Feraferia & The Creating a Church-like Experience in Nightlife Culture
No phones on The Dance Floor, Dancing, and the Divine Relationship between Nightlife and Spirituality…
Upon RSVP’ing for Feraferia’s “Don’t Call Him: Hot Girl Summer Party” this summer, attendees were directed to take “The Wild Oath”. In addition to the ticket itself, entry is granted with your word to commit to the experience, including the following:
“I am present. No phones on the dance floor - feel the moment; I move freely. Dance without inhibition - respect the space and each other; I dress to express. Embody confidence, sensuality, and power; I honor the vibe. Come with an open heart and mind - let the music guide you; I connect & explore. Engage, play, and step beyond your comfort zone.”
DJ and Feraferia’s founder, Jess Kardon (DJ JESSDOIT), named her new party series for the Latin word meaning ‘festival of wildness’. “It was inspired by a spiritual goddess movement that originated in California in the 60s,” she explained to me, “which praised the divine feminine and our connection to the planet.” The idea of that sort of festivity - driven by a notably feminine and deeply connected energy resonated with Jess’s own vision for nightlife.
Inspired by other parties/venues like Book Club Radio or House of Yes, the founder spoke of the “oath” mostly as a tool for aligning attendees on a shared intention.
Intention, I would learn through talking to Jess after Feraferia’s summer kick-off, is key; It’s also what’s all too often overlooked in a world obsessed with big names and shiny venues. “It's not just about the DJs. It's not just about the space that you're in,” Jess reminds us, “It's about the vibe that you're trying to set on the dance floor in the space that you're gathering all these people.” And with Feraferia, that vibe is set to the tune of letting go, being expressive, and really, truly dancing.
Dancing on the dancefloor has been a hot topic in party culture lately. Mostly by way of: why nobody seems to be doing it. This feels like a relatively new complaint. The times, as always, are-a-changing, and many people will point to smartphones and social media as part of the problem. Some organizers have started to place boundaries around them. Jess remembers going out in Germany, giving her phone to the venue upon entry, “...it just releases you from ties, whether it's mental or physical, with your phone,” she reminisced, “and fully allows you to engage and play and be present in the moment.”
She’s right– there’s a lot our phone ties us to. Its particular feeling in our hands or weight in our pockets is connected to so much more than the physical thing. So much we resist cutting from, but to do so is almost always so freeing. But it's not only the absence of our own phones that feels lighter about a no-phones dance floor. It’s also the absence of other peoples’ phones. I think about this when I see old footage of people dancing at shows and concerts… so free. When you’re so used to the feeling of capturing and being captured, it’s almost impossible not to also feel perceived.
“This isn’t what music is for- period- but especially house and electronic music. It’s something that your body is so in tune with. There’s such a raw element to it that to not honor that rhythm and not flow with it… It’s like… what are you spending this money on?”
Jess has noticed a similar thing when watching old videos of UK raves- noting even the outfits seem to be chosen for their compatibility with a long night full of dancing. Earlier this summer, Jess actually wrote a Substack article about her frustrations at a show, either unable to dance freely or see the stage. It’s easy to get used to the sight of swarms of people holding phone cameras steadily in the air instead of dancing, but to Jess, it doesn’t sit right.
“This isn't what music is for— period— but especially house and electronic music.” Jess vented, “It's something that your body is so in tune with. There's such a raw element to it that to not honor that rhythm and not flow with it… It's like… what are you spending this money on?”
It’s a good question. What are people spending the money on? Is it just to say we were there? My (be it, perhaps, generous) take: That that isn’t the whole story. Sure, we might like to show it off or immortalize the memory with videos. But I continue to believe that when people show up to shows, they do want everything Jess is talking about. At least part of them does: To be present. To be immersed. To “shake off the rust”. To some extent, we might have just stopped training ourselves to be comfortable doing it (dancing, letting go, being present)... but it’s harder to come by spaces that are truly conducive to all that.
What’s more… we need it. We (humans) have always needed it. The benefits of dancing on human physical and mental health cannot be understated. Recent studies have proven dance as a powerhouse well-being activity, yielding results like strengthened cardiovascular health, increased metabolism, reduced anxiety and depression, improved memory, increased feelings of connection, and several other emotional, physical, social, and spiritual benefits.
Jess knows the potential of dancing, letting loose, and nightlife culture deeply, which makes what she sees and experiences within it all the more frustrating. “I got so tired of getting outraged by all of my experiences going out,” she told me, “I just need to do something.”
After getting laid off from her finance job, that’s what she did. Well– kind of.
She remembers her controllers arriving the day after her layoff, about a month before they were meant to, which of course, “felt like divine timing”. And so she leaned all the way in.
“I spent the entire first half of the year fully plunged into the DJ world.” Determined to immerse herself in DJ-ing, she got the feeling pretty early on that she also wanted to create space out of it. She credits that, in part, to being a Jersey City resident. She noticed crowds of Jersey people commuting to Brooklyn and back in a night for a good party.
That seed was planted as she continued learning to DJ, playing sets in public, some at sunrise on the Jersey waterfront, and posting them to YouTube.
The other thing that stuck out to me about ‘Don’t Call Him’ was how it was intended to center women, without being exclusive to women. It begs the question of how many shows are male-centric just by default. “One thing I do feel is really missing from the music and nightlife industries is just the presence of feminine energy.” Of course, filling that gap is in part about platforming and amplifying the work of womxn DJs, organizers, and artists. But it’s also about the guiding forces of the environment. Where traditional shows are typically set with an almost panopticon-like gathering (characteristic of patriarchal settings) around the single focal point of the DJ, Jess is drawn to environments that are set with care toward details that create the greater party setting (which also means guests care for each other). Maybe rather than this pushy, gotta-get-to-the-front thing, it’s a vibe out, make space, dance together thing.
At Feraferia’s ‘Hot Girl Summer’, for example, the women’s restroom very much leaned into its stereotype as a haven of support and camaraderie on a night out. There were decals on the mirror, and an assortment of body glitter and temporary tattoos by the sink. Jess pointed out that all of those things were very intentional, because an important part of curating an event like this is remembering that “the experience of the night is the whole night– it's not just the hour that the DJ is playing.”
So that’s part of it: the care for the community, the environment, the whole experience. But each of these things, along with the roots of the ‘Feraferia’ name, the “oath,” and its emphasis on the value of dance and expression, had me thinking about something I’ve been hearing buzz around the surface. The (seemingly unlikely, and yet deeply ingrained) relationship between nightlife and spirituality.
The big question here is not, How can nightlife and party culture be considered ‘spiritual’? But rather: How did nightlife and party culture become so removed from contemporary forms of ‘spirituality’?
We know that music and dance have been intertwined in religion and spirituality since the dawn of humanity. But we can also see ancient global spiritual practices like community ritual gathering, mirrored in what we know as the party experience. There is a physical point of communing and a sort of surrendering of our everyday behavior. Think about Pagean fire rituals, Mayan cacao ceremonies, Dionysian dances in ancient Greece — gathering at night, under the dim light of the moon, was a human practice all over the globe for coming together, song and dance, and reaching the divine.
“I want to create events that are very spiritual,” Jess confirmed to me, “I want to create such transformation that it feels like you just went to a Sunday church service.” And maybe, for a significant and growing number of people who don’t identify with (or feel ostracized by) organized religion, holding space like this is becoming increasingly desirable. And probably necessary on some level.
Jess notes that an increasing disconnect from traditional faith, while it can be freeing, also leaves us stranded from the types of communal spaces that most organized religions offer. “You're removed from something bigger than just you and your ego,” she said, “There's just so much solitude.”
Maybe something like a ‘Hot Girl Summer’ party can act as a kind of temple, through which we leave more confident, authentically expressed, and aligned with the season’s intensifying heat. Or as Jess put it: “It's your opportunity to capitalize on the seeds that you've sown, reap the fruits of your labor… to step into that highest version of [yourselves], step into the baddest bitch version.”
This event was inspired by her own energy and the need “to go on a dance floor and shake my ass for hours straight to get rid of the stale energy.” And let’s be clear: when we talk about “shaking ass” in its purest form, we’re actually talking about something ancient and evidently transformative. No joke.
When I say ‘spiritual’, I’m not solely referencing what we think of as new age spirituality (though astrology charts and tarot cards are often welcomed pieces of these sorts of spaces). The spirituality within nightlife can stretch both wider and deeper: toward mind-body connection, somatic healing, and approaching chronic loneliness.
Speaking with Jess and feeling into the shifting landscape, it’s inspiring to watch nightlife spaces and hosts find the depth and importance in the rituals of gathering and dancing. But it’s also on us– the attendees. If you’ve ever shared that frustration, looking around a dancefloor and seeing almost no actual dancing, or find yourself noticing, “everybody wants to be a DJ, but nobody wants to dance…” is it perhaps possible that your own body is yearning to move?
Jess’s final note to us- future Ferferia attendees and devoted followers of the church of the dancefloor- was to be mindful of how we show up, not just to parties, but to life. “Anything can be a transformative, spiritual experience.”
“I don't know how [Feraferia]'s going to look as we evolve, but I know that movement, connection, music- especially house music… [are] such spiritual things. I think it's a way to bring us back to, again, something bigger than us. [It’s like] a Sunday church service to the modern world.”
check out feraferia here.❤️🔥📀