Like Naarm’s raves and clubs? You’ll love Asia TOPA’s 乒乒乓乓 pin-pin-piàng-piàng Club 8 event
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22.01.2025

Like Naarm’s raves and clubs? You’ll love Asia TOPA’s 乒乒乓乓 pin-pin-piàng-piàng Club 8 event

乒乒乓乓 pin-pin-piàng-piàng
Photo by Jordan Munns
Words by Juliette Salom

All the chaos, energy and fluidity of Naarm’s rave and club culture is about to be crystallised into one single event with Cloudy Ku and Harrison Hall’s takeover of Asia TOPA’s Club 8 on Friday, February 28.

There is no one genre, no artist, no art, that 乒乒乓乓 pin-pin-piàng-piàng can be confined to. It’s a club event, it’s a rave, but then it’s so much more. Perhaps a portal would be a more apt way to describe it. All you need to do is step inside Club 8, hold on tight and enjoy the ride.

Cloudy Ku and Harrison Hall will be opening the portal at Arts Centre Melbourne on Friday, February 28. Taking place in The Leaper Family Pavilion, 乒乒乓乓 pin-pin-piàng-piàng will be unfolding as part of Asia TOPA’s Club 8 program. In just a few hours, 12 performers will transport you to the underground world of Naarm’s rave and club scenes. 

乒乒乓乓 pin-pin-piàng-piàng

  • With Fareevader, CLoudy Ku and Cobra 13, Løst Reflexion, Mara Galagher, Pinae피네, SNR Master Chin Min, Tony Yap and Jack Riley, Vessa, Yumi Umiumare and Harrison Hall
  • Friday, February 28, from 9pm ’til late
  • Club 8, Arts Centre Melbourne
  • Tickets here

Explore Melbourne’s latest arts and stage news, features, festivals, interviews and reviews here.

 

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For Cloudy, a musician, DJ, radio host and label head, and Harrison, a performer, artist and choreographer, their’s is a curatorial match made in heaven. 

“I had been waiting for the right opportunity and context to work together again,” Harrison says about the collaboration. “From our first chat… our ideas felt symbiotic and generative.” 

Cloudy echoes the sentiment, reflecting how the more they talked about the project, the more excited they were to bring it to life. “It felt like two small planets colliding. Before we knew it, we had created something much larger together,” she says.

The creative largeness of this event is undeniable. Genres will be transcended, boundaries will be pushed and lines will be blurred. For an event that aims to reflect the world of Naarm’s rave and club scenes, it only makes sense for Cloudy and Harrison to architect a world of their own inside Club 8.

“Club 8 embodies the fluid shift between the collective energy of the dancefloor and personal reflection,” Cloudy says. 

“This fluidity is a key focus and we hope that the night presents a constantly evolving experience, filled with lapses in reality and expectation,” Harrison says. “When reflecting on my experience of being a dancer within a club space, I often [am] deeply engrossed witnessing the live-action theatre that is composed.” 

A “dynamic collision” of creative universes

 

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‘Live-action theatre’ is what this event will be all about. There’ll be DJs, musicians, artists and dancers, plus many more that don’t slot into any one singular category of art practice. The eccentric selection of performers, Cloudy says, “is the result of a dynamic collision between Harrison’s creative universe and my own.” 

“Each performer brings their unique genre-fluid styles. [They] push boundaries and reflect the energy and hybrid spirit of the event,” she continues. “Together, they embody the interplay of experimentation, diversity and creativity that lies at the heart of 乒乒乓乓.”

乒乒乓乓 pin-pin-piàng-piàng is an onomatopoeic phrase in Taiwanese (Minnan) that mimics the sounds of knocking, banging or clattering. Cloudy describes the literal meaning of 乒乒乓乓 pin-pin-piàng-piàng as “a sense of rhythm, movement and energy, qualities that resonate deeply with the spirit of this event.”

As for what it means to the curatorial duo, Cloudy adds “we chose this name to reflect the dynamic collision of different artistic expressions. Much like the sounds it represents, this event is about energy, chaos and harmony coming together to create something vibrant and alive.”

“乒乒乓乓 encapsulates the interplay between traditional and contemporary, structure and improvisation, making it the perfect representation of what we aim to explore through this performance.”

“It’s about capturing the pulse of the dancefloor and the ripples it creates”

 

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This event isn’t just about the portal of performance that the club exists within. It’s also about the world that stretches beyond that immediate space and encapsulating the scene in a holistic way.

“Naarm undeniably has an iconic rave and club culture,” the curators say. “But from another perspective, the moments after the party – taking a night tram/train heading to a kick-on – are just as significant. These extensions of the party culture tell a quieter, yet equally compelling story.”

“We aim to reimagine these dynamics by blending experimental artistry with the visceral, collective experience of a club night. It’s about capturing both the pulse of the dancefloor and the quieter ripples it creates; reshaping how we see and feel the culture that surrounds it.”

Performing on the night will be Fareevader, Løst Reflexion, Mara Galagher, Pinae피네, SNR Master Chin Min, Tony Yap and Jack Riley, Vessa and Yumi Umiumare, as well as Harrison and Cloudy, who will be performing with 13 Cobra.

“Working with amazing individuals who are all open and willing to question what a party or event format is also a key criteria,” he continues. 

“Each artist within their own practices blur the lines between forms and genres. Our intention is to extend this ideal beyond the individual set times osmosing a shared collective blur, an endless transition, throughout the entirety of the evening.”

Grab your tickets to 乒乒乓乓 pin-pin-piàng-piàng on Friday February 28 here.

Club 8 is part of Asia TOPA’s Nightlife program where performance art and club culture collide. Running over nine nights, artists connected to the club scene will bring experimental art, musical mavericks and a handful of surprises to clubgoers.

This article was made in partnership with Asia TOPA.