Words: Artur Wojtczak
Poland’s techno scene is alive and kicking since the late 80’s. And especially nowadays the techno sound is booming: in the clubs like Smolna in Warsaw, Prozak 2.0 in Cracow or Sfinks700 in Sopot the crowd goes wild while the biggest world DJ’s. And Polish producers and DJ’s release their records in the labels worldwide – everyone knows Catz ‘N Dogz / 3 Channels, Jacek Sienkiewicz, Blazej Malinowski, Michal Wolski or Kuba Sojka. Poland is also famous for big festivals like Unsound or Audioriver.
But you are into the big raves and wish to experience the real old-skool flavour of true techno sounds, come to Warsaw and get some education at Instytut. Yes, Warsaw’s Energy Institute turns twice a year into a huge rave-arena – at an amazing and definitely unique party-location.
The history of techno in the Institute dates back to 2000: Iwona Korzybska, Joanna Wielkopolan and Gerhard Derksen – promoters from the agency Groove Control were highly inspired by the latest Awakenings-Festival edition. They just asked theirselves: “Why cannot we throw such a big rave in Warsaw?”
Untill that moment they were an important part of Warsaw’s house and techno movement that started and developed in the early 90s in the clubs like Blue Velvet, Trend, Adria and several secret locations. Organizing house-parties in Warsaw’s palaces from the 18th century wasn’t just enough.
So, finally they discovered and fell in love with a brutalistic building with an area of 2000 m2 and thought: “Oh my God, This is IT!”
Then started the negotiations with the scientists and the director of the centre to allow using this area for mad Polish raves. First they had to introduce the futuristic, computerized music to the scientists ( most of them were over 50-60 years old). 2 crazy girls with funky outfit, red hair and dreadlocks showed some love and passion to music to the academic staff. Support and friendly attitude of the faculty from the very beginning was certainly a big advantage ( Your music is an important part of the culture and so is our science, so let’s try this!)
Instytut Energetyki has a rich history of scientific research that dates back 50 years, when the resolution of the Council of Ministers commissioned research into energy transmission and its active involvement continues today.
This location is so unique, not only because it is the only one of three such Research Centers in Europe, but also because two times a year ( starting in 2000 ) this Research Facility becomes the central hub of techno music. This thanks to the legendary series of events which in its history have hosted such club-heroes like Luke Slater, The Advent, Len Faki , Richie Hawtin and Jeff Mills.
In 2015 –after some years of break – Instytut raves came back to the dancefloor ( after a a very positive pressure from the audience to bring them back ).
And on 30th of September 2017 we celebrated the newest edition of the party introducing the masters of the genre: Sam Paganini , Johannes Heil, Headless Horseman, Alan Fitzpatrick, who performed to provide an extraordinary soundtrack to the legend that Instytut is.
It’s a fact that the DJ’s who used to play at Instytut, spread the good word on and on and create the legend of the place worldwide. Great hospitality and love shown by the promoters Iwona and Joanna make this rave so special: the girls keep the scene real being so authentic in their actions.
Instytut’s partygoers are a loyal audience: many ravers from the crowd were new ( attracted by its exciting history), but many participated in all previous parties and started this adventure 16 years ago. So, Instytut is just connecting the generations. No ageism, no stress, pure music and love in the air.
Yes, you might have been raving worldwide, but Instytut has its own identity. Jeff Mills claimed that Techno wasn’t designed to be dance music, it was designed to be a futurist statement – here in Warsaw the music and architecture ARE the future. Sam Paganini and Johannes Heil were absolutely impressed by the amazing soundsystem and rocked the crowd from the first minutes starting a real techno-marathon.
Instytut-party showed and proved its incredible potential of the place again: this huge success let us hope for the new Spring-edition in the middle of May to be even more spectacular.
And – here ist the fresh news: on 22-23.06.2018 there is a big techno Instytut-Festival starting : please save the date and the place: huge fortress Modlin near Warsaw ( there is an airport for cheap airlines in there, so lots of techno tourists from around the world are expected!)
We keep our fingers crossed, long live the INSTYTUT! See you there next year!