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To find Headspace Circus (instagram.com/headspace.circus), a weekly hardcore electronic rave and art event with a clown theme, you must first enter the 104-year-old Chinese restaurant Republic Cafe. Every Tuesday, attendees who are down to clown can pass by the host table, where the owner greets walk-ins, and walk through the restaurant’s dining room and bar, Ming Lounge. Hidden by the restrooms is a door to a secret room, which is where the party begins.
“Yeah, it’s kind of crazy as hell,” says Kiyoki Moon, who helps throw the raves. “It’s pretty strange, but it’s really awesome and cool to be like, ‘Oh, it’s a Chinese restaurant.’ And then, ‘Oh, here’s this backroom where they’re doing a rave.’”
A friend once described a Headspace Circus event to me as a “genuinely Lynchian” experience. Each party has a theme, from cybergoth to Candyland to Dante’s Inferno—“We made it through all nine layers,” Moon says—with outfits, handmade décor and DJ sets to match.
Moon found the venue through Heather Ragonese, a bartender at Ming Lounge whom Moon met on the set of one of Ragonese’s indie movie shoots. The film was about a “clown-and-mime–type rivalry,” and after a long day of dragging mimes around on leashes, Moon landed on the idea of hosting clown-themed DJ sets in the historic restaurant.
“Honestly, I feel like clowning is a huge part of rebellion against this conformist society, especially right now; there’s so much push to conform and be this submissive person to this system, as a woman and in general,” Moon says. “I feel like being a clown is the opposite of that.”
See the rest of Willamette Week’s Best of Portland 2026 here!
