The music’s thumping, the dance floor’s packed and the bar is bustling. Welcome to one of New York’s hottest nightclubs and a new generation of clubbers: 6-year-olds.
The VIP Room threw open its doors to children ages 6 to 12 on a recent Sunday afternoon to give them a taste of the nightclub, electronic music and dance scene in New York’s uber-trendy Meatpacking District.
Among those hitting the decks was the 8-year-old DJ Alden. Kids swarmed onto the dance floor, bopping up and down to beats with proud mums shimmying alongside or snapping pictures.
“It was awesome,” says Alden, the son of the organisers, who jumped on the decks during the four-hour party. “The best thing was when I was in the DJ booth, DJing for everybody.”
A dancer dressed as a robot, with LED lights on his legs, arms, head and body, took to the podium to whip up the crowd. When he started shooting dry ice from two white guns, they went wild.
The children screamed with pleasure, reaching up their hands as the robot took them through basic dance steps, getting them to feel the beat.
More than 300 people, including parents and younger siblings, attended the party organised by a husband-and-wife team whose company CirKiz opens top New York clubs to children once a month.
“I love it. My daughter’s having a great time,” says Laura Lampert, a legal secretary from Harlem dressed in a leopard-print dress with cat ears, pointing at her child who is twirling and dancing.
“It’s a lot of fun. It’s also safe for the kids. It’s during the day and they get to feel like grown-ups,” she says.
While the parents relax, the children also get a taste of the DJ booth – they are encouraged to try out the equipment and dabble in a spot of mixing.
Natalie Elizabeth Weiss DJs at the children’s club sessions and thinks they are a brilliant way of opening young minds. “It’s giving us a chance to get back to our roots as humans, which is get together and dance to music,” she says.
Weiss’s DJ lessons for children have gone viral among trendy families across New York.
There has been interest as far afield as South Korea, Berlin and Los Angeles. Weiss plans masterclasses in Atlanta and Orlando, and next month she flies to Taiwan to launch the programme there.
But the parties are the brainchild of Jesse Sprague, a DJ who has worked on the club scene for 20 years, and his wife Jenny Song. They say the raves are great fun for a child.
“They get to come into a really cool space, socialise with their friends, get away from televisions, iPads and tablets, and come in and experience something that has a very cool vibe,” says Sprague.
“One of the mission statements is that we want to inspire kids to pursue things that are artistic. It helps to develop a creative mind, having the kids be in a stimulating sensory environment.”
The couple got the idea after throwing a party for their son on his first birthday at the New York club Cielo. Friends had such a good time that they urged the couple to turn it into a business.
As a concession to the tender age of clubbers, they keep the volume low, screen songs for content and restrict ravers to cupcakes.
Pier Singh, dressed in tight trousers, ankle boots and a spangly top, struts onto the dance floor with her 2-year-old son Nico in a New York police uniform.
His older brother Miles, 6, is Spider-Man and likes to breakdance. Singh saw the party advertised on Facebook and knew it would be the perfect family outing.
“I think it’s really awesome.What kid doesn’t love dancing these days?” she says with a laugh.
