Ravers live an artistic and creative lifestyle.  That lifestyle includes many arts but there are a few that are specific to ravers and for many ravers those arts are as good as it gets.  Glow sticking gave way to lightshows utilizing led micro-lights, orbitals, and glove sets creating an art form

Ravers live an artistic and creative lifestyle.  That lifestyle includes many arts but there are a few that are specific to ravers and for many ravers those arts are as good as it gets.  Glow sticking gave way to lightshows utilizing led micro-lights, orbitals, and glove sets creating an art form unique to raving but raving also shares some arts with other musical cultures in America, all related to dancing in some way.  Pop & Lock, drifting, tutting, liquid, even the robot are all styles of dance shared between raving and other forms of music and each have evolved alongside electronic dance music.  Dj'ing has become extremely popular as an amateur pass time and Poi, a Maori art involving twirling a string or rope with a weight at the end, has been upgraded using led's and glow sticks. 

Dance styles like liquid and pop& lock may be shared with hip hop and other genres but ravers truly take things to the next level.  This is because the raver culture encourages dancing for hours on end whereas most musical cultures encourage less involvement in dancing than socializing.  Ravers consider dancing a part of their socializing and are more interested in dancing itself to begin with, so it is more common to see any of these styles actually being performed at a rave than any other style of party. 

Light shows however began with raving and have become extremely popular on their own.   The concept is simple; instead of moving your body to the music, or sometimes at the same time as moving your body to the music, the person moves the lights.  The result, whether a show using orbitals, glove sets, or led poi, is an entertaining experience full of color and light and music.  Even better for many ravers is the fact that these shows typically promote conversation and friendly social interaction.  Light shows are a great way to introduce oneself which likely adds to their popularity, as it is not uncommon to hear random strangers ask others if they would like a light show.  The necessity to be close to others to perform these shows and their over-all popularity makes light shows a personal and entertaining experience and that makes the styles of show evolve.  First there was glow sticking, than micro-lights were used, then came orbitals and poi, each focusing on a circular pattern of movement just in different ways, than glove sets which are a much more advanced set of tools for two handed shows which are similar to glow sticking like light shows using micro-lights.  Once knew toys are introduced the old concepts remain the same and to this day many ravers still use light sticks to give there light shows or dance by themselves. 

No report on raver art forms would be complete without mentioning dj'ing, the life blood of the raver world.  Dj's make the party possible by providing the music, yes, but the raver's artistic world revolves around that.  The concept behind dj'ing electronic dance music is simple to explain but very difficult to perform.  That concept is to make an entire set sound like one big ever changing song.  This is made more difficult by the fact that this monster track called a set must keep the audience's attention while simultaneously allowing them to zone out and enter a more social mindset.  In simplest terms dj'ing is difficult and in the rave scene highly respected as it should be.  Without djs there is no music and without music there is no dancing of any kind.  Kandi kids everywhere would have nothing to do with themselves. 

                The raver lifestyle is artistic and creative in its own rights.  However these arts are not created by the electronic dance music culture, they created it.  Dj'ing and dancing were just the beginning for the cultural phenomenon known as raving and it is expanding into lights, colors, sounds, arts, and styles of all things counter-culture.  Ravers are not artistic because raving is artistic, raving is creative because ravers are.