Fierceness in the public eye

I’ve been obsessed with the figure of “the diva” and her position within black popular music for awhile now.  Been really preoccupied with her role in the house performance complex as the often unremarked explosive ingredient in much of dance/club music.  But this moment is issuing a new era for the diva — in drag — and most often of color as African American or Latino.  What is the power of today’s “camp of color”? What are our current iterations of “fierceness”?  Beyonce’s I Am…Sasha Fierce, Leyomi and Vogue Evolution’s recent turn (and at least for the moment, adulation) on ABDC, the underground viral following of underground ballroom battles via YouTube.  What’s up with the rising value of fierceness and who has the authority to perform it? The intersecting vectors of queerness, race and mass media are creating some strange combinations in public culture.  I will keep these happenings in view as I tease out how divadom, camp of color, fierceness, sexuality and house/disco suggest a potent mix.  Micah, would love to hear your thoughts….

Brothers & Sisters Oakland

I had an amazing night out on Thursday at a free house weekly in Oakland called Brothers and Sisters.The party has been running for about five years (at least this is what my friend Natanya tells me) and it is a hotbed for old and young heads alike. We got there at about 10:30pm/11:00pm and had about thirty or forty five minutes alone on the small upstairs dancefloor before being joined by a diverse crew of true house heads. There are two primary ways that heads interacted with the DJ at Brothers and Sisters, in addition to the arm pumping and ecstatic dancing that reflected approval and the diminished adherence to footwork hitting on small inner rhythms (a visible drop in intensity) when the set ebbed: Vocal call outs and malismas were used by heads to participate in the mix, as were handclap choruses in which one person, inspired, would instigate a rhythm on an eight bar count before being joined by others who add their own complementary rhythms. For my part, I always like to practice my precision, so I would typically add sixteenth note rhythms within the established clapping chorus, and though I felt no inhibitions, I didn’t have the urge to add a lyrical vocal part to the mix. I was, however, moved to exhort the DJ with other verbal call outs.

Another facet of the “sermon/service” at  Brothers and Sisters is ritual practice of using baby powder. The powder is brought out and sprinkled ceremoniously in a corner where devotees can dip their soles (souls?) and experience the joy of freewheeling spins and slides. I was especially relieved to see the BP come out because my trainers were having a bad reaction with the faux gym floors of the venue and I was feeling self conscious about the excessive squeakiness I was contributing to the mix.

Skeleton & Structure II. (Meida’s analysis)

House that Jack Built

This revised beginning of the work continues the idea of a prelude that I have used in all versions so far.  It has always been about a concern with grasping and representing an overarching image and feeling of house’s ethos – spirituality, vitality, excess, play, a bit of aggressiveness, a bit of vulnerability, a sense of history and longevity.  The solo is an opening prayer.  It is a libation whose intention is to honor key aspects of house’s foundations as a social movement catalyzed by black gay boys (and other alternative youth) who were seeking safe spaces to express themselves, to affirm their own lives through performance.  Yet, it also draws upon a sense of what I want to generally term as a “black church aesthetic,” which is reflected in the cadence of the track accompanying Mark’s movement and of a certain defiance and spirit reflected in the solo. I also chose this track because of its history as a “classic track” of house – tying house to its own genealogy of musical production beyond its precursory influences of disco, blues, gospel, funk, etc.  Mark’s body quite literally signifies as black/gay/young.  Less obviously, he moves through a series of sculptural poses, shifting spiritual references (Jesus on the cross, Oshun in her mirror, Natraj, or dancing Shiva) that are indications of house’s flexibility to incorporate multiple influences. These are integrated with Mark’s own responses to an assignment I gave them to build an avatar or alter ego. Mark wanted to bring in the motif of a black fraternity/sorority “signature stroll” and so we used this idea to build a simple sequence wherein he moves back and forth between movement qualities that are often typed as hyper-feminine (primping, shimmying, integrated hips and snake-like sensuousness) and hyper-masculine (warrior-like, assertive and aggressive locomotion through space on the diagonal, pelvis accents).  Yet, because of its “queeniness,” the clarity of gender gets muddy, and the solo becomes like a strobe light of gender signing flickering and flitting outside of prescribed meanings.

Starchildren

This section is camp, fun, pleasure.  It is references to Solid Gold and disco.  In a series of tableaus, it signifies images of an eccentric community in the making – a family portrait, warriors coming out to play, a voguing machine.  Yet, it also attempts to lace the work with more of the dancers’ own movement experiences infusing a sense of freestyle that is common to house and to other contemporary social vernaculars, especially in “club” contexts.  Even though I encouraged them to play and to find their own ways to embody/express choreography throughout the work, I wanted there to be a space that was just about this sense of improvisation, this sense of them bringing something of their own movement styles to a cipher.  Interestingly, even this movement became more or less set – but their interactions with one another in the revolving cipher did change slightly from performance to performance.  Throughout this section, I tried to play with increasing and decreasing the volume on the stage. Thus, there is a lot of expanding and filling up the space following by tight huddles of movement. The last third of the section works the idea of community through the ideas of a folk circle dance motif and polyrhythm.  Physically, they are tied together, codependent through these structures.

My People

This segue returns me to an image of a spiritual army, a congregation who gathers and then dissipates under the banner of house.  The heaviness of the beat dropping, the dragging tempo and spacey cadence (in a very Funkadelic way) of the Kendricks tune reminds me of altered time, almost trance-like.  But, it also has the feel of a somber ritual.  While this track might not be what many folks associate with house, it is for me part of a continuum of music history in Chicago that chains together house with funk, soul and disco (According to a little light snooping on Wikipedia, Kendricks’ 1972 album People…Hold On was a hit in the burgeoning disco scene and was popular at NYC’s pre-house era spot The Loft).  That deep feeling in his voice is what I wanted to match simply through the pairing of Michele and Lindsay. Their duet is the mutual support and intimacy of community echoed by both house’s social ethics and Kendricks’ voice.

Comfort

From an insider’s perspective, watching Lindsay transform over the duration of this solo’s development became one of the most powerful moments in the piece for me.  Lindsay’s “performance” is an excellent illustration of house as a consciousness and way of feeling, rather than just being defined by musical genre or a set of steps.  It was first performed as a trio.  The 08 version of Comfort was based on an image of three muses; it pulled from the regal goddess otherworldly archetype that wafts through a lot of the disco/funk material associated with Chicago house.  At that time, I wanted to make that aspect of “divine goddess” explicit (see earlier post on diva discourses). But in the updated version I wanted to temper that with a lot of the sadness that also permeates the disco/funk ethos. As a solo, the performance was much more about a woman desiring escape or wanting her life to be something more than what she actually existed as.  While she starts in this darker, sadder place, I imagine that she becomes this goddess, diva self through her performance.  It is the performance that enables her, that heals her so by the end she is strong, commanding space and free to access and delight in her own pleasure. A very grown up solo that I think Lindsay really grew into.  I remember the night of rehearsal when whatever needed to click for her did; she let go of being timid, of hiding on stage and really opened up and owned her body and that space.  On a meta level, this solo taps into a characteristic of house that is all about imagining, pretending in the space of club performance. And I must clarify here and say that I think often when we think about social dance or club performance we associate it  with “escape” but I think that is too strong a word and ignores the self-consciousness that I think is present even when one is performing/pretending on the dance floor.  In my experience, folks are often fully engaged with whatever life issues/pain they are dealing with outside the club experience and in a way they are meditating on these pressures by dancing them out – finding a way to articulate with their bodies all the crap they carry with them in everyday life.  In a sense, the dance floor is like the therapist’s couch; sweat and physical exertion are surrogates for speaking.

Urban Waltz

This is also the second version of this section of the work. I decided to change the music.  The 08 version used Erykah Badu’s I stay woke and it worked really well.  Definitely, it conveyed the sense of dignity that I was after.  But it wasn’t house or disco enough.  I wanted to maintain this image of a dignified people (or a people asserting their humanity) while amping up the dreamlike qualities and edge of campiness that emerge in house/disco. Dignity is embodied as sparse vocabulary and simple but constantly switching partner variations. Also, there is a lot of play with space (foregrounding and backgrounding movement, circles, expanding and tightening clusters).  I wanted to see the individuals, but also very clearly see a community. This section is meant to embody that part of house that is lush, romantic, and sometimes just a solid dose of syrupy sweetness.  Like it’s right on the verge of being corny or over the top but in the right measure it is innocent, playful, calm and joyful to watch.  Like the Badu, the Dr. Buzzard’s track (Sunshowers) has a nice sense of musicality and this is definitely one of the things I am rethinking as I investigate house as an aesthetic and movement practice.  There are so many dancemakers now that aren’t really concerned with musicality. I am fascinated with the potential conversations between music and movement.  One does not have to be subsumed under the other.  They can talk. They can play with the tension sometimes produced between them and certainly they can create new patterns of rhythm in their interaction.

Queen

Karina’s solo is the segue from Urban Waltz leading us into the Queen duet.  It is an implicit question: Who and what defines femininity on the cultural politics of the dance floor? Or perhaps that is too neatly asked.  Perhaps the question is more inclusive: How many different kinds of coded gender roles exist in club performance?  How do the participants of club/dance space often challenge while playing with existing gender narratives?  The gospel inflection and cadence of the track accompanies and extends Karina’s character.  It is a complementary relationship. Whereas the track delights in a spilling over of language, Karina’s movement  is slow and sustained.  She is an archetype of feminine strength, poise and sensuousness. She controls the space/dancefloor.  She summons your gaze and directs it.

Then music shifts. Mark enters and the performance of gender(s) shifts with it.

First performed in 2008 as a duet between two men where the question seemed to be more about the boundaries between masculinity and femininity and how these read through performances of challenge, competition and community, the question in this version of the duet – now, between female and male – seems to become, “Who makes a better queen?”  And a pandora’s box opens forth about what “queen-iness” itself signifies and who has the right to portray it.

What I think I’d like to continue to expand on and develop with this duet is the crisp sharpness of vogue-style lines and the contrast of a more liquid partnering. But, what I think works best about it is the constant shifting in their relationship between performance as competition and performance as community.  That presence and spark between them is spot on.

Gayelle (sparring space)

Jake begins with a solo, the movement building off his b-boy roots. Michele slinks across the stage, a cat ready to pounce. Like other solos interspersed throughout the work, I wanted to use these brief moments to allow the performers space to really draw on their own “club” vocabularies and movement preferences. This, in my mind, honors a central characteristic of house aesthetics.  More important than mastery of a codified set of steps is the ability of a dancer to bring his/her individual style to the performing space.

In the simplest terms, this section is a girl meets boy and gets it on clubstyle story. This section is an expression of sensuality and sexuality within a club context – what two bodies in relation mean in the environment of club – altered senses, proximity, from soft touch to aggression. It is also another expression of the “community” so central to house. As I noted in the first version of the duet:

“This duet is both a giving into and a battle/competition between potential lovers. The title for this section is a Trinidadian term. The gayelle is where one shows one’s skills before his/her community. Traditionally, it was the stick fighting space – where two competitors literally battled with sticks in front of a crowd trying to bust each other’s head and draw blood. The gayelle circle and the Chicago dance floor/club are spaces to use the body to blur the lines between the sensual, the sexual, the sacred and to catalyze/cement the making of community and relationships. The competition here – as a gayelle – is a challenge that aims to make bodies stronger rather than destroying them (which is often I think what people feel is happening to them in our day-to-day experiences, problems, trials, issues). I wanted to translate this gayelle idea to a house community. The duet contains valences of love, attachment to/investment in a community, and a kind of meeting of kindred spirits (i.e. dancing with someone who understands what house is without having to articulate it; it i enough to embody it).”

In the first version, I was missing the softness and vulnerability – the sexy tension – that is often part of that initial encounter in club space.  In our creative process for the revised duet, we mapped out what stages/phases of attraction and built the duet out of those phases: 1) eye contact; 2) vulnerability/guard down; 3) synchronicity; 4) intoxication (pleasure); and 5) lose track of time. Likewise, the duet goes from soft and tentative to wild and aggressive.  One of the things I have always loved about house is its ability to make one let go, be uninhibited, and express freely.  The S&M vibe of the second half of the duet aims to approach some of that.

Fierce

Though this section changed with the addition of a male performer instead of three women, I think my first analysis still applies so I quite it mostly in full below.  However, I make note that Mark’s addition to the trio adds a new dimension to interpret. We come again to an image of divaness and to references of drag pageantry. Mark’s presence brings the subtext: a question of who exactly is authorized to portray convincing and acceptable performance of fierceness, divaness, queenliness, womanness as well as a question about who gets to experience desire, longing and a lover’s lament in a certain kind of way.

“This final trio is yet another tribute to disco divas and black feminisms. However, Fierce adds another dimension or layer by playing with the over the top embellishment of drag performance. An an ethnographer and choreographer, I am inclined to draw upon the cultural references within my field of perception/vision. Seeing similarities between the gender play I have experienced as part of the Chicago house scene and the current vogue femme/ballroom scene, I wanted to enlist this cultural frame as a way to embody/elaborate on a technique of fierceness, which I define as a simultaneous masking and vulnerability, the ability to be both raw and impenetrable, a skill set that enables one to survive the stresses of the daily world and to maintain vitality/passion through performance (i.e., performance as mask and performance as affirmation of life). Performance enables these women to both veil and deveil.

They are a cycle or a progression of womens’ experiences with love. There are moments of strength, composure and impenetrability in concert with vulnerability, pain, a feeling of being discarded/abandoned. There is extreme equilibrium in concert with forceful attack. Each solo – stately and regal in quality – relies on centripetal force evidenced in phrases built on sustained balances and turns that require inner core strength. In terms of stage persona, they wear poker faces. And it is their collective range of body vocabulary that emphasizes or belies this mask of poise. In each sequence they go from sculpted to thrashing, from carving ethereal lines with their limbs to deploying arms and legs as arrow-like appendages. They embody torch singer, disco diva, and drag performer/vogue femme queen, laying emotions bare through their bodies. And while their faces are still/masked, there is attitude in their head action. I’m riffing on gestures I know as part of an African American (and wider black diasporic) female experience: neck rollin,’ hands akimbo on hips, flipping hands – all are subtle weapons of disregard, gestures I would include in the technique of fierceness.”

Gather Children

The end of the piece returns us to Chicago house’s core ideas and attributes – There But For the Grace of God…Spirit is always present.  Praise is an affirmation of life.  To address one’s pain and not run from it is a godly performance.  Lindsay’s solo set to the a capella gospel cadence is a reminder that we are of this world but also connected to some other cosmic consciousness and space.  That music, voice, and the body are tools to cope and survive with. They are also tools to transform pain into productive building. These are all recurring ideas seen, heard and felt in funk, in blues, in gospel and so they manifest again in disco and house.  Indeed, the greatest potential power of Chicago disco and house is its consistent work – through performance – reasserting levels of humanity and dignity to bodies who often get disenfranchised and disconnected from these very same concepts. The end section builds in volume from solo to group on the waves of “The Way,”  a quiet and meditative house track.  The song surrounds the community dancing to it like a final hug. Written by Osunlade under the moniker Ebbo – which is a ritual gift or offering in Yoruba – this final track reinforces the presence of ancient spirituality in modern house.  In the end, it is community and love that are house’s strongest assets.  That is why breath, bodies, and the communal hand clap are the ending overtures as “Give Thanks” fades to black. When a genuine house community materializes, whether as a one off set or as a long time event (e.g. the legendary days of Music Box, Warehouse, etc.) it is a powerful force to be present within.

Skeleton and Structure

The House That Jack Built from Micah Salkind on Vimeo.

“The House That Jack Built” is very much a call to arms for House music’s acolytes. The lyrics call to mind the story of the creation of the universe. With a prophetic verve, a booming gospel inflected cadence and timing fit for the pulpit, Chuck Roberts’ “In The Beginning” was originally recorded in 1987 for the track “Our House” by Rhythm Control but solidified as a canonic House a cappella by Larry Heard/Mr. Fingers’ in the 1988 track “Can You Feel It.” Clocking in at just over 1.5 minutes in length, this anthemic vocal codifies some of House cultures’ fundamental tenets: the importance of individual acts of creative expression (“I am the creator and this is my house”); collective creative expression (“once you enter my house,  it then becomes our House music”); the embodied experience of House consciousness (“House is a feeling that no one can understand really unless you’re deep into the vibe of House”); and the anti-racist philosophy behind House community (“Jack is the one that can bring nations and nations of all Jackers together under one house! You may be black, you may be white, you may be Jew or Gentile. It don’t make a difference in our house.”) Roberts locates the divine power of House music in a creator named “Jack,” who gives House’s practitioners their other-worldly powers to do such dances as “the wiggly worm” and “the snake.” This track has been a staple in sets by House DJs since its recording and functions much like a mantra or a call to prayer, exhorting House bodies to the dance floor.

Starchildren from Micah Salkind on Vimeo.

Roland Clark’s “God Is Good” fit perfectly as the intro to “Starchildren” because it begins with a chunky percussion loop with little melodic underpinning and builds through the twin assault of a rolicking Disco sample and a filtered, gospel-laden vocal. The dancers are able to enter into their freestyle movements without the heaviness of an already fired-up piece of music behind them. When they finish their intro freestyles, “Can I Get A Witness (Mouse T Remix)” by Ann Nesby begins to mix slowly in while “God Is Good” fades out. Immediately the hard and funky bass slap that characterizes this Gospel-House stomper pushes the dancers to release into more expansive motion, leaving behind the quiet modesty of the freestyle session. The machine-like, staccato body-movements are made crisper in relief against the minimal, up-beats voiced by digitalized hi-hats. Bearing witness to transcendent dance/embodied joy is an important part of House ethos/consciousness and this music is an aural accompaniment to this expression. During the song’s breakdown (at about the 7:50 mark)  the choreography similarly breaks down into new collective movements and a climax where ideas fuse and phrases break down only to get re-examined in new formations.

My People from Micah Salkind on Vimeo.

“My People … Hold On,” originally released by former Temptation Eddie Kendricks in 1972, nods to the meditative, plaintive side of House consciousness. The care which the dancers give each other’s bodies is mirrored by the labored breath and repetitive drone of Kendricks’ Soul-era poetry. They find each other, kindred spirits, in the darkness and quietly emerge as a unified and conscious force of feminine strength. One of House’s greatest capacities is to hold the traumatized (the abused, the dispossessed, those cast out by society) in a strong embrace. This happens through a mediation of the music and movement within the loving community and requires a commitment to the possibility of transcendental love from both House heads and the DJ. The lyrics, highly spiritual, call on both the lions and lambs in society to lay down their arms and come together in peace:

The lord god said, love me one another
Who ever does the will of the father, is my brother
The hawk must fall, let the dove fly high
Hold on to love, let its light be your guide

Kendricks 1972

Comfort from Micah Salkind on Vimeo.

Comfort begins with the pulsating, Disco drone of Aeroplane’s mix of “Williams’ Blood” by Grace Jones. Jones epitomizes the House Diva – assured and independent, her lyrics call to mind her connection to her mother’s father, traveling with blues men, in contrast to her own father’s ascetic background as a religious leader. This song is a single from Jones’ newest album; it seemed a fitting intro to this solo piece where a young woman sets out to explore the boundaries of her world, and defy them. The chorus breaks through like a ray of sunshine, Jones invoking the matrilineal creative force that lives in her veins.

In the final minute of “Comfort,” Jones’ brave alto fades into José González’ sun-drenched baritone. The image needed to fade on a resolution, a major-key with finger snaps, something uplifting and optimistic after the ambivalence of Jones’ piece. González ponders:

What’s the point
if you hate, die and kill for love.
What’s the point with a love that
makes you hate and kill for.

González 2007

Urban Waltz from Micah Salkind on Vimeo.

“Urban Waltz,” set to the dulcet tones of Dr Buzzards’ Original Savannah Band’s seminal 1976 single “Sunshowers,” is replete with vibraphone, piano stabs, thunder and non-verbal as well as verbal harmonies (some sung by what sound like children). This track is pure summer picnic, with syrupy strings and a moderate 118 bpm courtesy of a four by four tambourine and what sound like West African djun djun drums. These percussive elements hold up the mixed female/male vocals and the melodic cadence, also augmented by a slide guitar, which ads a tropical, Polynesian texture to the track. The dancers’ movements are lyrical and loosely bound to the loping rhythm; as the track fades its apparent that they can boogie with or without music accompanying them.

Queen from Micah Salkind on Vimeo.

The intro to “Queen” is an a cappella version of London Residents & Roland Clark’s “Valley of House.” The lyrics are straight church, with Clark substituting the well-known Psalm 23:4 (and so on) from the King James Bible:

Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.

Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies: thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over.

Psalk 23:4/23:5, King James Bible

Clark substitutes the following text:

Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of house, I fear no groove:for thou DJ is with me; and they kick, and thy bass, they comfort me

He preparest the dance floor for me in the presence of my friends: and he has anointed my head with classics, like “Dr. Love” and “Flowers.”

Surely this funky music shall follow me all the days of my life, and I shall dwell in the house of this music.

When the record is weak, he restores the soul. He maketh me get down on the dance floor and prove. He leads me besides the speaker and makes me move.

So yea, though I walk through the valley of house, I come to you with my hands in air, jumping for joy, screaming and shouting, shouting and screaming. And I know everything’s gonna be alright.

If you believe, than touch somebody. If you believe, then grab somebody. And reach up, and reach up, and reach up, and reach up, and reach up …

A simple vocal works in tandem with the movement of the soloists body to  highlight the moment in the dance when collectivity melts away into an individual sense of spiritual communion between dancer and DJ. Beats, strings, horn stabs all fade and the dancer’s eyes close – its as if the DJ and she are sharing a sacrament. She brings an offering and he is sated. Perhaps her gift to him liberates her to enter the cipher, and battle for her queendom (the dancefloor) in a femme vogue faceoff.

The Isolee mix of “Cardiology” by Recloose was not the first piece that the dancers tried to work with here, but once they heard it, it was obvious that it fit the mood and the movements they were executing. The beat is roughly 125 bpm, the sweet spot where the dancers can both sweat it out, and maintain their momentum – in other words, neither a zenith nor a nadir in the energy of a set.

“Cardiology,” written by Detroit-based producer Matt “DJ Bubblicious” Chicoine, features a vocal by Rayce Biggs that is gender-ambiguous, playful and raw. And the exhortations, “keep on moving” and “heart beater,” along with moans, laughs, grunts, falsetto scatting, and breathy vocal percussion, ground a queeny aesthetic that is much more butch than the femme solo at the intro, even though the music hardly facilitates a release from a state of gender ambiguity.

The rhythm is a jumble of punchy snaps, reversed turntable scratches, steady kick drum and four to the floor rim shots. At times it almost sounds as if a rain stick is being tilted slowly on its side. It all undergirds a brite sampled sax and synth pads until the breakdown, which introduces an acid bass element that winds around the haunted falsetto of the vocalist. A tinkling piano jumps in after the breakdown, which softens the final moments of the sparring session considerably.

The vocal, beat and melody lines of the Recloose track all refuse to resolve themselves; they are neither wholly organic, synthetic, masculine nor feminine. It was important to have a soundscape here that reinforced the sense of play, and refusal of binaries, happening in the choreography. The punchiness of the reverse turntable sweeps also gave the dancers a rhythmic direction to lean towards, if not always land, while duckwalking and round-housing across the stage.

Gayelle (Sparring Space) from Micah Salkind on Vimeo.

“7am Drop,” by Andy Cato, fits the mood of the solo movement at the top of Gayelle perfectly. It’s moody, and a bit hesitant, masculine without being harsh. The title references the track that gets played at the end of the night. This straightforward emotionally vulnerable sound can greet the day, and accommodate transition from a space held by the male soloist to one shared by two dancers.

There is a clean break rather than a mixed transition to the Pilooski mix of “Bloodstream,” a song performed by the band Stateless. Piano drives this movement rather than drums or strings; in this way it is an experimental area between the melodic, individually articulated sweetness of “7am Drop” and the strident synchronicity acid of “Video Clash” by Lil’ Louis, the piece which concludes Gayelle.

“Bloodstream” is an atypical House track; the vocal is by a white man, there is a sort of rumbling, staccato timpani or kettle drum sound that rides the song throughout and layers of added percussion seem to ebb and flow rather than build upon each other linearly to a climax. Distorted radio effects and other atonal samples build with the energy of the dancers who seem to be experimenting with collaboration and power, testing the potential for synchronicity through a series of experiment. The lyrics, which describe a lover entering getting into one’s bloodstream, aptly characterize the unsteady courtship.

The sparring space erupts with a more explosive tenor of conflict and contrition in Gayelle’s final movement, which is tracked to “Video Clash.” The lighting design, in concert with the pounding, aggressive music, supports the unison movements that dominate here. The piece is one part total release in submission, and one part ecstatic domination. Its as S&M as House gets.

Fierce from Micah Salkind on Vimeo.

Jill Scott’s “My Love,” remixed by Jason B, is unambiguously deep and cyclical. The lyrics of the chorus call to mind a classic boast, but in the context of  a Deep House lament. Scott is nostalgic for a lover that has moved on, and confident that his new partner can be what she was to him:

My love is deeper
Tighter
Sweeter
Higher
Flyer
Didn’t you know this,
Or didn’t you notice?

“My Love” references the House music root; Black, sexy, spiritual, languid, expressive, and open. Replete with West African(ized) percussive elements, subtle rhodes keyboard, and Scott’s understated alto, the vibe of the piece isn’t necessarily fierce. The fierceness comes from a quiet place of control and confidence. It is not about fighting for love, but about self-love and grace – The fierce goddess speaks a detachment from her lover, but honors the desire he feels for her, and her own love for him.

Jill Scott’s “My Love,” remixed by Jason B, is unambiguously deep and cyclical. The lyrics of the chorus call to mind a classic boast, but in the context of  a Deep House lament. Scott is nostalgic for a lover that has moved on, and confident that his new partner can be what she was to him:My love is deeperTighterSweeterHigherFlyerDidn’t you know this,Or didn’t you notice?
“My Love” references the House music root; Black, sexy, spiritual, languid, expressive, and open. Replete with West African(ized) percussive elements, subtle rhodes keyboard, and Scott’s understated alto, the vibe of the piece isn’t necessarily fierce. The fierceness comes from a quiet place of control and confidence. It is not about fighting for love, but about self-love and grace – The fierce goddess speaks a detachment from her lover, but honors the desire he feels for her, and her own love for him.

Gather Children (Coda) from Micah Salkind on Vimeo.

Beginning with the sermon, and the solo dancer struggling to find her bearing, Gather Children (Coda) builds to a duet which then fades into a final group formation held together with the beat of the company’s hand-claps. The final musical cue, “The Way” by Ebbo, emerges organically from the claps, waves rolling over the beach; shimmering Disco pulsing under a current of beats. The song is one of those joints that the DJ will put on to give people a break, but the true heads dip in and out, unable to refuse the challenge of finding a line of movement or creative expression in the subtle, less banging part of the set. “The Way” eventually fades into surf and claps/exhalations. The breath breaks the ritual, and ends the piece.

Diva discourses

Queen, excerpt from Give Thanks (2009)

To me, this image suggests the slippage between queer theory and black feminist discourses.  The “diva” is invoked in variation – as femme fatale, as drag, as camp, as blues woman. It calls up a question that continues to perplex me: In house, who is the “diva”? Is s/he gendered? Is s/he fantastical? Is s/he derived from lived experience?  Is s/he glam? Is s/he tortured?  Is s/he male or female?  I have to admit there is a part of me that (fiercely) claims the diva for women of color, but then I also recognize clearly that diva-ness is a characteristic used by queer positionalities too.  So, how is divaness to be defined?  Who has the right to claim and activate her performance in public?

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Working through “diva” concept via the poetic:

Flowers & Arrows (If disco were a lady)

© Meida Teresa McNeal

Moving pictures of three muses
Mother/Siren/Warrior
On a dancefloor
Or embedded in 70′s-80′s vinyl
Ethereal
Zeus’ daughters
Laughing on their own island
Away
Away
Away
Lazy sun loving
Goddesses
Disco ladies of their own imagined
St. Tropez
Venus/Oshun/Aphrodite/Oya/Athena/Isis
as Labelle
as Alicia Myers
as Stephanie Mills
and Loleatta Holloway
Proprietors of their own oasis
Exporters of luxurious reveries
A dream-place
To produce comfort
Where lightness and weight coexist
Where dreaming
Is both soft and direct
Smooth and accented
Flowers & arrows
Dripping, dropping and fierce

__________________

Divascaling

© Meida Teresa McNeal

ragged
jagged
supreme orchestration of emotion
jumbled mass of ripped & rippling chords
buoyant with pain
scaling rhythm & tone
sinuous sound
full bodied
She reminds me of home
my sweet
& bittersweet
cocoon
lift me up lady
you know i like it rough

House as a certain kind of “soulfulness”

Reading John L. Jackson’s blog this morning. His entry analyzed John Legend’s commencement speech at UPenn last week.  The discussion of the topic of soul made me think about house.

House is defined by a soulfulness that is fleeting – only comes in sparks and blasts and waves

…ephemeral, invoking a sense of nostalgia and longing, a desire for that perfect moment of community and/or of raw openness, of freeing up and letting go (this I think I access in the work through the use of tableaus – creating moving images that are visual archetypes I associate with house – The jook joint painting at the end of the Good Times opening credits, episodes of Solid Gold, the Emerald City stroll sequence of the Wiz, etc.)

…and permanent, found in the backbone core characteristics that define house as an ethos and way of feeling with others…and as a certain kind of resilience and perserverence to both survive and affirm acts of life/living channeled through performance.  House is epic memory of a collective, and in particular, though not exclusively, black experience.

DanceCult – a new journal

Thinking we might want to submit to this journal and this particular section. Maybe frame our analysis as a conversation where we analyze both the music and performance of staging/setting the work.  Thinking the structure could follow the form of analysis I did of the 2008 version of the piece on my wiki.  We could format the discussion around the 9 images – calling up sound, context, theory, etc. and could add media alongside the theorized narrative/dialogue.

Section Policies for DanceCult: From the floor
“From the floor” hosts shorter peer-reviewed pieces. These include field reports, mini-ethnographies, and interviews. Pieces for this section should be from 1000-3000 words in length. Rather than written in the style of an article with formal analysis and many citations, FF pieces will be more conversational and creative. They may include substantive multimedia components. The emphasis is on ethnography, style and creativity.

Editors
Eliot Bates, University of Maryland
Graham St John, University of Regina, Canada