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Music

Electric Forces: America's Vets and The Healing Power of Festival Culture

THUMP, Electric Forest & Madison House Presents teamed up with a group of our nation's veterans and electronic music lovers to create a place for the sharing of stories.

What do music festivals, dance music, and America's veterans all have in common? This summer, they all came together with Electric Forces, a service and culture program that made its debut at the Electric Forest festival in Rothbury, Michigan. Presented by THUMP, Electric Forest and Madison House Presents, Electric Forces continues the narrative first highlighted last year on THUMP. The initiative focuses on electronic music and the festival experience's cathartic power while creating a place for music lovers from all walks of life to share their stories about how music and festivals have made their lives profoundly better.

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In June, THUMP returned to Michigan armed with a camera crew to document the festival and also the stories of vets and other festival goers. The festival itself had set up a booth called the Human Avatar Project where anybody could enter to record their own personal story about why Electric Forest and the festival experience meant so much to them. Included in this group were a new crew of veterans joining those we met last year.

Our hope with this project is that people within and outside of the dance music world could re-affirm what we know to be true: Music is more than just a way to be entertained. It can be a powerful force that heals and redeems us while bringing us together with a community we needed but didn't even know was there.

Check out our coverage from Electric Forest 2014:
Electric Forest 2014 Recap: Anything is Possible
I Went Totem Hunting at Electric Forest