Intersessions: A workshop for DJs outside the boys' club
When Chhavi Nanda tries to explain what it's like to be a female DJ, she reaches far back into her childhood.
"When you're young and you're in a classroom and the teacher can't work the computer, she'll look at a guy to help her. She won't look at a girl. It's always been like that."
Now 24, the Vancouver-based artist known as Chippy Nonstop says the same mentality applies to women who do more technical work like DJing.
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"When I walk into the club, the sound engineer is always a dude, you know? It's never a girl engineer. So they look at you like, 'Oh, do you even know how to plug any of this in?' and they would never ask a guy that," Chippy said.
"I know they're already doubting me before I walk in. It's always a boys' club."
After several years of being dismissed at shows as "someone's girlfriend," Chippy and fellow artist Rhiannon Blossom decided it was time to create a space where women could learn to DJ without the judgment of not being one of the boys.
After workshops in Vancouver and Toronto, Intersessions landed in a warehouse on a sunny Sunday afternoon in a part of Montreal's Rosemont neighbourhood known as Mile-Ex.
The scene was one unfamiliar to the average DJ workshop — a group of 40 people, mostly women, learning everything from beat-matching to tips on how to see the knobs on a DJ controller in a dark venue.
"Everyone can actually touch the machine and like, push buttons, make mistakes, which is the way I learned basically," said Frankie Teardrop.
Like many of the participants at the Montreal-edition of Intersessions, Frankie was especially on-board to take a part in an event that bills itself as a DJ workshop, not just for women, but more broadly for female-identifying and non-binary individuals.
A safe space allows you to be curious without shutting yourself.- Shaya Ishaq, participant at the Intersessions DJ workshop
"It can really be hard and frustrating DJing at mainstream clubs where I feel no one really understands my identity or they don't respect me," Frankie, who identifies as non-binary or "anything femme," said.
For Chippy, opening the event to all female-identifying individuals was less about alienating men and more about making the workshop as nurturing as possible to a group of people whose genders are often shrugged off as a millennial identity crisis.
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"A lot of the times, women and trans and gay people feel uncomfortable around men that are kind of trying to take over the situation," she said, adding that the event was open to "anyone with a positive energy."
As one participant said, the insistence on making the event a safe space "means the world" to many people.
"A safe space allows you to be curious without shutting yourself, like asking questions and not feeling like it's a stupid question, 'cause everybody else is in the same boat," said Shaya Ishaq, a student in Ottawa who made the trip to Montreal just to attend the workshop.
Vieve DeBuys shared the same feeling of being "in the same boat," having spent the night sharpening her DJ skills with Frankie Teardrop.
"I have an affinity with her," DeBuys said, "because Frankie is queer and I'm a lesbian."
By the time evening set on the workshop, participants and teachers alike left with the hope that the future of a more inclusive DJ scene is on the horizon.
"Tonight, the teachers, there's queer, there's brown people, there's everybody — that's nice," said Aïsha Vertus, also known as DJ Gayance.
For Vertus, accepting DJs of all identities will allow the art form to get back to what's most important.
"In the end, we just want the same thing: we want good music and good vibes. That's it."
