Early Morning Dance Movement Arrives In Atlanta

“I love to dance and I love dance music so I was very interested,” says Adrian Harris, one of the hundred or so people dancing in the empty General Assembly space at the new Ponce City Market. “I’m actually a seventh grade teacher so after this I’ve got to head to the school and get the day started.”

This event is called “Daybreaker.” It looks kind of like a rave, but the organizers behind the party ask that you not call it that. According to them, when you hear “rave,” you think drugs and alcohol. And you won’t find any of that here – just water, juice and a lot of coffee. After all, it’s only 8 a.m.

“Daybreaker is a morning dance party movement,” says Wil May, the DJ and producer of Daybreaker in Atlanta. “It’s all about health and wellness and starting your day off right.”

Daybreaker encourages people to start their day a little differently – by jumping up and down with a bunch of other people on a dance floor.

“You would typically do that at night, but that’s something where you’re super energized and you’re usually going bed,” says May.

With Daybreaker parties, you get all of that same energy. But after it’s over, you can actually put it to use because you have a whole day ahead of you.

It’s a simple idea and apparently one that’s appealing, given the crowd who came out this morning.

Midtown resident Sela Missirian says it because “it’s fun, it’s in the morning. It doesn’t involve staying up late at night when you’re boozing it up.”

And the fact that it’s right before work? Well, she was able to make it work this one time.

“You know, I just kind of put an out of the office meeting this morning and hoping no one notices,” she says.

Daybreaker now happens in nine different cities around the world, including New York, San Francisco and London.

Dale Grados, a masseuse in Poncey Highlands, says she read about the parties in other metro areas. And so when she heard it was coming to Atlanta, she wanted to finally try it out.

“I think people are just looking for something different, they’re wanting different alternatives to exercise to the typical gym,” she says. “You know community, also, a sense of community.”

That’s something that Daybreaker founders Matthew Brimer and Radha Agrawal say they had in mind when they started the party in New York in 2013.

“We were sort of commiserating about how dark nightlife had become and how much we wanted there to be a much more conscious experience that brought the community together as clubbing once used to do,” says Agrawal.

So they said, let’s get rid of the alcohol. That way, people can meet sober. And let’s make the party at 6 or 7 a.m. (The one in Atlanta today went from 7 to 10 a.m., starting with a yoga session).  When it’s in the morning, everyone who shows up has at least one thing in common – they woke up really early to dance.

“So everyone who comes is really committed to the experience of participating and being part of it and adding to it,” says Brimer.

With this intentionality (that’s the word all the Daybreaker people use) of this shared purpose, people might be able to get that sense of community they crave. You know, that real human connection in the age of online social networks.

“People tell us that it’s sometimes like a pseudo-religious experience, because it’s so wild and different,” says Brimer.

Nobody said anything quite like that this morning, but Atlanta is still a new market for Daybreaker. Today was just its second party. There will be more, the Daybreaker staff says. After all, they want this to be a global community.

And while Daybreaker might just sound like some crazy event for millennials, it doesn’t seem to be. Lisa Laskey, one of the people at the party, says there’s plenty of diversity.

“There’s children in here all the way up to 50 plus,” she says. “Everybody’s dancing and moving together and just coming together as people.”

As she says this, Laskey is actually on her way out. She has to leave the music and dancing a little early, so she has time to shower and get to work.