We recently connected with Katiedid and have shared our conversation below.

Katiedid, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Can you talk to us about how you learned to do what you do?

I started from a very simple place – just loving music and making lots and lots of playlists. In 2009, a friend of mine back home in Boston asked if I’d put together a playlist for an ecstatic dance she was holding while I was in town and I got a taste of how the music in those spaces can be such a powerful catalyst for emotional expression.

I got involved with Ecstatic Dance Dallas (now Dallas Movement Collective) in 2011, and trained with Toni Bergins of JourneyDance in 2012, and that’s where my journey as a DJ truly began. Back in those days, it was super simple: an iTunes or Spotify playlist with the crossfade jacked way up. This is really where I learned how to select good songs for movement, but I eventually grew frustrated with the clunky transitions between songs and sought out ways to improve.

The next step for me was getting my hands on some audio editing software, where I began laying out the tracks to create smoother transitions. This scratched the itch for a while, but I was curious to learn live mixing. I got my hands on an old Vestax DJ controller and began to teach myself the basics. This phase was full of trial and error, sitting at my dining room table creating train wreck transition after train wreck transition. I made a lot of mistakes in this incubation phase, and it taught me a lot about how to recover when things go off the rails.

After about a year or so of playing on my own at home, I took my new Pioneer 2-channel controller to my home ecstatic dance floor and debuted my fledgling skills. Looking back on those old mixes is painful now! But practice makes progress, and there’s nothing like the thrill of holding the music in my hands in front of a crowd, and getting to watch them animate the music with their bodies. In all my years of playing, this has never gotten old.

I think the biggest asset for me in these learning phases was just staying curious and always trying new things. Sometimes they worked, sometimes they didn’t. But the outcome didn’t matter as much as the inquiry. Eventually, I developed a style that is uniquely mine and ever-evolving. Having a community where I can regularly practice, try new things, explore, and push boundaries has been integral to my growth as an artist. The dancers at Dallas Movement Collective are so open and willing to try new things that it really allows me to go for it, even when the path might be a little weird.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

Hi! I’m Katie. I did not grow up as a musician, but came to it much later in my life. I’ve always been a dancer and deeply connected to the emotional catharsis of music, but really did not begin evolving my own musicianship until my late 20s/early 30s.

I truly came to music through dance, after the death of my father. I needed an outlet for my grief, which brought me to the practice of ecstatic dance. That practice has remained a constant in my life ever since. I’m a person who tends to really dive into explorations of my interests, and I took many classes, workshops, and trainings in various movement practices like JourneyDance, 5Rhythms, and Dancing Freedom. I think being a dancer first really helped to ground me as a musician for these spaces, and I always encourage my DJ trainees to record and dance to their own mixes. The body gives us such good feedback when creating hypnotic containers.

Catharsis is the foundation of all the work I do. My hope is that dancers on my floor are able to embody and express the full range of human emotion – not just the pretty stuff, but even the gnarly or scary emotions that may otherwise be repressed. In allowing those emotions to move without judgement, I believe it creates new pathways for healing.

My music is as wide and varied as the emotions I want dancers to explore. I am constantly looking for new music to capture new feelings. I often say that I could play Chopin next to RuPaul next to Otis Redding next to Fatboy Slim next to some one-hit wonder you haven’t heard in 15 years. I love using the element of surprise and a dash of humor in my mixes to balance the depths of emotion we explore together. I would say epic orchestral music is a hallmark of my mixes, both combined with electronic elements and standing on its own.

What do you find most rewarding about being a creative?

For me, it’s been the sense of community I’ve been able to feel. My mixes are deeply personal, and always reflect what is going on in my life at the time. I used to obfuscate those themes and ideas behind vague statements, but since the pandemic, I have become really direct about expressing them. It was scary and a huge edge at first, but that vulnerability has been so rewarding. No matter how weird or specific the theme of the mix is, I always have at least one dancer who comes up to me after expressing how that mix spoke to what they were going through as well. It has been deeply healing to realize that no matter what I’m feeling, I’m not alone.

Is there a particular goal or mission driving your creative journey?

Everything I do creatively is meant to invite people more deeply into their emotions. In a world where it’s often seen as a power to repress feelings, hide emotions, and push through, I think it’s incredibly important to have spaces where we allow our feelings to rise and move without judgement. Having that amplified in community is sacred and necessary.

Contact Info:

• Website: http://www.mixcloud.com/ecstaticdancemusic
• Instagram: http://www.instagram.com/katiedidmusic
• Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/katiedidmusic
• Other: http://www.soundcloud.com/katiedidmusic

Image Credits
Spotlight Media Agency Divya Ghatrazu Suellen Matteus Madison Truscan Kendra Suell