New York, Frankfurt and Ibiza were once the glamorous names on the international club circuit. Today, Hans Nieswandt’s DJ itinerary includes some very different locations: Ankara, Alexandria, Kiev, Saint Petersburg, Rio, Cairo, Beirut, Vilnius and even Ramallah on the West Bank. Are there discos in Ramallah? Who dee-jays? What kind of music do they play? Is it even legal? Asking himself these questions, Hans Nieswandt accepted an invitation from the Goethe Institute to travel to the Near East and act as ambassador" for German electronic music. He knew he wasn’t going to find the usual party scene there, but the desire for one, he discovered, was far stronger than in any other city. Change of location: Odessa, the Ukraine. An animated crowd surges towards the DJ’s platform. Right in front of Hans Nieswandt, a young man jumps up and down and cries out again and again: »Germany, Germany!« It is at moments like this that Hans Nieswandt feels out of place. He has always considered techno and house to be global dance music. In “plus minus acht”, Nieswandt explained what’s important when you’re behind the turntables. Now we have Disko Ramallah, a delightful study of youth and music in a globalised world.
