Quito-based DJ Silvia Ponce chats about her Estereo Picnic Festival debut, making a name for herself in the DJ circuit and the discipline guiding her career.
Women DJs worldwide have been making strides for representation in the last couple of decades. From a greater presence in industry rankings to larger proportions of female acts booked at music festivals, women’s prowess in the electronic dance music (EDM) scene continues to grow year by year—albeit not without challenges and with a persisting gender gap.
Quito-based DJ Silvia Ponce is one of the acts shaping the EDM landscape in South America and setting the stage for women DJs in Ecuador. On March 21, Ponce made history at Colombia’s largest music festival, Estereo Picnic, becoming the first Ecuadorian woman to perform at the three-day event.
On her debut at Estereo Picnic
Just two weeks before her debut at Estereo Picnic, Ponce heard she’d be performing in the 7 p.m. slot at the Paramo stage, where British DJ TEED, Austrian electronic duo HVOB and indie band Arcade Fire stood just hours later. She was thrilled.
“I was initially told I’d be on stage around 4 p.m. I know the festival and I know there aren’t too many people at that time in the electronic tents,” she tells No Manners. Learning she’d be performing at night on a relatively large stage at one of the most prestigious music events in Latin America was a welcome surprise—though admittedly, Ponce was still “digesting the news” on the eve of her performance at the iconic Simon Bolivar Park in Bogotá.
Curating lineups featuring global A-listers and emerging acts from the region, Estereo Picnic has had its fair share of boundary-pushing moments since its inception in 2010. However, booking an Ecuadorian female act was unprecedented at the festival.
This year, Ponce’s presence flipped the script.
Ponce, who got her start as a DJ in Quito, credits Colombia for welcoming her with open arms throughout her career. A testament to that consistent support, she says, is that she was booked to participate in one of the country’s most coveted festivals.
“I’m not a huge DJ. I’m not someone who’s going to sell thousands of tickets. But regardless, they thought about giving me a chance, giving visibility to Ecuador and working at a more regional level,” says Ponce. “They are always making room for projects that are growing, for names that are taking off, and that’s something incredibly valuable.”
While the invitation was a major milestone for Ponce and the Ecuadorian music industry—sporadically represented at the Colombian festival over the years—the DJ is in no way a newcomer to the EDM and live-performance circuit.
With more than a decade in the industry, Ponce is one of Ecuador’s most notable women DJs
As Ponce puts it, her love for music runs in her blood. In fact, she can trace it back to her childhood and teenage years. As a child, she grew up soaking up her father’s love for jazz and disco. As a teen, she’d visit CD stores and seize control of the music at parties. “I was a bit of that friend taking over the iPod, as if trying to control the situation,” she recalls with a laugh.
Ponce carried this passion for music well into her adulthood, learning to deejay in a local café with Joaquin Cornejo, one of Quito’s most prominent names in the biz. She was the only woman in the predominantly male group—an experience women DJs aren’t entirely foreign to, as, according to 2019 data, women only made up from 7 to 10% of the DJs worldwide.
Far from discouraging her from pursuing deejaying as an occupation, the experience was a stepping stone for Ponce. Self-described as “exigent and perfectionist,” she has now established a flourishing career that thrives on Ponce’s balance and discipline. “This is a career that requires not just love for music, but time, preparation and access to equipment,” she tells No Manners.
“If you want to be a DJ, you have to take it seriously, work hard, be disciplined and study. It comes with a lot of things, you know? So I think work—not just in this career path, but in everything in life—starts with yourself. Talent without discipline, without work, without networking, without being kind and without talking to people doesn’t suffice.”
“Work—not just in this career path, but in everything in life—starts with yourself. Talent without discipline, without work, without networking, without being kind and without talking to people doesn’t suffice.”
— Silvia Ponce
On balance and discipline
With discipline as a guiding principle, Ponce splits her time between DJing at night and running a yoga studio by day. As she explains, the key to thriving in both fields is self-care. “When you work at night and move around in these environments, which are quite energetically intense, you have to balance them,” she says.
Her way of balancing her lifestyle is resting, eating healthy and working out. “I have a yoga studio, so from Monday to Friday, my job requires me to exercise, breathe, and meditate. And that creates balance. So I know that, for example, on Monday I have to teach classes, so I can’t be exhausted. That means taking care of myself, so I come back to the same word: discipline.”
As the dance music landscape continues to grow exponentially post-pandemic, part of that discipline also implies removing stigma around the craft. “It’s important to remember that [DJing] is a job. You work at parties, but you’re still working,” says Ponce. “As a woman and with the electronic music world being slightly closed off, if someone is giving me an opportunity, paying me, giving me a stage, how can I let them down? I mean, I can’t show up looking a mess or making a scene.”
Aligned with that mindset, Ponce delivered a standout set on her Estereo Picnic debut. Her show combined house, acid and techno, among other genres, reinforcing Ponce’s status as a versatile, genre-spanning selector with enough range and technique to put anyone to dance.
Author’s note: This article was originally published on March 24, 10 am.
