No sleep till Wascana

Decentralized Dance Party rolls into Regina

Jennifer Squires
News Writer

Tom and Gary’s Dynamic Dance Party Delivery Service made a stop in Regina on Oct. 14, offering one of the best parties Regina has ever seen.

Tom Kuzma and Gary Lachance, native Ontarians, brought Reginans together in the form of a Decentralized Dance Party (DDP).
I had the opportunity to speak to Kuzma and Lachance about their brainchild the night before the event happened. I strolled into O’Hanlon’s, our designated meeting spot, and found them sitting in the back – in bright neon – and I knew that the DDP was going to be a night that Regina partygoers wouldn’t forget.

My first impression was that these two were insane partiers. They both wore fanny packs and Tom had outrageous facial hair. Their motto: partying is an art form.

Tom explains that a decentralized dance party is “a party with no central audio source and no central location.”

One magical summer night in 2006, the DDP was born when they tuned their boom boxes to the same frequency they got the idea to become their own radio station and get a bunch boom boxes together with a bunch of their friends.

The first DDP involved a mere 16 stereos on a beach at night with a group of their most intimate friends. It didn’t garner a lot of attention because the two wanted to keep it to an intimate gathering as a sort of test run. Their goal was to increase the effect and size of this party 100-fold and in six months they were able to do that.

When they made their stop in Regina, the DDP crew was heading back home to Vancouver after completing five cities in an eight-city tour across Canada.

When asked about their dealings with local police, Kuzma and Lachance were very relaxed. They meet up with police in every city and discuss the event with them and there are usually no problems. The two have a strict no-drinking rule since a DDP is a public event.
The party here in Regina began Thursday night, with a resounding rendition of “O Canada” before the dancing started with Darude’s “Sandstorm.” Throughout the night, the party moved to various locations around Wascana Park, making a very long stop in the gazebo where plenty of crowd surfing occurred.

I went home with sore feet, but it was entirely worth it. If you missed the DDP, Reginan Michal Willfong is hosting his own DDP on Saturday, Oct. 23. It’s Halloween-themed and the meeting location is the waterfall in Wascana Park. So bring some friends and a boombox and dance the night away.