Roar spoke to Culture, Media, and Creative Industries (CMCI) student Grace Smith about an upcoming student-led event focussing on the cultural importance of nightlife, ‘Echoes of the Dance Floor’.
The event is taking place at 2-4pm on 18 December at the Science Gallery on Guy’s Campus. The project is a part of the CMCI Winter Festival, an exhibition for all third-year CMCI students. The event will include a video screening, guest speakers, interactive exhibits and a DJ to keep the dance floor moving. The event aims to draw attention to nightlife spaces and the cultural loss resulting from the declining nighttime economy.
What Does the Dance Floor Mean to You?
The exhibition is designed to ask its audience, “What does the dance floor mean to you?”
In our conversation, Grace, curator of the project, said that the exhibition was important to her because of the lack of commemoration for nightlife in cultural spaces. To Grace, the dance floor is a place for “connection, expression, safety, resistance, culture, community, and coming together.”
With its exhibition, ‘Echoes of the Dance Floor’ is aimed at inspiring its audience to help preserve the nightlife economy. The UK Night Time Economy Market Monitor reported a 28% net decline of night-time venues from September 2020 to September 2025 – a worrying trend for young people involved in nightlife and a key motivating factor for the project.
Grace argued many factors contribute to the closures, including the cost-of-living crisis, rising rents, the COVID-19 lockdowns and post-pandemic socialisation patterns, and that “we are living in a very individualistic time.”
The curatorial statement for the event reads, “We are living in a time of individualism, with the illusion of connectivity masking mass disconnect. The dance floor cuts through this illusion. It is raw, physical, human. It is a form of expression which we cannot afford to lose.”
In an age of disconnection of disconnection, Grace argues that Echoes of the Dance Floor is designed to remind us:
“In this shared moment of sweat, release, and surrender, we remember something essential: the need to connect, to feel, to belong. The dance floor is not just a space for escape; it’s a space for return, to ourselves and to one another.”
Attend the Event!
There are a limited number of tickets available due to the capacity limitations, although the event is free to enter. The event is taking place at 2-4pm on 18 December at the Science Gallery on Guy’s Campus.
Please book tickets as soon as possible to ensure a chance to experience the event, via Eventbrite. Updates about can be found on Instagram.
To find out about a plethora of events held as part of CMCI Winter Festival 2025, visit their Instagram.
