Mayor Mary Sheffield has proclaimed the week from May 18 to 25 as Detroit Techno Week, coinciding with the Movement festival at Hart Plaza.
There is something perfectly coherent in the idea that Detroit has an official week dedicated to techno. And that the idea of inaugurating a techno week comes directly from the institutions even more so. Techno did not originate in Berlin, it did not originate in London, it did not originate in a European warehouse. It was born in Detroit, in the 1980s, in a city that was economically collapsing and that, in the economic collapse, invented one of the most influential music genres of the 20th century. As DjMagwrites, the City of Detroit and Mayor Mary Sheffield have proclaimed the week from May 18 to 25 as “Detroit Techno Week,” coinciding with the Movement festival at Hart Plaza (three days, from 23 to 25, with Kevin Saunderson, Carl Cox, Nia Archives, Voices From The Lake, Dom Dolla, and many others).
Movement has existed since 2001, organized by Paxahau for 20 years, and traditionally takes place on Memorial Day weekend (May 25). Hart Plaza, overlooking the Detroit River, with Canada on the opposite shore, is a concrete plaza that becomes the center of the global electronic music scene for three days. “For over twenty years we have welcomed people from every corner of the world to discover Techno City, right here at home. This city is alive and the dance floors are waiting”, Movement wrote on Instagram.
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Detroit techno was born from Juan Atkins, Derrick May, and Kevin Saunderson, three boys raised in the suburbs of the city, influenced by Giorgio Moroder, Kraftwerk, and soul music, who in the 1980s invented a genre that until then no one had ever even imagined. They did this in a city that was falling apart, among closed factories, fleeing residents, and crumbling infrastructure. Today the city has an official week dedicated to this music, a festival that brings twenty million dollars to the local economy, and a museum (the Museum of Detroit Electronic Music) under construction in what until recently was the ruin of a Packard factory.
