Lift Your Feet — Exploring fusions of jazz & soul on the dancefloor

Time to Lift Your Feet!

A party built around jazz and soulful sounds, Lift Your Feet started out as a small DIY idea and has now grown into one of the most exciting independent nights of the North. The team focuses on exploring where soulful dance music has come from, where it’s heading, and everything in between.

They’ve brought their parties to venues across Leeds and York, including Wharf Chambers and Hyde Park Book Club, while also taking their sound to radio platforms like NTS and Alto.

The collective is made up of founders and DJs Jono, Harry, Tash, Gab and Danie, alongside a wider group of friends and collaborators. Over the past few years, they’ve built a reputation for welcoming dancefloors where strangers quickly become friends.

We caught up with the team to chat about how it all started and the importance of independent nights, and why spaces like this still matter.

“We realised there was a gap”

The idea for Lift Your Feet came from a pretty simple place really, the team wanted to hear more of a certain kind of music in their hometown. Harry explains that he and Jono had already been a part of the York music scene for a while.

“Me and Jono have been DJ friends for a while through the York scene. We’d always felt there was a real gap in York for a club night focusing on more soulful and jazz-rooted music — eventually, we decided to give it a go.”

The Leeds side came through Harry’s connection with Tash, who he met through Alto radio.

“We found quite quickly we were musical siblings” he says, “Once we presented our idea to Tash, she came on-board, and Lift Your Feet was born!”

Harry talks about their first parties in York, “We never thought we’d be throwing DIY parties”. Their first party was held at a dance studio behind York Railway Institute — a 100 year old sports club.

“Jono suddenly came up with the idea […] thankfully, the director of the club was equally enthused about our mad plan.”

And that DIY energy has stayed with them, as they bring their own bar to their shows, sound system and security.

“It’s all mad,” Harry laughs. “But we love doing it.” He specifically mentions “Jonny and Rob (for lending us your lovely sound-system to get us started in York), Holding Patterns in Leeds (where we’ve been playing every Thursday night since they started) and all the DJs who have played for us over the years”

Eventually, their party became a community and for Gab, that was the moment Lift Your Feet really changed.

“I think it crept up on us, honestly. There’s a moment at our parties where you look around the room and realise you’re seeing the same faces coming back, event after event — and that’s when it clicks. These aren’t just punters — they’re our people”

They’ve recently started building more connections outside of the parties too, by making a Whatsapp group where people can chat between events to keep the community going. The same goes for their approach to inclusivity. It’s not something they see as a separate thing they have to add on as it’s already a part of their culture.

“A good dance-floor doesn’t care who you are and neither do we.” Gab says, “Soulful, jazz-rooted dance music has always been for everybody”. The aim of their nights is simple really, make sure anyone walking in feels like they belong there.

Lift Your Feet’s connection with MAP Charity is another part of what makes the night feel bigger than just a club event. Harry says they’ve respected the work of MAP for years, especially through seeing Cosmic Slop parties and how the organisation supports young people through creative projects.

“Watching it evolve, seeing the key work it does for community support through creative arts, meeting the people who work for the charity…I think it’s fair to say it’s now an integral Leeds institute”

The parties become a way to bring people together while also giving something back.

“To have a great party is one thing, but to do it and raise money for MAP is super rewarding.”

Though, keeping an independent night alive right now comes with its own set of challenges. Harry says that timing wasn’t exactly on their side.

“We picked a truly terrible time to start a party post-COVID pandemic.”

And the effects of the pandemic on hospitality and nightlife are still obvious, especially for small promoters trying to compete in a difficult landscape.

“The hospitality industry was absolutely shot.”

For Lift Your Feet, one of the hardest things has been simply getting people to know they exist, but three years in they’re still here, which says something. People clearly want these spaces to dance and hear something different, but above all, people want to feel part of something.

So what comes next? The future for Lift Your Feet is about growing without losing the reason why it started.

“We’re excited to see how far Lift Your Feet can go while staying true to what got us here in the first place.” says Gabriel. They’re interested in taking the party to new places and continuing to build their community, but their goal remains pretty grounded.

“We just want to keep making the kind of nights we’d want to go to ourselves.”

And honestly, that’s probably why it’s worked. Because Lift Your Feet is just a group of people who love music, creating the kind of night they wished already existed. And three years later, it feels less like a project and more like a community to anyone who walks through the door.

Catch Lift Your Feet at Belgrave over the August bank holiday weekend. Get yourself down for a boogie! And to leave you with some wise words from Harry: “Because going out for a boogie is amazing.”

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