Lights flash and scantily clad women gyrate around me. The DJ cranks up X-rated obscenity-filled R&B and pop music, and the crowd goes wild, screaming along to the familiar lines of classic hits.

The music is so loud I can hear the beat thumping inside my skull, my mind slipping into the valley beyond dull headache towards the pleasant blankness of zero spatial awareness. It leaves conversation redundant, relegating communication to the body language of exaggerated gestures, laughs and wild head rolls.

Behind closed doors ... a scene from SBS drama 'On The Ropes'.

But no-one is here for conversation. It’s dance time. Bodies are swaying in the dark, warm with sweat and losing themselves in the heady dream haze of music.

A familiar face emerges from the blur of bodies. Sanya* rolls towards me, a wild look in her eyes, screaming with glee as she recognises the beat of American rapper Lil John. She shoots her arm in the air as she yells in time to the music: “To the window, to the wall!”