Democracy of Sound: Free the Music

There is a building on the south side of campus, in between Elm Street Dining Hall and the Vietnam War Memorial, called the Davis Center. It houses the financial aid offices, a small library secondary to the main library, and a dance studio. Many students never even enter the building during their time at Exeter, and it often seems like an ignored and overlooked part of campus. However, this past Friday night, the Davis Center was virtually alive with music, dance and art. Nearly every room in the building had been repurposed and reimagined by the club Democracy of Sound, or DOS, for their Halloween event, Dia de DOS Muertos.

Senior Emily Lemmerman defined the Democracy of Sound, of which she is a co-head, as "a club that seeks to broaden creative horizons on campus, particularly through music and sound."

Senior Emily Lemmerman defined the Democracy of Sound, of which she is a co-head, as "a club that seeks to broaden creative horizons on campus, particularly through music and sound. More specifically this tends to be challenging what is considered to be music, or combining music with other art forms, or creating experiences of music beyond what people listen to in their own free time."

The club’s other co-head, senior Scott Hermenau, said that the club is "dedicated to looking at sounds from angles alternate to the typical. Separate from most people's day to day experience with sound."

The Dia de DOS Muertos event was partly Halloween-themed, deriving its name from the Spanish Halloween celebration, "Dia de los Muertos," or "Day of the Dead." Hermenau defined the event as "an experimental event, a halloween haunt, a masquerade, a collection of sounds, and a place to be played." He added that they chose the Davis Center as the location for the event because "it is a somewhat forgotten building and we wanted to repurpose it."

More specifically, the event was, as Lemmerman put it, a "walk-through museum/haunted house," where the exhibits included ballroom dancers dancing to electronic music DJ-ed in real time, modern dancers dancing to music controlled by an iPad which could be used by anyone walking by, and various other spooks around every turn.

Senior Hannah Fuller, one of the modern dancers involved in the event, said that it was "really just about making people rethink what ‘art’ really is and how we define it in our society."

Upper Chad Lynn stated that "at first when I got in there it didn't make much sense to me, I saw odd exhibitions of dancing and a person (who I believe was Senior Josh Martinez singing to some barely audible music." He added that "It was all very cool and had a nice sort of American Horror Story-esque creepiness to it," but he said that he wasn’t on the whole too interested in the event, until he made his way to the underground kitchen of the Davis Center and found himself at probably one of the most memorable parts of a very memorable event.

Upper Sean Taylor was "stationed in the kitchen with Issay Matsumoto [‘17], and our duty was to play loud rock music for the entire event. He had his electric guitar turned up to 11, I had my drumset and a makeshift microphone (megaphone duct taped to a cymbal stand). It produced a very raw, overpowering sound, and it was great. We played our hearts out for an hour and a half."

The Democracy of Sound is one of the most interesting and unique clubs on campus, because of their devotion to pushing boundaries and creating spectacles that are outside of the realm of what Exonians normally experience in their daily lives.

Fuller agreed that "campus events like this one are vital to keeping things interesting and also intellectually stimulating on campus on the weekends. Often, we all just sit and watch things or go to dances on Fridays and Saturdays, but events like this one inspire people to think, even if they are a little strange, and I think that is more reflective of what the campus is and wants to be."

She added that "more students should be willing to take a risk and go to an intriguing event, rather than stay in their dorm rooms or grill!"