Cielo’s award-winning party Dance.Here.Now. does it again for a second consecutive year in a row for Best Party at the Club World Awards 2009. April in Cielo finds our award winning Deep Space and Roots nights celebrating their respective sixth and fifth anniversaries. Francois K’s weekly Monday Deep Space gathering is widely considered a New York institution by those in the know, and in April there’s four perfectly good reasons for you to become institutionalized by FK’s richly orchestrated soundscapes of the finest electronic music and enriched house grooves.  It’s not about the guests, although there is always an enviable list to compliment the esteemed beat merchant – April finds Philly’s King Britt sharing duties at their birthday bash on the 13th, and MKL offering support on the 27th. Similarly Louie Vega and Kevin Hedge’s Roots soiree marks five glorious Cielo years with five Wednesday nights to remember in April – including their birthday bash on the 15th. It’s all about house music, or so the song goes, and the respective disciples of the good groove kick things off on the 1st welcoming house legend Pal Joey.

Miami comes to Cielo on Thursday 2nd in the shape of special guest Oscar Gaetan, aka Oscar G, aka the man behind Funky Green Dogs, Liberty City, The Fog and Murk, to name just a few of his many aliases. Dance.Here.Now. presents the Cuban-American producer, who with partner Ralph Falcon, helped define an era and the sound of tribal house in the ‘90s. The toast of the American house underground during the last two decades, Oscar G enjoyed his greatest success as one half of the Murk boys, remixing such iconic pop stars as Madonna and The Pet Shop Boys, while as the Funky Green Dogs the duo score a trio of Billboard Dance #1’s with ‘Fired Up, ‘The Way’ and ‘Body’, earning countless praise and acclaim along the way. But the original OG’s true passion is DJing. In addition to his longstanding residence at Miami’s premier Club Space, he can regularly be found spinning in London, Ibiza, Tokyo and Sydney.

Playtime kicks off its fortnightly parties on Friday 3rd with Cielo resident Willie Graff joined by pioneering French producer D’julz. With a plethora of releases on such cutting edge dance as Ovum, 20/20 Vision, Music For Freaks, Serial, Honchos and Pokerflat, D’julz’s credentials also include remixing key releases for the likes of Layo & Bushwacka!, Celeda, Steve Poindexter and Magik Johnson. With a style that fuses the best of deep house, with techno sensibilities, and acid and funk undertones, the man named Julien Veniel first started DJing in 1992, playing at such seminal Parisian parties as Magic Garden, Respect and Scream. In ‘97, D’Julz started his own night Bass Culture at the infamous Rex Club - one that he still holds today – and is generally regarded one of the Paris’ most respected nights.

On Sunday 5th Dance.Here.Now. welcomes a modern day dance legend in the form of Austrian-New Yorker Peter Rauhofer. The Grammy Award winner, is also Madonna’s remixer du jour - he’s remixed no less then eight singles for the single mom including most recently ‘Miles Away’ and ‘Dance2Night’. The lauded producer, remixer, DJ and Star69 label owner, has spent the last 20-years establishing himself as a force to be reckoned with in an industry where many merely come and go. Thanks to his Midas touch he currently represents a solid part of the city’s electronic establishment and has been recognized by the global dance cognoscenti as a true heavyweight in his field. Musical, the man know for his trademark hard and driving sets, is sure to deliver another essential selection full of big room rockers, exclusive mixes, and classics along the way.

With his sophomore album nearing completion, Roman Böer, aka Tocadisco, headlines the Made Event on a very Good Friday on the 10th. Tocadisco – which is actually Spanish for record player - started his DJ career over a decade ago in his native Düsseldorf, Germany. Almost 15 years on he arrives in New York as part of a DJ world tour that includes dates in Australia, Brazil, Canada, Mexico, and just about every major city in Europe. Tocadisco’s music, be it as a producer or DJ, is a sonic pastiche of lite techno, burbling electro and dream inducing house. As with his artistic debut, ‘Solo’, he creates a slick and highly listenable oeuvre of rich textures, warm chords and electronic melodies that gel well, gliding freely without ever dipping in quality.

Mark Thursday 16th in your diary as Dance.Here.Now. presents two European heavyweights of dance: in the red corner from the UK, Chris Lake; while in the blue corner is Dutch superstar Laidback Luke. Globally recognized as one of the most exciting, forward thinking and cutting edge producers on the scene, rising star Chris Lake was once hailed by Pete Tong as the “best thing to come out of Scotland since Mylo”. Lake is currently promoting his new Nervous album, ‘Crazy’, featuring the Billboard Dance Airplay #1 ‘Carry Me Away’, ‘Changes’ and his latest hit, ‘If You Knew’. Meanwhile, Laidback Luke has become a good friend of the so-called Swedish Dance Mafia (along with fellow star Steve Angello, Sebastian Ingrosso and Eric Prydz), despite being born in the Philippines and of Dutch descent! Already in the upper half of DJ mag’s Top 100 DJ list last year, Luke’s energized DJ sets are a mix pure electronica-etched house with dancefloor satisfaction.

Friday 17th finds Dance Tracks, Brooklyn’s hippest on-line retail music store, hosting a night of the hottest new music in the city. Fresh from the Winter Music Conference in Miami, and no doubt armed with a wallet full of exclusive CDs, the trio of Dance Tracks revelers Martyn, Brendon Moeller (aka Beat Pharmacy) and IJ Catling will sculpt an eclectic soundtrack of dub-techno-rock-jazz-afro-psychedelica.

We could write reams and reams about the globe trotting antics of Roger Sanchez, but do we really need to? Thursday 23rd and Secret Soul Sessions at Cielo should be reason enough to attend. Generally regarded as one of the dance world’s leading DJs, an acclaimed artist, producer, remixer and label mogul, who’s Stealth imprint is widely recognized by Beatport as being one of their top sellers year-after-year. Having started life on the streets of Queens break dancing and making mix tapes, his own creative material eventual found an outlet with the likes of Strictly Rhythm, and later his own Narcotic and R*Senal labels. While as a remixer, at his peak (in the ‘90s) he was an ever present in the dance charts with production work for mainstream artists of the caliber of Michael and Janet Jackson, Soul II Soul, and Diana Ross. In 2003 his reworking of No Doubt’s ‘Hella Good’ bagged Sanchez a well-earned Grammy Award as the year’s Best Remix. Nuff said we think!

Playtime returns on Friday 24th with German duo Motorcity Soul joining Cielo’s very own Willie Graff on deck duties. Matthias Vogt and fellow Frankfurt resident, Christian Rindermann (aka C-Rock), are the masterminds behind the brand of melodic house music that has been in high demand during the current deep-house resurgence. While their releases have graced such über trendy labels as Freerange and Tsuba. Motorcity Soul’s lush beats overlaid with graceful strummed acoustic instrumentation, and washes of synthetic strings, embrace their funk-influenced past, whilst amalgamating contemporary electronica forces to the full.

April at Cielo rounds off with dance icon Junior Vasquez headlining Dance.Here.Now. for a Tommy Boy release party on Thursday 30th. For three decades Vasquez’s has been at the forefront of the New York club scene - from his seminal residencies at the Sound Factory, Tunnel and Twilo, to producing more Billboard Club Play #1 Dance hits than any other. Last year also marks the self-proclaimed diva’s 25th anniversary behind the decks. A hedonist night of full-on energy is on the menu.