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music | Crossborder | by Heinrich Deisl | 2004-07
Spin the globe! – discover the world with DJ-ingThere are some who speak about the eastern expansion of the European Union and there are others who are actively engaged in it. The people at Project East! go a step further: getting people to dance together, as a form of applied cultural mediation.The group Project East! (PE!) has been making turntables spin in Central and Eastern Europe since March 2003. Creating networks, helping each other organize events, letting artists from Eastern Europe play in Vienna and, in exchange, moving furious beats to the main PE! destinations of: Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Hungary. This is the all-consuming passion of the 15 members, all of whom are singers, DJs or VJs between the ages of 27 and 35 from Poland, the Czech Republic, Hungary, France and Austria.The initiators of this DJ booking agency, which specializes in East-West exchange, are the two organisers and DJs: Simon 'Simonlebon' Birner and Oskar 'Oscarsix' Malnowicz. Malnowicz and his wife Natasza – a DJ couple from Cracow and Katowice – have the necessary contacts to the club and DJ scene there. This kind of local contact is essential, as Birner says in an interview: "In Cracow we have a regular public of about 250. Since summer 2003PE! has also had a home-base there, alongside Vienna,. DJ culture is faced with an enormous infrastructure problem in Poland: there is not a single popular music shop in Cracow and there are only two in Warsaw. So most DJs are forced to order their sounds on the Internet." Sweating at Hot Parties A booked-out diary – particularly for the eastern partner countries – is a positive indication of the project's success. The concert by the Polish hip-hop Band Kaliber 44 at the Vienna Donauinselfest was one of the highpoints of 2003. PE! is in great demand on the Austrian circuit, and the number of enquiries is increasing fast. In fact they had to stop accepting new members from this country. Everybody wants to play in Eastern Europe. After all, the word is out that the public there is far more open and enjoys dancing more than in Austria. The PE! DJs, Simonlebon and Marcus Neve, know what they are talking about: this pair has already organised over 30 'Eastern European operations'. The most serious shortage is money. Birner: "You have to compromise. We can't pay high fees. The usual fees for a well-known DJ are way too high for us – representing an average yearly salary in Poland." But a shortage of cash has never really held people back when they're ready to wax creative. And so they improvise till the break of dawn for a mini-fee: "A good party isn't a question of money", says Birner. "Even the deputy director of the Polish Cultural Institute in Vienna, Cezary Kruk, danced for more than two hours to the drum’n’bass rhythms at the celebration of our first anniversary in Vienna's WUK last March. That's what I call hands-on cultural mediation work", says DJ Neve enthusiastically. Even the big names in the business now seem enthusiastic about Project East! For a gig in Katowice, Poland (15 May 2004), Project East! received support from none other than Patrick Pulsinger, the heavily-booked DJ export from Austria, operator of the internationally known Austrian label Cheap Records. For the next major project they are planning to finish off the live soundtrack for a Polish underground film and then go on a tour of the cinemas with it. The increased cooperation with film festivals currently planned by Project East! can only be a plus in this context. External links: Project East
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