April 11, 2025 |
Spring has sprung which means festival season is just around the corner. Horah! Get us in a muddy field with all our mates, tinnies in hand, with an ace sound system, and we’re as happy as Larry. One to get in your calendar for August bank holiday weekend is Body Movements. London’s first dance music festival in celebration of the LGBTQ+ community levelled up last summer when it moved to Southwark Park. Spread across five stages, the epic new sight is set to welcome the Big Smoke’s queer community for a joyous day soundtracked by the finest house, thundering techno and bass-heavy wobblers. Doesn’t it all sound delicious?
One set you shouldn’t be missing is Michelle Manetti’s. A Body Movements mainstay, Manetti knows how to command a queer dancefloor. She’s the promoter of Dalston Superstore’s beloved FLINTA night Fèmmme Fraiche, a resident at Adonis and the co-founder of Hackney rave Fae, which will officially launch Easter Sunday. Having played across the globe, including sets at Love International Festival and Berghain’s Panorama Bar, she’s prepped and primed to bring you fierce house stylings perfect for a sun-kissed afternoon spent dancing with your nearest and dearest.
For this year’s Body Movements, Manetti is joined by the likes of Cakes Da Killa, Peach, Hannah Holland and Angel D’lite in what’s gearing up to be one of the most stacked line-ups of the festival circuit. Before we get to it, though, we pulled Manetti aside for a quick round of VIQs (that’s very important questions).
1. Who is Michelle Manetti?
A neurospicy music nerd with an orange mullet, who loves a cup of tea and a good shoulder shimmy at a queer rave (not necessarily at the same time).
2. What can we expect from your Body Movements set this summer?
I’m in my percussive ‘90s era atm, so probably stompy, cunty, percussive, tribal beats, mixed with my usual euphoric hands-in the-air, Hi-NRG piano house fist-pumpers.
3. What’s one track that will never leave your USB?
E-Motion’s The Naughty North & The Sexy South (Naughty But Nice Mix)/ I played it in my Boiler Room and I pretty much play it most of my sets. It’s my go-to if I want to get the crowd giddy.
4. What makes a great night out?
Anything where the dolls rule the dancefloor, the T-boys parade their scars with pride, the music quenches my soul and you come home dripping in sweat. I want queer euphoria, gift-wrapped, with a bow on top.
5. What’s the best thing about playing Body Movements?
It’s all of the above and then-some! It’s a real authentic, queer run, queer festival. A coming together of some amazing LGBTQIA+ collectives, club nights and artists. It’s always a real honour and huge pleasure to play, the crowd are ALWAYS amazing, some of my fave sets have been at Body Movements over the last couple of years. I’m only ever as good as the crowd in front of me and they’re always top-notch!
6. What’s your favourite thing about being a DJ in London?
There’s a really amazing, supportive community of incredibly talented people in London, it’s inspiring and humbling at the same time. There’s also so much diversity, especially within the queer scene, which I mostly circulate in DJ-wise and I think that’s easy to take for granted.
7. What’s the best night out you’ve ever been on?
I guess it’s cliché to say, but catch Panorama Bar at the right moment, with the right line-up or DJ playing and it really is something quite magical and ethereal, there’s a reason why it’s regarded so highly. I’m also so grateful to be part of the Adonis crew, by far one of, if not THE best nights in London. It’s really very special and again, playing there, with that crowd, have been some of my most treasured DJ moments. New Years Day in particular is definitely an experience like nothing else.
8. If you weren’t DJing, what would you be doing?
I always gravitate towards psychology stuff, it’s always really fascinated me, so I wonder if I’d be some kind of therapist, or counsellor, or even something like a forensic psychologist. I read and listen to a lot of psychology books/podcasts/documentaries in my spare time – us DJ’s need a hobby outside music, mine happens to be psychology and neuroscience.
9. What song made you fall in love with dance music?
Growing up in the ‘80s/‘90s, I was a bit of ‘90s R&B girlie. But around ’95 I started clubbing and back then, house music had really hit a sweet spot, anything remixed by Armand Van Helden, with a little speed garage whomp whomp just energised me. The track that always sticks out for me is Josh Wink’s Higher State of Consciousness. The first time I dropped a Mitsubishi, this came on just as I was coming up, that mad break down, I literally lost my mind and was transported into another dimension. I think it cemented to me that I was most def a raver and this was exactly where I needed to be.
10. What can we expect from you for the rest of 2025?
As well as a bunch of super cute gigs, I have some really fun guest mixes coming up over the next couple of months. I also have some tracks I’ll be releasing on some very cute compilations, as well as working towards my first EP, so keep an eye out for that! The big news is I’m launching a new queer party, Fae – we had a mini-launch at the end of last year on a Friday night at Pickle Factory which sold out, but we always intended it to be a Sunday day rave focusing on queer Flinta Folx and we’re finally launching it in its full Sunday glory on Easter weekend at Hackney Bridge! Who doesn’t love a Sunday day rave? So we’re making one! Also as the party grows, our intention is also to create something more accessible and comfortable for neurospicy queers and sober ravers, something more considered and intentional, so I’m really excited to get this off the ground.
Photography courtesy of Michelle Manetti.
