An Interview with Ariel Zetina

Interview + Photos by Andrea van den Boogaard

“I think the drag scene and the dance scene and the visual art scene and the performance art scene are all very interdisciplinary [in Chicago]. That’s what really inspires me here.”

- Ariel Zetina

It’s 4 o’clock on a summer day in Chicago, and I’ve just met Bijou. He’s a small Scottish Terrier, dancing over my feet towards a small, unlit stage in the empty bar front of us. Ariel Zetina stands waiting for him –They are both standing on top of hundreds of synthetic pastel flower petals.

Ariel and her creative team are cleaning up from a party she threw less than 12 hours ago. She had recently opened for Beyoncé at her Soldier Field Renaissance Tour show, after having played a set at the 2023 Pitchfork Music Festival, and continuing gigs across Europe. She cooly picks up a pile of flowers with one hand, adjusts her wide-brimmed baby pink eyeglasses with the other, and pulls up a box to sit on. I press the record button.

Ariel, when you’re in the baby stages of beginning to plan a set, what do you start with for inspiration? The energy of the community you’re mixing for, or an individual song or group of songs that have been in your head lately?

I think it’s a mixture of both. I think primarily though, it’s the party and the venue I’m playing. Because for me, that’s part of the live-ness of it – Being able to read the room, know where I want the dance floor to go based on that night and that crowd. So I’ll start with that. I have my regulars – I feel like on all my nights, I have my 10 tracks that I’ve always got to play because I’m obsessed with them.

Are there any particular songs in your brain right now?

Okay, this one is for specific moments - But my friend made this edit of “Did you know that there’s a tunnel under Ocean Blvd” that makes it like a club song, and I’ve been really obsessed with that because it works really well somehow, even though Lana doesn’t really stay on beat all the time! But, I’m like, “YES.” I’ve been obsessed with that.

This has been in my thoughts for a year or so, but there’s this song, “Elevator.” There’s this edit that Addison Groove did of it – It’s basically just someone going “Elevator up, elevator down.” And that’s basically the vocal, and it works really well. It’s just a cheeky single vocal that doesn’t really mean anything, which I love.

A lot of Miss Bashful’s work – who is actually Tejana Mexican-American, but is in Berlin – And she has been doing these almost late-90’s bitchy tracks. She’s got one called “Just the Tip” which I really love – Which is how you think it sounds. She sort of is embracing this really hot Berlin bimbo energy over really hard beats. And I saw her live when I didn’t know who she was, and she blew me away. Her whole discography has been amazing.

I wanted to ask you about traveling! Because you’ve been traveling everywhere, and you recently went to Berlin – What do you feel whenever you return to Chicago? Do you enjoy coming back, or do you want to enjoy traveling outside Illinois and the United States more right now?

I think it’s a mixture. What’s nice especially about Berlin is that it has such a history with dance – and Europe in general - And I haven’t played in South America, but I get that energy in South America and in Asia as well. You know, I have my grad school theories on why this is the case [laughs], but Americans just don’t dance. Even when I was playing the Beyoncé show, people were just… standing. It’s supposed to be a club! Club Renaissance!

And so for me, I really enjoy playing in Europe, just because it gives you this crazy reaction. I think that the two reasons why people don’t dance as much in the U.S. is: A) I think so much of what we think of as “DJ sets” are the original DJ’s in “mainstream” U.S. You’re watching someone be very visual. And in the clubs, the stage can be very [raised] here… Whereas a lot of the clubs in other places are more level. And I think a lot of that really affects how much you’re a voyeur, and how much you’re a participant.

But what I will say, is that for me, all the besties are in Chicago. I want to hear the mixing in Chicago when I go out. And even when it might not be mainstream in the U.S. and in Chicago for people to necessarily dance, I feel like at all the good, fun parties… people are really down to dance.

It’s just so cool to have the option every week to potentially go and see Queen, for example, and see a bunch of OG house DJ’s. I really like to go and bring back what I’ve learned in Europe, but I’ve also learned a lot in Chicago and love to bring that into other places.

What in the city is making you feel energized right now?

I think there are two things, actually. I think especially after 2020, there was this resurgence of DJ’s under the age of 24 who are all also based in Chicago, or born and raised in Chicago, and are sort of using that to do a more modern Chicago sound. I think of Syd Falls, specifically – Right in 2020, when everything was opening up, they did a rave in a U-Haul truck in a random lot. And it’s that kind of energy! It was very that-scene-in-Party-Monster, where they do the party in the moving semi. It’s so good.

This sort of mixing of queer club stuff, and a lot of footwork, and really fast stuff has been really inspiring. I just booked this DJ called ctrlzora who’s super super young, and they, like, destroyed. And it’s really cool to see that these new DJ’s are really doing it! And doing it for themselves. Seeing these new people come of age has been really inspiring.

When I go to New York, the drag scene and the techno scene and the disco scene are all so separate, because the scene is so big that you’re able to have these little enclaves. So there’s not a lot of crossover and cross-pollination of artists. And I think that’s so different in Chicago. I think the drag scene and the dance scene and the visual art scene and the performance art scene are all very interdisciplinary [in Chicago]. That’s what really inspires me here.

Even with Pitchfork [Music Festival], we kept thinking about how we were working with the best of the best in so many different fields. [For example] the choreographer that does, like, every single Pride event in Chicago, and all the drag queens that are going crazy, doing insane stuff… I really appreciate that part of it.

And with being interdisciplinary – You’re a playwright and a theatre artist, too. How do you feel the practice of storytelling extends itself into your music making?

[Laughs] Actually, I was like, “I’m doing everything right,” when I had this two-hour set, and after maybe an hour, I did this ambient moment. And someone was like, “I totally saw what you were going for. That was the intermission.” [Laughing] And I was like, “Yes, totally!”

I think in writing, the question is how to create conflict. But in a DJ set, it’s how to create drama - and then theatricality within that. So I really am trying to build to a certain thing and have a journey. And I think that’s where a lot of my playwriting stuff comes into it.

And then with production, I try to think of that theatricality when I’m making stuff. I studied poetry a lot, and poetry informs my playwriting a lot - And I think when I’m writing text and lyrics, I really still do try to ask who the speaker is, who they’re speaking to, and how we put this in a real world - Even if it’s just me repeating one word.

And did you feel the same way while making Cyclorama, your most recent album? What was that storytelling like for you?

I actually started on Cyclorama as a more concepted thing, where I thought it was going to be a full concept album. [laughs] Because I always think of a first song, when it does an overture, and the idea that the following tracks function as featured characters in this world. So, you know, we first get Cae Monāe’s “Have You Ever” song, and we get her perspective. And then we get my perspective in “Slab of Meat,” and then Miaa’s perspective from “Gemstone.”

I think text usually ends up informing the instrumental stuff afterwards, too. You’re listening to something in a new way if you’ve heard it after the lyric. I think for me, that’s how it functions in Cyclorama.

I went to Super Sapphic, and I saw that set, which I loved. I was thinking about how quickly people started gathering as you started – Your sets can be such a rallying cry for finding, building, and empowering community through dance. What are your hopes for dance right now, as a force in the world?

I’m going to start really esoteric. [laughs] I’ve been really obsessed, recently – Do you know about the Dance Plague of 1518?

So basically there’s this case that happened in medieval Europe somewhere in this town. There was this uncontrollable fit of dancing, where people danced until they died, basically, or they danced until they fainted.

But it was this sort of “evil” version of collective effervescence, where everyone is doing the same thing. And it’s this sort of unexplained phenomena that happened. And there are all these theories about why it happened – There were theories about some plant [in the town] being a psychedelic or something – There was all of this stuff.

And I always think about that – This uncontrollable need to dance – And I’ve been thinking about that with dance music in a more positive way. These group things, where people are in a group together, or a show together – It’s what is in place of the religious experience that a lot of people are not necessarily doing in 2023. And that is something I always think about. I think that the idea that the nightclub is taking away the individual, and is more about the group, is really interesting to me.

Dance music, for me, was really big. The sort of meditative quality about it, the fact that it’s this repeated structure that you can really map out – And it separates your breath, separates your movement, and makes everything really even – that’s really powerful to me. And when it breaks, as well! Even going from house to a Lana [Del Ray] moment, for example, how you can be in this meditative state and the real world at the same time.

That, for me, is what’s driven me to keep doing it for so long. It feels so good to just be with a kick drum sometimes. The physical feeling of a kick drum, I need that every so often. More often than not. [laughs]

When you do have that moment – When it’s you and the kickdrum – What is that bringing out in you?

We tend to think of it as this new sound, this low, reverb drum echo, but it is so critical in ancient music. And it shows up cross-culturally, like Taiko drums or Latin American folk music, music with these different elements that have that in them. And of course an actual band will have a kick drum. It’s something that exists in everything.

This sort of feeling – feeling that this has been happening forever – really stays with me. I think now, [about] seeing this specific kind of house music that I like – Because house music has definitely trended before in the U.S., but in a more lo-fi sense. But I think even about Beyoncé’s Renaissance - This sort of allowing that house music can be fast and fun and hard, and that the kick drum has its place in music now.

There’s this Family Guy episode where there’s [imitates an “nsst nsst” beat] and the gay dog and Brian are both dancing – And I think that sort of energy – Of people having this idea that that’s what dance music really is, and that it’s something that’s really subculture and not in the mainstream - Is really funny. And I think that’s changing, and I’m really excited.

So to finish our interview – What are you up to now?

It’s so funny. I feel like my whole July was prepping for Pitchfork, and then at the very end, getting this opening for Beyoncé and Renaissance, and having this “What the FUCK” moment?!

Right now, I’m packing for Europe, and I’ll be there for 2 ½ weeks, and then I’m playing for Whole Festival, a queer festival in Berlin, which I love. I played that last year with my DJ baby, Miss Twink U.S.A., and we’re doing that again this year.

After soaking everything in, I’m really excited to be in the woods at a Queer Festival. For me, Pitchfork was a closing, in a lot of ways, for Cyclorama... In the sense that I didn’t know what my next release was. And then, because I made some tracks and used some of them in my sets, I have a new idea of what I want my production to be like right now. So [I’m] going into new concepting stuff this week! And I’m prepping to shoot a music video for Gemstone.

And chilling for a sec. [laughs]

But I’m encouraging everyone looking at this to seek out these new DJ’s in Chicago. And go to things that you normally wouldn’t go to. Because I’m always pleasantly surprised.

“Dance music, for me, was really big. The sort of meditative quality about it, the fact that it’s this repeated structure that you can really map out – And it separates your breath, separates your movement, and makes everything really even – that’s really powerful to me.”

- Ariel Zetina

Ariel Zetina performs at Diamond Formation with Danny Daze and Sedef Adasï at smartbar on September 16, 2023. Her music and most recent album, Cyclorama, is streaming on all platforms. Merchandise and albums can be purchased via Bandcamp. Find updates on upcoming events with Ariel Zetina on Instagram @arielzetina.

Set design by Daniella DeLuna (@danielleadeluna).