Most people when they meet their favourite DJ just go home and tell their friends about it. They don’t decide to start their own festival. But that’s exactly what Italians Maurizio “Juni” Vitale and Luigi “Gigi” Mazzoleni did in their home city of Turin in 2006. And, for the last two summers, under the ‘Movement’ banner, they’ve brought that spirit to Ibiza, entertaining a growing number of discerning clubbers with a series of Saturday showcases at DC10. The final party of this year’s five-week season is on Saturday 30 August and it is absolutely no coincidence that the night will be closed by Detroit techno legend Derrick May. (Can you believe that people have been dancing to his seminal “Strings of Life” since 1987? That’s 27 years.)
The story of the Movement Festival in Turin begins with an encounter with Derrick May in Madrid. “I remember Gigi coming back and saying he’d just met the best DJ on the planet,” says Juni. After that he went to the States to the Movement festival hosted by May in his native Detroit, the birthplace of techno. Juni continues, “Gigi came back this time and said, ‘This is the festival we’ve always dreamed about’.” That’s when the two guys decided to start their own festival, even though their combined experience of music promotion was limited to running just two parties. Even more problematic was the failure in Italy to recognise live music as an industry rather than a hobby, which continues to make banking and finance for events extremely difficult. Despite the challenges, Turin had one massive thing going for it. As host of the 2006 Winter Olympic Games it had created plenty of high-quality venues ideal for music. Also, as Juni, says, “Turin is Italy’s capital of electronic music.” Both he and Gigi are fiercely patriotic about their home city pointing out its importance as the centre of Italy’s car industry as home of Fiat, as a place of culture, of creativity and the location of the beginning of the Italian film industry. “That was at Lumix Studios. We also had a party there,” says Junio. The two see the quality of venues, sound, logistics and general professionalism as vital parts of the success of the Movement Festival in Italy.
They’ve developed a close friendship with Derrick May who has helped run the massive annual “Movement, Detroit’s Electronic Music Festival” since its inception in 2000. With their partners in Detroit, Gigi and Juni hope to turn Movement into a global brand. That ambition took another step with the launch of series of showcases in Ibiza last summer. Actually, the two guys have been working with DC10 since it first took Circo Loco to Turin four years ago. “We thought DC10 is one of the best clubs in the world and definitely the best here in Ibiza,” says Gigi. “We decided to do a party that would offer a completely different musical experience from what you find in other clubs.” The result has been a series of exclusive weekly one-off showcases running every Saturday in DC10 through August. The first, for instance, which Gigi says had never happened before, was “Better Lost Than Stupid” which brought together Martin Buttrich, Davide Squillace and Matthias Tanzmann. Then Innervisions brought its “Lost in A Moment” to the island for the first time. The following week belonged to France in the form of Apollonia, otherwise known as Dan Ghenacia, Dyed Soundorom and Shonky. The fourth week was Art Department’s Social Experiment with Eric Volta, Louie Fresco, Nitin and Dennis Ferrer. The closing party is on Saturday with Derrick May’s Hi-Tek Soul, Turin’s Lollino and Joe Claussel playing DC10 for the first time. As Juni and Gigi run through this list their love of music is clear and shows why they both gave up well-paid managerial jobs to pursue their passion. Their aim is to keep expanding. The festival in Turin started with just 3,000 people, but has doubled annually. Last year they put on four showcases at DC10, this August it was up to five and next summer they want to expand into July and September. “We’ll continue to grow step by step, but always with the same exclusive approach,” says Gigi. “As a music lover if you want to hear something different in Ibiza you have to come to DC10 on a Saturday.”
Movement’s 2014 closing party is at DC10 on Saturday August 30 from midnight with Derrick May, Joe Claussel and Lollino.
