Since 2006, UNESCO has been promoting a global project involving 143 countries that aims to highlight practices and expressions inherited from the past, such as oral traditions, performing arts, social uses, rituals, festive events, knowledge and practices about nature and the universe, and also knowledge and techniques linked to the most traditional crafts. In Europe, this exclusive distinction is enjoyed by everything from the Mediterranean diet, the falconryhe blown glass wave Shrimp fishing on horseback in Oostduinkerke (Belgium) until the Cypriot poetic improvisation or the mystery of Elche (Alicante). The latest manifestation to join this list is Berlin techno. The announcement makes dance music an official cultural phenomenon. The torrent of headlines and reactions has not been long in coming, but in Berlin it seems to be experienced in a different way. “Here everything remains the same,” says Carolina Velasco, a Spanish cultural journalist who lives in the German capital. Velasco, who is very in touch with the daily life of the capital in terms of art, explains how the designation has coincided with other milestones: the legalisation of marijuana, a movement to prevent the eviction of Tuntenhaus, a squatted house on Kastanienallee (the coolest and most gentrified avenue in the city) considered one of the last bastions of alternative queer culture in the city, the raves that spring up every weekend or the demonstrations in support of Palestine. “Within all this,” says the journalist, “techno is a little thing that is not going to change our lives either.”
Carolina Velasco also provides several keys: this candidacy for intangible cultural heritage of humanity was promoted by a local association called Rave The Planetwhich organised the massive Berlin Love Parade between 1989 and 2003 and which, since 2022, has been responsible for the Rave The Planet Parade, an electronic music parade-party that crosses the city and attracts 300,000 people. “Last year they almost cancelled it because it didn’t have enough medical points. Now it’s easier for them to get help, for example.” All this, he recalls, in a city where there have been no restrictive changes to nightlife: there are clubs that open 48 hours a day, and you can drink in the street.
The Club Commission, which looks after the interests of Berlin’s electronic clubs and receives public funding, was also quick to consider the UNESCO award as “an important recognition”, says the Spaniard. The Club Commission was also the first to mention Detroit (USA), the birthplace of techno. “The general criticism is that recognition has been given to Berlin when nothing has been invented here; it was the DJs from Detroit who brought the sound to a city with facilities for organising parties.”
Unlike other UNESCO-recognised locations, life in Berlin does not seem to be changing much because of this award: “I think it is impossible for the Berlin techno scene to become more tourist-oriented, I don’t think this will bring more people,” he says, pointing out that, for some time now, large clubs in the city such as Tresor have been predominantly tourist territory. The rise in prices following the pandemic has further contributed to local audiences looking for alternatives. Small venues that host DJs who do not have a place in large clubs or Latin, reggaeton or queer parties seem to maintain the cultural effervescence in the German capital’s nightlife. And, Velasco recalls, “Berlin is a city that is always changing.”
