Meet Genie aka Genevieve Collier: FBi‘s Dance Class trainee

January 6th 2016

GenCollier

You may have heard her during your Friday night radio sessions, mixing it up with Sunset with Future Classic. You might catch her this Sunday, spinning tunes at the FBi SMACs Festival. If you’re not familiar yet, you’ll certainly find her commanding a dance floor near you soon…

Genevieve Collier – aka Genie – has come through five weeks of training with FBi’s Dance Class supported by V MoVement, a unique program to help budding female DJs get a head start in the industry.

Listen to Genie’s first mix and read about her experience below.

 

“This is a mix I made for FBi’s Dance Class program, which I was lucky enough to have been chosen to be a part of – along with 4 other amazing ladies. Dance Class has been an incredible opportunity to get a head start in the music industry that I’ve strived to be a part of for years. Through training and mentoring, the program has equipped us with the necessary skills in DJing and radio presenting for young women interested in getting involved in an industry which is so heavily saturated by males.

Over the last few years, I’ve started to take the reins over my lifelong obsession with music, creatively channelling my passion by experimenting with DJing and starting to produce some of my own stuff. When I heard about FBi’s Dance Class, I saw an amazing opportunity to further my knowledge of music and the industry, and became desperate to land a spot as one of the 5 trainees. The idea of an “all-female” program excited the feminist in me, as I have always advocated the support and encouragement of other budding female artists on the scene. I’m super happy and beyond grateful to be a part of FBis Dance Class, and the program, mentors and team involved have been nothing but supportive, informative and straight up a lot of fun.

FBi’s Dance Class has provided me with a platform to showcase some of the music that I’ve grown to love over the past few years. The music I collect and enjoy listening to – whether in a club or in my bedroom – has changed a lot as I’ve grown older and I feel that my eclectic taste is somewhat reflective of my development as an individual.

Dance Class has nurtured my progressive taste in music and this mix is a reflection of just some of the music I’ve been digging during my time there. Personally, I’ve never been about sticking to one style, and while it’s safe to say that my roots are planted in house music, I enjoy listening to artists and playing songs that are forward-thinking and somewhat blur the boundaries between genres. Whilst I found it hard to compress my sound and style into 1 hour of mixing (I need so many more mixes to come even close), I focused more on the mix as a whole – trying to make the transitions and the journey as smooth as possible, rather than trying to cram a million songs of all different genres and BPMs into one (which I admittedly tend to do sometimes).

I learned in some of the Dance Class workshops, notably with Andy and Kali, that when making a mixtape it’s best to treat the songs as ingredients for a larger mix and respect them for what they are – don’t force something if its not working. There’s still much more to be learnt and a lot more practice to be done, and this is only the beginning of a life-long hobby and passion of mine.

The studio at FBi where the workshops took place was a safe place for myself and the other girls to practice, learn and make mistakes in the process. We learned how to mix (digital, vinyl, Serato) and attended informative workshops where we absorbed valuable information from pros like Joyride, Kato, Kali, Adi Toohey, Caroline Gates, Andy Garvey and Anna Burns.

Kali spoke a lot of truth during her all-vinyl workshop. I’ve taken an interest in collecting and attempting to mix records over the past few months, as a lot of the music that I’ve been hoarding recently is exclusively vinyl. Kali taught us the foundations of mixing records by breaking down beat-matching and demonstrating how it requires you to engage your brain, ears, and hands succinctly. Kali stressed the importance of endless hours of practice (and patience) in order to achieve these skills whilst mixing; some advice I’ve held onto since. Future Classic’s GM Anna Burns conducted the last Dance Class workshop, and spoke all things industry related – from career options to useful marketing strategies, the manner in which you present yourself on social media platforms, and useful tips on re-branding yourself to help build an honest audience which will provide greater satisfaction in the future.

Mentoring started after the training workshops, and I couldn’t have asked for a better mentor then Andy Garvey. She’s been nothing but inspiring and fun to learn from, during studio time and outside of it. Given the opportunity to experience hands-on studio time – both mixing and presenting on air – whilst engaging in friendly banter, music, stories and the occasional process with herself and the other Future Classic DJs (Chad and McInnes) has been an amazing experience so far. Also going above and beyond setting us up with incredible opportunities, Caroline and Sandro Dallarmi made air time possible for us as we recorded our debut radio show – Dance Class on FBi Click. It was incredible.

Something I’m really grateful to Dance Class for is a network of likeminded, passionate and creative young people who I’ve been lucky to surround myself with. Although the program is coming to an end, I really look forward to staying involved with FBi, at the station and beyond, and remaining in contact with the legends who made it all possible. Their tireless efforts, along with the support from V MoVement, made Dance Class possible and I can’t thank them enough.

I also couldn’t have wished for a nicer group of girls – Lauren, Ellie, Madi and Tess – to be in this program with. Building friendships based on similar interests and musical taste has been extremely rewarding and refreshing to say the least. I look forward to keeping in touch with the other girls by continuing to bounce music and ideas, hopefully team up for some b2bs and maybe even trial some of our very own parties. As for 2016, I plan to build on these friendships, hopefully score some frequent gigs and most importantly continue to work hard on my music production and further strengthen my sound as a DJ and producer in the making.”

 

Contributor

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