ROTTERDAM:ON A SATURDAY night, I'm more likely to be reading children's bedtime stories than throwing shapes on the dance floor.

However, when I heard about the opening-night party at Rotterdam's Watt, the world's first venue to use the patented "Sustainable Dance Club" (SDC) concept, I was tempted to get back into the groove. SDC is a collaboration between the green-entrepreneur consultancy Enviu, architect Doll-Atelier voor Bouwkunst and Prof Han Brezet of the Delft University of Technology. Watt's star attraction, the 60sq m "energy-generating" dance floor, is based on an electro-magnetic generator and cost €200,000 to develop. In simple terms, the more people dance, the more power is generated, illuminating light-emitting diodes in the floor tiles.

Inside the 2,000-capacity club, the first green clubbers are hanging out in the relaxed roof garden and snacking at the ground floor cafe. When the first of the night's DJs takes to the booth to spin a set of rumbling techno and electronica, the clubbers flock to the dance floor with a resulting explosion of LEDs illuminating the sweat-tinged darkness.

I try exploring the club's other green features: an organic beer in a recycled plastic cup at the minimal-waste bar, a leak in the rainwater-flushed toilets and people-watching from the recycled furniture in the gallery. Finally, it's time to take to the dancefloor - to a soundtrack of Euro-trance.

I may not have been the best dancer out there, nor the worst, but the LED lights flashed appreciatively at my contribution to the power surge.