Disco and the Queering of the Dance Floor

Feeling at one: Socio-affective distribution, vibe, and dance-music consciousness

“…This raver's reflection resonates well with ethnographers' accounts of dance music cultures, and many of the emerging themes in these accounts-collective emotions, unity, distributed energy, vibe, and altered states of consciousnessappear frequently in cultural and sociological studies. Such studies focus largely on how these experiences relate to identity politics (Fikentscher 2000;Lawrence 2011;Rief 2011), youth culture (Thornton 1995), and political resistance-or the lack of it (Gilbert and Pearson 1999;Jordan 1995). To complement these studies, this chapter takes a phenomenological approach to dancing, clubbing, and raving as a form of embodied consciousness, and considers how the neurofunctional architecture of the brain might contribute to such modes of consciousness.…”

The Wiz Redux; or, Why Queer Black Feminist Spectatorship and Politically Engaged Popular Entertainment Continue to Matter

“…Obeying, he immediately "drops to his knees, groveling" (57). She then makes him kiss her foul-smelling boot and declares: "It's so good to be a liberated woman" (57). While Lord High Underling's response to her body odor is likely meant to elicit laughter from audiences, her statement, coupled with her appearance and masculine behavior also provides a warning against the dangers of feminism.…”

“…She also displays her contempt for black male agency by ordering (the once-powerful) Lord High Underling to speak to her only while on his knees. Obeying, he immediately "drops to his knees, groveling" (57). She then makes him kiss her foul-smelling boot and declares: "It's so good to be a liberated woman" (57).…”

“…56 Originally a subversive social dance, disco allowed queer dancers in the early 1970s to circumvent New York State law, which forbid male-male dancing. 57 The cultural historian Tim Lawrence reminds us, however, that by the late seventies, disco spaces were co-opted by party organizers who formed groups based on restrictive concepts of identity. "De facto white-only male gay venues" secured the "self-anointed 'A-list' crowd," leaving lesbians and minorities mostly excluded from elite New York dance culture.…”

DJ Mini and Montreal’s Vulgar Dance Music

“…While running the night for just over seven years (2002)(2003)(2004)(2005)(2006)(2007)(2008)(2009), Drouin acted as a DJ, entrepreneur, music producer, cultural broker, promoter, graphic designer and mentor, all of which form the necessary skill set for building and maintaining a successful professional DJ career, whether locally or internationally. By way of detailing the career of DJ Mini, this text attempts to add to the queer musical narratives currently emerging from music scene analyses (Whiteley and Rycenga 2006;Taylor 2008Taylor , 2009Taylor , 2010Lawrence 2011), for, as Jodie Taylor argues, the queer subject "is largely forgotten in subcultural and popular music studies " (2012: 153). While negotiating some of the key DIY dilemmas of current independent music culture, such as balancing the entrepreneurial aspects of maintaining a career with the more creative dimensions of music production and performing, Drouin's rather rapid rise to prominence in Montreal's electroclash scene involved working within various informal queer social networks spread throughout the circuits of the city.…”