Pavilion East: Mixmag Asia takes Asia's underground to Amsterdam Dance Event

Following our Grassroots Rising talk with EMC on community radios last year, we're back at Amsterdam Dance Event and this time we're taking over a whole venue.

On Thursday, October 22, Mixmag Asia, in partnership with Clockenflap, Nowness Asia, SOOOP, Kaboom Animation Festival, and EMC, takes over Wanakam for Pavilion East.

It's a full day (and night) of roundtables, film, fashion, networking, Asian-inspired drinks, and DJ sets from the collectives, artists and builders helping shape Asia's scenes from the ground up.

Over the last few decades, Asia's moved from an emerging consumer market (on a global scale) to an active exporter of sound, visual culture and subculture, and we're bringing a few of these pockets to Amsterdam.

The screenings, panels, networking and DJ sets are woven throughout the day, with a little bit of something for everyone.

There will be four talks from leading industry folk.

Kicking them off at 1PM is David Zhou, co-founder of Eastern Margins, with a talk exploring the nuances, challenges & realities of platforming subcultural music from East & South-East Asia in Europe, through the lens of Eastern Margins, a company operating across events, management and label.

Read this next: Micro-movements: How Korea and Japan are merging into one dancefloor

Next up at 2PM will be Richard Price, co-founder of Seoul Community Radio. SCR turns 10 this year, so they're presenting "10 Years of Seoul Community Radio: An Underground Journey from Within Korea's Cultural Wave". The talk looks at the pivotal turning point when South Korea's cultural exports went from a regional Asian trend to a dominant force in the global mainstream.

Price tells the story of how SCR was formed as an alternative, platforming grassroots dance music for global audiences who only knew K-pop, and how those forces are now combining to elevate the next phase of Korean music worldwide.

Following on at 4PM, we've got long-time collaborator EMC with "Build to Last: The Sustainability of Diaspora Collectives". Diaspora collectives are usually held together by one or two people juggling everything on top of a full-time job, with little funding built for their shape.

This session looks at what it takes to keep a collective standing long term, exploring the realities of resourcing, succession, and burnout. It covers diaspora artists and organisers wherever they are: running scenes from within another country, based at home, or splitting time across both.

Read this next: Inside The Gathering 2025: exploring access, collaboration & sustainable music futures

Moderated by Shivani Sharma, speakers Jun Kim, Nazlican Eren, Rahul Murdeshwar and Elaine Zhao bring lived experience of sustaining diaspora-led music work wherever they've landed, and what the geography changes about what "identity" means.

Last but not least at 9PM, Indonesian techno heavyweight Ecilo and Dunia founder Gibs present "Ground-Level Architecture & Peripheries of Sound", in a panel discussion that centres on moving away from Asia as just a winter tour destination for Europeans, and toward real bilateral exchange. They address booking imbalances, visa frictions, agency dynamics, and creating sustainable long-term ties over hype tourism.

Three film blocks run through the day, led by Nowness Asia, with an animation programme co-curated by Dutch festival Kaboom Animation Festival and Hong Kong’s SOOOP.

From 3PM, Nowness Asia’s Day Films cover heritage, music and belonging across Asia and its diasporas. Highlights include 1300: Australia’s first K-rap crew, getting ready for the Sydney Opera House (We’re From Outer Space, dir. Jonathon Lim); Hong Kong’s Fire Dragon Dance seen through the eyes of a Tai Hang local (King of the Tail, dir. Ollie Rodgers and Gemma Harrad); and a dive into Indonesia’s noise scene (Bising: Noise and Experimental Music in Indonesia, dir. Adithya Utama).

Read this next: New music film ‘Lotus’ captures Gia Fu’s Canton Mambo in motion

At 7PM, the Kaboom x SOOOP animation screening focuses on music, performance and queer stories. It mixes emerging names like Junjie Dinggo Xu (Hide and Seek) and Jiwoo Kim (Cowman) with established directors Shishi Yamazaki (Kuru Kuru) and Wong Ping (Who’s the Daddy). SOOOP founder Sophie Colfer then joins Eddy Wu, director of the animated documentary Immature, for a Q&A.

At 8PM, Nowness Asia’s Night Films get stranger, with experimental shorts and fiction drawn from music and genderqueer subcultures. These include Taiwan’s neon-lit Electric Flower Cars (Rituals: 台灣寶貝 TAIWAN BABY, dir. Erica Kamano), Southeast Asian queer rave collective Bussy Temple (Scenes: Bussy Temple – ALTÆR, dir. Lucas Haynes and Zenon), and Spring Will Come (dir. Marion Hill), about a Saigon DJ and her girlfriend struggling to break up.

At 5PM, we'll have two hours of invite-only networking. Please get in touch to RSVP, and enjoy the drinks and sounds, soundtracked by Gibs and Dunia.

To wet your whistle, there's "The Golden Road"; a bespoke cocktail courtesy of Wanakam combining flavours of the Far East, South Asia and the Netherlands, with espresso, cardamom, yuzu, elderflower and more.

Read this next: Watch: ‘Enter the K-Bass’ panel puts Seoul’s scene in focus at SXSW London

Made in collaboration with Wanakam and Amsterdam-based South Asian label Maqsad, we've also got (very) limited edition t-shirts for sale.

To close out the night, we've got DJ sets from speakers, as well as a few friends from Mixmag Asia including Ling:Chi, Dunia and more.

12PM–1PM : Welcome Chai

1PM–2PM : David Zhou and Eastern Margins

2PM–3PM : 10 Years of Seoul Community Radio

3PM–4PM : Nowness Asia: Day Films

4PM–5PM : Kaboom Animation Festival x SOOOP: Animation Films

5PM–7PM : Mixmag Asia x EMC: The Gathering ADE Mixer

7PM–8PM : EMC presents: Build to Last: Sustainability of Diaspora Collectives

8PM–9PM : Nowness Asia: Night Films

9PM–10PM : Cross-Hemisphere Circuits with Gibs and Ecilo

10PM–Close : DJ sets

Henry Cooper is a Writer at Mixmag Asia. Follow him on Instagram.

Never miss a beat. Subscribe to our Scene Report newsletter or follow us on Instagram.