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January 27, 2010
Create electricity on the dance floor at Club Energy
Blaine Kyllo
For bchydro.com
One of the most energetic place at BC Hydro's Power Smart Village will be Club Energy, a dance club where all genres of music, for all ages and from all countries, will be played by some of Vancouver's top deejays.
But the big draw here is that, as dancers do their thing, they'll actually power lights in the dance floor.
The floor that's being installed in Club Energy comes from Sustainable Dance Club, a company headquartered in Rotterdam, The Netherlands. It generates its own power by translating the vertical movement of the floor into electricity. If you've ever been to a dance club, you know how much the floor moves when a popular song comes on.
Get Google Map directions to the Power Smart Village
Michel Smit is general manager of Sustainable Dance Club, which is bringing the floor to Canada for the first time. He says that even before a prototype was ready, requests were coming in from around the world. The mobile version of the club has toured to places like Barcelona, Milan, New York and Sweden, and permanent floors have been installed in the Hong Kong Science Park, at the Miami Science Museum and in Sydney's Australian Museum.
Later this year, says Smit, the first permanent floors are going into dance clubs in Madrid and Nice.
Smit says his company's sustainable dance floor is proof that you can have fun and be conservation-minded at the same time.
"The greater the party, the harder you dance, the more energy you produce," he says. "This energy is then used to power the lights in the floor. . . . It brings energy back to human level and shows that you have to work before you get rewarded and that energy is not just always available."
Numerous times each day during the 2010 Winter Games, employees of BC Hydro will showcase their very own choreographed dance routine, the BC Hydro Power Smart Dance.
And while the mobile floor that is being used in Club Energy won't be completely self-sufficient, Smit says that with a large enough floor and enough vigourous dancers, you could build a Sustainable Dance Club in the desert with no external power and still have a party.
Getting people grooving
"If only we had this dance floor at every place we perform," says Vancouver music stylist DJ Leanne , who has played in night clubs and at corporate events, and is coordinating the deejays who will be spinning the tunes at Club Energy.
"Having a full dance floor is the number one goal of a deejay," Leanne explains. "The fact that you get a reward for dancing, by generating electricity, makes it even more exciting."
Leanne is bringing some of Vancouver's top deejays, both female and male, to spin the music at Club Energy, and they'll be playing music that appeals to all ages, from tango, to swing, to disco, to country line stepping.
"The only requirement is that it be something you can dance to," she says.
Stepping out
To encourage participation — and to assist those of us with two left feet who want to get in on the fun — students and professionals from Harbour Dance Centre will be on hand throughout the afternoons.
They'll be teaching some world dance steps, including salsa, swing, hip-hop and two-step, and will be costumed as celebrities so visitors can dance with the stars. Those from Harbour Dance will also be participating in some of the dance competitions, like the Fastest Feet and So You Think You Can Dance.
"The whole point of this," says DJ Leanne, "is to get people on the dance floor."
Opening hours, etc.
Club Energy will be open from noon until 10 p.m. on Fridays and Saturdays, and until 8 p.m. from Sundays to Thursdays.
Deejays will be spinning all types of music for all ages, and dance students and professionals from Harbour Dance will be leading visitors in salsa, swing, hip-hop, and country two-step dances.
Every day at 3 p.m. there will be a So You Think You Can Dance competition. And at 5 p.m. is a Fastest Feet Competition, to see who can generate the most energy by moving their feet.
On Friday and Saturday nights at 8 p.m. local b-girls and b-boys will spark one-on-one breakdance battles on the energy-generating floor.
Throughout the Games, Club Energy will be measuring which country is able to generate the most power by dancing in the BC Power Smart Dance Challenge.
