Athenian Vision hosts its second Early Bird Rave at Central Venue
A new art collaboration is bringing a new meaning to the phrase “the early bird gets the worm.”
Athenian Vision, a newly founded organization that aims to provide opportunities for local artists through events and collaborations, will be hosting “Early Bird Rave II,” beginning at 6:30 a.m. Wednesday at Central Venue, 29 E. Carpenter St.
The event will have a variety of DJs, massages, live painting and art, coffee, food and tarot reading.
The organization was founded by Cas “Kashmerik” Galiszewski, a senior studying sculpture and expanded practices, who said he wanted to found something of this sort for a long time but never had the time to until he found other students with the same goals. His idea came from his experience at Bonnaroo Music Festival last year, and he wanted to bring that kind of atmosphere to Athens.
The name was thought of by Caitlyn Rack, a junior studying studio arts and one of the leaders in the organization. Originally, it was the name of a collection of her personal art.
“I love Athens,” Rack said. “I wouldn’t know half the people I know today if it wasn’t for Athens.”
This is the group’s second morning rave. The first took place on top of the Athens City Parking Garage.
Galiszewski had initially heard of morning raves from “Morning Gloryville,” a group based out London that puts on morning raves.
The Athens event was completely sober.
“We want to promote a more balanced, positive, less substance-revolving party entertainment culture,” Galiszewski said. “With us being a music-first organization, we want our events to be about the music. We don’t want people to come and drink and say ‘oh, there’s a DJ too.’ We want our events to be music and art first … creation in general.”
This is something that will continue with future events. While all events might not be dry, Galiszewski said alcohol won’t be the focus of the event.
“For these morning raves, the focus is about getting away from drugs and alcohol,” Rack said. “We want to give EDM a solid community. There is a really negative connotation to raves. We can be creative, we can throw a party, but it can be productive, make people feel good and be a positive effect on the community.”
The organization is working on putting together a variety of events that may be a little different than most.
An idea that Galiszewski is considering for the future is a silent disco — where attendees will wear special headphones that they can turn to different channels to hear the music of up to three live DJs but no sound will be played out loud. He sees this as a possible alternative to some of Athens big street festivals or Number Fest.
“You could do it anywhere — like on College Green, or in a building,” he said.
He also hopes to build the organization to feature a record label and be able to compensate those involved with the group.
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