young people, more diverse people feeling comfortable in the electronic music scene,” Green says. “And I think Body High has had a lot to do with that.”
The DJs maintain Body High is far more than who is behind the controllers. It’s the group’s friends who lend gear, set up and tear down, and tape flyers to light poles. “Whether that be deco, that be sound, whether it be bartending, it's all just as important as us DJs,” Emma says. “It's like a family.”
As someone who crafts deco for shows, like mannequins adorned in BDSM attire at the collective’s “After Dark” warehouse rave, Grimm’s hope is for visuals to mold a space into a moment of time that people enjoy together.
Brenna Cull, another deco team member, found community in the music scene. “Doing deco with [Body High] has been super fulfilling,” she says. “Getting to have ideas for how I want to transform a space… spending hours setting up a room and then watching it fill up with people… it's the first space where I felt I've had that kind of involvement and that kind of voice.”
Mannequins in bondage and leopard-print rainbows and boob-adorned promo posters are a few ways the group references the inherent corporeal experience of electronic music.
“As a trans woman, it's my goal to give space to other trans women to be able to be in control of their body and be able to move and experience that healing that you have when you are able to fully be in your body,” Joey says. “It's far and few between that [trans people] get spaces that we can feel comfortable in.”
Party announcements say, “Just bring your body, and we’ll bring the high,” which Emma explains as “the feeling of being on the dance floor and getting this natural high from the music and from the crowd.”
Grimm perceives the residency as more expansive than a one-night event. “What this collective is doing is so much more foundational and intentional building in terms of each of them as artists individually…. [and] in terms of the amount of people who keep coming to their shows,” she says. “They really are building a Body High world.”
When I run into Grimm at Communion on Sunday night, she reaches into her bag and hands me a flyer for Body High’s one year anniversary party the upcoming Friday. “Hope you see you there,” she says with a grin.
Body High One Year Anniversary
When: Friday, August 14, 10 p.m.
Where: TBA
Tickets: $30; find more information here
