INSIGHT 03
Heléna Star on
The Ritual of the Dance Floor, Silence & Motherhood
The DJ and broadcaster reflects on finding a slower rhythm in a culture of speed
When Heléna Star talks about music, she doesn’t describe it as an industry. Instead, she speaks about it like something alive — something discovered, nurtured and returned to over time. Her relationship with sound began early, shaped by curiosity and instinct rather than strategy.
That instinct has guided her through more than a decade in the industry — from early radio shows to club sets across Europe. But recently, her relationship with music has begun to shift. Motherhood, silence and time away from constant nightlife have opened a new way of listening.
FROM THE GROUND UP
“I’ve been in music for almost 15 years,” she says. “I started when I was 16. I was never academic — I was always arty in some way. I just loved music without really knowing what that meant.” Before DJing entered her life, she was the person at the party with the iPod — the self-appointed selector who controlled the playlist simply because she cared the most about what was playing. Music was always present at home. Her mum kept it on constantly and would take her along to parties growing up, so it was never something distant or aspirational. It was simply part of everyday life.
It was also her mum – who had ties to Kane FM, a radio station in Guildford – who suggested she ask for work experience. At sixteen she suddenly found herself waking at 5am, walking to the station and hosting the 7–9am breakfast slot before college. “I was like, oh my gosh — I’m a radio presenter,” she remembers.
At that point she wasn’t mixing yet. She was simply pressing play and talking over tracks, learning how to speak, how to hold attention, how to build a mood across a set of songs. Eventually someone at the station told her, gently but honestly, that if she wanted to call herself a DJ she should probably learn how to blend records together. So she did. The learning process was informal and instinctive. She uploaded tracks straight onto a USB without formatting them — no waveforms, no BPM analysis, nothing to guide the technical side. At one early club gig in Leeds a more experienced DJ watched her and laughed, telling her she was making things unnecessarily difficult for herself. She probably was. But she was also figuring things out in her own way.
ONE SEED AT A TIME
Moving to London at eighteen didn’t bring instant momentum. For two years she emailed stations and promoters, sending mixes out into the void and rarely hearing anything back. It was a period defined by persistence rather than recognition. Then one day she noticed an Instagram page announcing the launch of Foundation FM. “Great,” she laughs now, remembering the moment. “Another station to harass.” She sent an email introducing herself and offering to help. When someone dropped out during the station’s launch week, she stepped in to cover the show and they kept her on afterwards.
Radio gave her visibility, and with that came bookings. Still, she resists the idea of having “made it”. The path has never felt linear or complete. “It’s been a long journey,” she says. “I still feel like I’m evolving.” The early years of DJing were full of experimentation, mistakes and instinctive decisions. There was no clear roadmap, just curiosity and a desire to keep learning.
"When you are someone who loves music, you’re gonna search for it."
Even now, when asked how she discovers new music, she struggles to explain the process in practical terms. “When you are someone who loves music, you’re gonna search for it,” she says. Platforms like Bandcamp, Tracksource and YouTube are tools she uses, but the real decision happens much faster. “It’s just a feeling,” she says. Within twenty seconds of hearing a track she usually knows whether it belongs in her world or not. Years of listening have refined that instinct. Selection has become less about searching and more about recognising something when it appears. “It’s a bit of magic really.”
TLC
Becoming a mother, she says, “changed everything. It cracks open your world.” The first eighteen months were defined by exhaustion. She didn’t sleep through a single night during that time, yet she returned to DJing four months after giving birth — a decision she laughs about now with a mix of disbelief and honesty. “Such a bad idea,” she says. “I would never do that again.” Like many freelancers, maternity leave wasn’t an option, so she attempted to continue life as it had been before: late nights in clubs, broken sleep and early mornings with a baby who rarely rested. “It sends you a little bit loopy,” she admits.
"At first the silence was deafening."
The contrast between those worlds was stark. One moment she might be standing in a dark, intense club environment, and the next she would be back at home with a newborn. Eight weeks after he was born she moved from East London to Richmond, and the shift in atmosphere was immediate. For someone used to constant movement and noise, the quietness of the area felt overwhelming. “At first the silence was deafening,” she says.
Gradually, that silence began to reveal something else. Walking through parks with her son each morning, she found herself paying attention to sounds she had rarely noticed. Before motherhood she rarely went anywhere without music playing in her ears, but now both hands were occupied and her attention needed to be elsewhere. The absence of music began to transform into something else entirely. She started noticing things she had previously tuned out — “There’s something really special about just listening to the rain pouring, to birds singing, just your footsteps and your breath,” she says. “It’s amazing. It’s the best thing ever.”
Living near Kew Gardens, these walks became a daily ritual. What once felt like silence slowly became something more expansive: space. And within that space, her relationship with music began to shift.
DANCE OF THE FLOWERS
The first change happened at home. Mornings became filled with different sounds — ambient music, classical compositions, jazz records, often without lyrics. She noticed immediately how her son responded to it. During breakfast he would sometimes sit quietly for twenty minutes, completely absorbed, barely speaking. “He’ll just be locked in,” she says.
Music without lyrics, she believes, leaves room for imagination. Instead of being told what a song means, the listener creates their own narrative around it. Similar to abstract art, when meaning isn’t prescribed, the experience becomes more immersive.
That way of thinking gradually filtered into her DJ sets as well. During pregnancy and early motherhood she naturally gravitated toward slower, more soulful records. It wasn’t a strategic decision or an attempt to follow trends — it simply reflected how she felt at the time. “I couldn’t go super hard and fast,” she says. “That’s not where I was at.”
After lockdown, dance floors across Europe began accelerating again. Many scenes leaned into harder, faster sounds, and she experimented with that energy for a while. But it never quite sat comfortably with her. “It didn’t feel good for me,” she says simply. Eventually she returned to the sounds that had always grounded her: classic house, soul, funk and groove. “I started playing really for me and it felt good,” she says. “And people responded to it.”
Behind the decks she still prepares the opening tracks of a set, but after that the direction unfolds instinctively. “It’s push and pull,” she explains. Ease people in, reach a peak, then pull the energy back before building it again. The sets she enjoys most — both playing and experiencing — are the ones that allow people to move physically while also drifting into thought. At its best, the dance floor becomes something deeper than entertainment. “It’s very primal, very ritualistic,” she says.
MUSICAL HARVEST
Motherhood has also sharpened her sense of boundaries. She finds herself thinking more carefully about the spaces she enters and the environments she contributes to. Some scenes now feel too intense, too male-dominated, or too closely tied to heavy drinking and drug culture. “I was like, this isn’t where I want to be right now,” she says.
“The dance floor is like church. It’s a connector for us all.”
Instead she has begun accepting bookings based on a simple personal test: would she want to attend the event as a dancer herself? If the answer is no, she questions why she would play there. Community matters more to her now, and the experience of going out has taken on a slightly different meaning.
Despite those changes, the dance floor still holds deep importance in her life. “It’s like church. It’s a connector for us all” she says. She isn’t religious, but she recognises the sense of collective transcendence that music can create. Gospel choirs move her in the same way a perfectly timed club set can — that moment when a group of strangers suddenly shares the same emotional wavelength.
She is also aware of the history behind those spaces. Dance music grew from Black and queer communities that built clubs as places of refuge, expression and collective joy. For her, the dance floor still carries something of that ritual energy. “You go out and you feel lighter,” she says. “Like you’ve exercised some demons.”
Music, she adds without hesitation, is medicine. “It’s very important for me to go out and dance,” she explains. “Because I come back and I’m a better parent after. It’s a release, it’s connecting with others, it’s feeling that freedom to be yourself.”
In a world where music is often consumed passively — streamed endlessly and quickly replaced — she has become more deliberate about how she listens. Even the simple act of walking without headphones now has meaning. The silence creates contrast, so that when music returns, it matters more.
ETERNAL GREEN
If one idea defines her outlook now, it is longevity. Earlier in her career she set goals for herself and worked steadily toward them. When she eventually achieved those milestones, she experienced the realisation that reaching a goal doesn’t necessarily provide the sense of completion you expect. “You go, okay — what’s next?” she says.
Over time the idea of a fixed end point began to feel less important. She still values ambition, but rigid five-year plans no longer hold the same appeal. “Goals are great,” she says, “but they aren’t my focus.” Her son now sits at the centre of her life, and everything else has to exist alongside that reality.
She doesn’t know whether she will still be DJing at the same scale thirty years from now, but she knows she will remain connected to music. Recently she has felt drawn back toward conversation and storytelling — interviewing artists, hosting discussions and returning to the kind of broadcasting that first introduced her to the industry.
At home she sometimes plays videos of Stevie Wonder for her son, who watches them with fascination. For his birthday she bought him a harmonica. He also has a pair of wooden toy DJ decks and treats them with surprising seriousness. Maybe he will become a DJ one day. Maybe he’ll play rugby instead. Maybe something else entirely.
“It doesn’t matter,” she says. “Having a child is like nurturing a garden, you have to prune, water, feed - you have to change things with each season. I just feel very honoured to be his gardener.”
The metaphor isn’t just poetic. It reflects how she sees life now. Growth takes time. What matters most is creating the conditions for something to flourish.
SONIC SEED
Before we finished our conversation, Heléna shared a song she hopes readers will listen to after closing this page. A small seed to carry the ideas of this conversation forward:
Minnie Riperton – Come to My Garden
MORE ABOUT HELÉNA STAR
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