We were lucky to catch up with Colin Gribble recently and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Colin, thanks for joining us today. We’d love to hear about when you first realized that you wanted to pursue a creative path professionally.

I moved back to Arizona from the midwest in late 2016. I discovered EDM (Electronic Dance Music) and raving, festivals and most importantly SHUFFLING. A dance style within the EDM culture. It was actually my first EDM Music festival Global Dance. September 2017.
I was new to the EDM scene and through word of mouth was how I found out about this festival.

Long story short, I met an amazing group of girls that taught me how to dance and express myself while there.
I also tried substance for the first time in my life while I was there, I’m not afraid to admit that. I’ve seen and experienced the benefits of substances like Marijuana, which are now legal and used to be demonized (Go figure) and my favorite, Mushrooms and all I can say is, you don’t know until you know. Stuff is life changing. It opens your mind up and sets you free. I was 25 at the time. I’m 30 now. And I really just had a moment or an apiphnay at the festival, I bent down to tie my shoe and I told my group ” I’m not feeling anything” and they said “You will.” I tied my shoe stood up all and the blood came rushing back to head and body and that’s when it hit me. This sense of euphoria rushed over me. It was like a movie had just flashed before my eyes and played out. That’s when I realized that festivals and raving are not just for younger people. The group of girls that welcomed me in were all material scientists. They were geniuses! They knew exactly what they were doing, they had hacked life in my opinion. These were my kind of people. Further, I had so many cool and interesting people that night at the festival. You’d honestly be amazed. This culture is for everyone and its 100% accepting. It’s a way to decompress and destress from the chaos of the world, an escape for some..I was always told that the the rave culture was bad, that substance is bad, and that you shouldn’t go down that rabbit hole, when it was quite the opposite! DO GO DOWN THAT RABBIT HOLE LOL…The truth is out there haha. I was appalled.. I couldn’t believe what I was experiencing. Such joy and bliss consumed me for the rest of the night. My ego had been torn down and rebuilt. Everyone was so kind and helpful while there, listening to the music. And I learned that there after, this kindness and joy carried over to reality even out of the festival. It wasn’t just because of the substance, believe me. There was just genuinely really good people there. Some people there at the festival were completely sober too.
But that night I took a huge risk and stepping out of my comfort zone which i’m glad I did.
And that’s when the vision was painted in my head. I knew exactly what I had to do moving forward which i’ll talk about more later.
Raving, festivals. EDM, was my gateway into the music and dance world. Now it’s opened a world of opportunity for me and I’m doing what I love now 5 and a half years into it. And I’m just getting started.

Colin, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

My name Is Colin Gribble or (Gribbz)

How I got into my EDM/ dancing / teaching career is really no surprise when. I’ve been dancing my whole life since I was a kid but not professionally till around age 25, “It’s never too late to start by the way”

A bit of backstory:

My father had a mobile ice cream business and he was the host of an amazing vintage car show when I was younger. Every weekend we would tow our custom built ice cream trailer with our 34 Ford Roadster, (yes it had a ball hitch on the back to tow the trailer) With me and my brother in the back rumble seat haha.

The main attraction was this really cool Jukebox that opened up in the back of the ice cream trailer. It was a real live record slinging nostalgic Jukebox that played 50’s and 60’s music. otherwise known as the Golden Oldies. It even had the classic bubbles coursing from one side to the other to give it a cool effect and visual.
I would bop around in my saddle shoes all night in front of this relic and that’s what game me my sense of rhythm I truly believe. The rest is history.

Fast forward to today, I dance, I teach, I perform up on stage at EDM music festivals and more. I’m very active in the community. i’m very passionate about giving back and love to help people. I’m extremely motivated and ambitious. I hep people become shufflers and dancers.

I have a YouTube channel where I post all my dance lessons for free. The channel is called
(Empower Melbourne Shuffle)

I offer free dance shuffle meetups to the EDM community and to the public now going on for 4 years in May.
I bring out a speaker and lights and play music, we learn, teach and express ourselves.

I am currently working on a document to give out to the public and EDM community for free, on how to build your own dance community in your location. It can be anything really that you love to do too, not just dance. I want to share my passion for this dance and culture and show others that if i can do it so can they! The reason I say this is because I didn’t necessarily know how to do any of the things like, making flyers, getting permits, communicating with venues and becoming a leader and all these things. I talk about all of this in this document that I am preparing for people. I want everyone to be able to have a smooth transition building their own community.

Building a community in your area gives you a sense of belonging and something to believe in.
And most importantly, something to look forward to every week.

What do you think is the goal or mission that drives your creative journey?

At first I started all of this just to see how far I could go..well now i’m owning those words because here I am writing and answering to this neat article! I never thought I would come this far, it was my resilience and consistency in my training that has led me this far.

I never give up, because this is my passion, this is what i love to do. I’m literally making a giant impact with what i’m doing by spreading music and dance to the masses.

The goal is to unite as many people as possible while rising up on my music and dance journey. I’ve impacted many lives already and many more to come.

We often hear about learning lessons – but just as important is unlearning lessons. Have you ever had to unlearn a lesson?

The pandemic ripped away music and dance, shuffle meetups from me.

That absolutely crushed me. I didn’t stop dancing in my own time of course but this time now that things are lifted I’m back unrelentingly doing what I do best. Connecting and unifying and holding space for people at the shuffle meetups.

I never took community for granted but I sure did learn a great lesson during all the down time over the past couple of years. I’ve learned that community is the answer more than anything. We are all stronger if we are together and united.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://empowermelbourneshuffle.com/home/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/_gribbz_/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/colin.gribble/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/_Gribbz_
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCBIdins03tOuYQlquTFg06A