With disco lights and smoke machines, 2 DJs have Chéticamp dancing
'If you play the right song, it fills up pretty quick,' says DJ Etro
Stacey Creech's phone has been blowing up all week.
The DJ known as ViVi Diamond made quite the splash in Chéticamp at the end of March when she and her partner started live dance parties at L'abri café, restaurant et bar — complete with disco lights and smoke machines.
Now people want to know when it will happen again.
"Well, I don't want to brag, but I definitely heard on the dance floor numerous people saying this is the most fun they'd ever had in Chéticamp," said Geoffrey Gillstrom, who goes by DJ Etro.
The weekly event has attracted locals from Chéticamp and Margaree. Some partygoers make the drive from Sydney and even Halifax.
The two start DJing at 8 p.m. while guests are still eating dinner. By 9:30, the lights are dimmed and the music is turned up. Creech or Gillstrom will jump up and start dancing to get people to join in.
"If you play the right song, it fills up pretty quick," Gillstrom said.
As self-described "party DJs," the two play crowd-pleasers — top-40 hits from the '90s to now.
Back from a break
After growing up and DJing in Toronto, the two moved to Chéticamp in 2017. They dreamed of building a house and changing their lifestyle.
Five years later, Gillstrom wanted to get back into DJing.
"After telling ourselves we had to give it up to live here, it just started kind of building up and I was really missing that energy," he said.
He purchased some new DJ equipment last fall with the goal of playing for locals.
Creech said she was skeptical at first about throwing dance parties in Cape Breton.
But she spent a few months this winter in Beirut, which is known for its party scene. She returned to Cape Breton last month passionate about bringing some nightlife to their new home.
Unlikely spot
Jaron Felix is co-owner of L'abri. When he first opened the restaurant with Basil Doucet in the summer of 2019, they welcomed tourists from all over the world who spent their days exploring the Cabot Trail.
But COVID restrictions meant fewer visitors in the past two summers.
"We really wanted to kind of bring back that energy, bring back the atmosphere of just people coming together and socializing," Felix said. "People were really missing it. They're eager to start dancing again."
Amélie Jérôme is a visual artist who showed up for the dance party. "I felt so good. It was amazing. It felt really refreshing and [like] coming alive again," she said.
Jérôme said she hopes nightlife events like these will help draw younger people to live in the area year-round, noting that many employers in the area struggle to find seasonal workers in the primarily tourism and fishing community.
"It's a really great way to put this community back on the map."
