It was nearly a year ago when I first heard of Ceremony. I was looking for rejuvenation—something to cleanse my palate of the ironic ’90s nights and top 40 dance parties I had already experienced too many times. I cut my teeth in those places and learned how to party with the big kids.
Electric Ballroom and Mod Night were the first ones to inject gin and tonic into my veins and fill my boots with bass. I slowly picked up on murmurs from friends entrenched in Ottawa’s party grapevine, of a jail-cum-hostel that hosted a house night dedicated to delivering good dance. Once a month the hostel became impregnated with smoke, laser beams, and dirty kids with dirtier dreams.
Ceremony has become sacred for the godless 20-somethings of Ottawa. Ceremony has become our safe space to congregate once a month and enter into a mutual pact of simultaneous de- and re-toxification.
Our hips confess our sins, while trying some new ones on for size. The new high priests of Gen Y (the unholy trinity of DJs Gary Franks, Adam Saikaley, and Eric Roberts) lead the sonic sermon, serving up the best house music heard this side of Hull.
We dance it all out while taking it all in, letting the waves of endorphins carry us through until they crash and recede. They wash us up right where we started—the last Saturday of the month. It doesn’t matter which, because if Ceremony is anything, it’s consistent.
The most charming aspect of Ceremony is the culture of reverence it has created for itself in its impressive two-year existence. There is a palatable quasi-religiosity in the way the sanctified (regulars by any other name) approach Ceremony.
This begins with the perfect outfit: our version of Sunday Best emerges Saturday night. While there is no dress code, Ceremony inspires sartorial greatness.
In the year I’ve been attending fashion highlights include marching band jackets, overalls paired with leather, paisley shirts straight from your dad’s closet, holographic purses, barely-there body suits worn with mirror encrusted Doc Martens, ‘DIE HIPPIE SCUM’ tie-dye tops, goth-lace jumpers and everything (truly, everything) that resides in the middle of that style orgy.
After arriving, transcending, gyrating, and screaming, we reconvene at someone’s house for our after hours, post-service parish. At half-remembered but never forgotten 3 a.m.’s, we smoke and wait for the resurrection. When dawn spills forth we go back to our regular lives.
The two-year anniversary of Ceremony saw a large crowd of beautiful people dancing to the best music while having the best time. I began the night nostalgically, wearing a stained glass printed dress. It was the very one I wore to my first Ceremony.
This time though, my perfect outfit turned out to be someone else’s. Halfway through I switched clothes with a male friend. I shed my spandex for his denim on denim and a tits-out t-shirt.
Mugshots, the aforementioned jail hostel where the event is usually held, allowed the music to go on until 3 a.m. The late night beats are a much-appreciated rarity in Ottawa. Wall projections married the always present laser and fog combo to form a ménage a trois of visual stimuli, balanced out with the expertly mixed beats. It was a sweltering, sweaty, euphorically damn good time, as per usual.
Above all, Ceremony is about love.
The people who throw it do so because they love Ottawa, its people, its scene and its potential. Their dedication is in and of itself a kind of love, one so infectious that it transfers to us, its attendees, who can’t help but fall amorously into its arms as well.
