Dyke-onic DJ Sveta

“I’ve been really feeling the crowd, building and building to this moment and I’ve just thrown in something I’m a bit scared to play,” she says. “The headliner is a tribal house DJ so I’m risking that I might get in trouble for playing outside what is expected.”

She’s just dropped DJ Misjah and Tim’s acid techno tune Access and for nearly three tense minutes it’s just four-to-the-floor drums, high strings and a one-note primal synth on the first beat of each bar. Then it reaches the break. Almost silence. She knows what’s coming next but will the dancers come with her?

The drums disappear, leaving thrusting synths and a vocal exclaiming a lusty ‘ohhhhh’, exquisitely, teasingly promising a peak. Bubbles of acid expand and rise up, up, up… then: “I’m looking over the dancefloor of a packed-to-the-rafters Horden Pavillion when everything kicks in — then the energy from the dancers hits me like a huge wave. I think, ‘I’ve unleashed something in them and it’s enormous’,” she smiles.

“Every time I play I aim for people to feel that kind of intensity, that high. I’m always sober, so for me, because I’m not affected by alcohol or anything it’s like I tune into the vibe of the crowd. What will bring everyone home? Maybe it’s an over-sensitivity — maybe it’s part of my ADHD —I know people connect emotionally in those quiet moments in music too. You can’t feel the high without the quiet first.”

Before she was out and loud DJing at iconic queer parties — including playing more Mardi Gras and Sleaze Ball parties than any other DJ — baby queer Sveta was obsessed with artists like David Bowie, the New Romantics, Sylvester and Annie Lennox. Androgynous. Fierce. Sensual. Queer too. Or at least, queer-coded.

“I found myself in their music, their looks: all the feelings I was feeling were reflected before I had my own words.”

Idyllically, just as she reached adulthood, house music arrived in Sydney and started powering a sexual-social-political nighttime revolution, with the Horden Pavillion its thumping, juicy heart. She explains this music started the same way as disco, coming from black, Latino, queer people expressing how they feel, then other people connecting with those feelings. A lot of walls came down at the early house mass gatherings because of it: “Listening to a great house song like [Inner City’s] Good Life: ‘Let me take you to a place I know you wanna go … Love is shining, life is thriving, in the good life’, you can feel the soul in it,” says Sveta.

“People of all sexualities being excited to see each other, coming to dance together with so much positivity, hope and unity. When I experienced it, it just exploded in me — I felt all of it — and I also started getting excited about being with queer people,” she says. “I remember at my first Sleaze Ball walking into the Dome, seeing all these people in leather, dancing, kissing and literally having sex to the music and I’m like, ‘What’s this? I want to learn more!’ That party changed my life.”

In turn, one of the big reasons Sveta’s DJ sets spark so many beautiful feelings for other people is because she’s hyper aware the audience comes first — whether she’s playing for radio, fashion runways, theatre, ballrooms, clubs or dance parties.

“It really is a privilege to be part of people’s significant experiences. That’s what really counts: those memorable, warm moments when it’s like a conversation with audiences,” she says. “I’ve connected with so many people across every gender, sexuality and age group who’ve shared how they met on dancefloors while I was playing, proposed on another dancefloor I was DJing years later and now they’re married — some have invited me to DJ their weddings too. I love that this happens. It’s very meaningful.”

Another big reason she’s so successful at connecting with audiences is she’s genre-diverse. Never stuck in one groove.
“What excites me about DJing still, is feeling what the audience is feeling. I take risks mixing genres a lot — sometimes to criticism from my peers, as opposed to the people on the dance floor,” she admits. “I do it because I just know if a track has a musicality that’s really doing it for me, makes me feel excited, I have faith it’ll move other people too. I never take it for granted, so seeing this excitement and elation come out on the dancefloor, it’s wild! When we’re genuinely in this shared headspace, we’re all coming out of it super happy.”