On a humid Miami night where techno melts into dembow, samba, and ballroom, a first rave becomes a baptism of sound, sweat, and transformation. I hear it churning beneath the bridge. I watch my teenage self get closer to the drone of a big bass, the type that makes the walls not just thud but go glomp-glomp-glomp-glomp. The kind of bass that makes wet jelly of a concrete wall. Nasty, in the best way.

I’m alone for this one, my first. I’m in tune to the beat, black platforms stomping while I walk, the moist air overwhelming as I near the little house with the big sound at its center, the place where liquid sound slowly became solid. Glomp-glomp-glomp-glomp-thump-thump-thump-thump.

The house is tiny, the bouncer drop-dead gorgeous. They have a cherub face made demonic by way of a white contact lens in their left eye. Their broad shoulders and muscular chest are barely covered by a black tank, little waist barely clinging to mesh shorts not-really hiding tight electric blue briefs. Their boots are trembling to the sound. They look me up and down, then wave me in. I feel the hard techno blaring from the speakers make waves in my hair.

Past the guard, a small empty living room, turntables in the back, and a room of bad bitches shoulder to shoulder writhing and swaying and punching the air, letting their hair down and up and down again, maniacal servants of the rhythm, a sweet dream of sweat and focus set to purple light coming from the floor, just barely illuminating the walls, the faces, some with studs in their ears and noses and cheeks and eyebrows. We’re vibrating to the beat, and letting ourselves vibrate.

When we think we can’t get sweatier, dembow infiltrates the techno, the old shit my cousin made me listen to in the car driving up and down Caracas, a rattling clang straight out of a song by The Noise.1

Fist-bumping becomes waist-whining. I find myself in a grinding train, and give myself to the moment. Soon, I’m in the dead center of the pit. I finally catch sight of the DJ. Their black lipstick is slightly smeared, a leather harness bounces over the tiniest silver bikini in tune with the orange braids framing their chiseled face, a Medusa that brings life. They lock eyes with me, wink, and turn up one of the knobs on the controller. The sea of bodies keeps throwing it back.

Carnival whistles and drums crash in, reggaeton quickly swapped out, suddenly blended together with a raucous Brazilian samba. A circle opens in the middle, and two divas twirl, holy dancers spinning infinitely toward the divine, like the monks I read about in school.2 Shoulder, shoulder, pop, pop, pose. The DJ takes another shift, a loud metallic crash in tune with one of the girls – gorgeous in a flowing green skirt, matching kitten heels, and a yellow bikini – dipping and getting back up.

HA!

The audience watches her get back up, strut towards the other girl, tease her with her hands, walk back, dip again.

HA!

Diva #2 spins faster, moving toward the middle and not stopping until the floor is hers.

HA!

Back on the floor, back up, gravity left outside in the rain of this humid city. I’m captivated by the battle, and the bass and cymbals drown it out. I peek at the window and see that familiar swelter of a tropical rain, a hidden percussion gently shaking the outside. I’m rocked back as one of the divas dives back to the floor, rocking us all, an adoring crowd drenched in saltwater sweat.

• 1. The Noise was a Puerto Rican collective in the 1990s that largely converged in a club of the same name.
• 2. Whirling Dervishes are Sufi mystics who commune with Allah via active meditation