Meet Terre Thaemlitz, the transgender clubland renegade who wants to take house music back to its near-forgotten queer roots
Go to any big house night today and theres a fair chance that youll come away with the image of muscle lads in plunging vest tops, students selfie-ing in front of the speakers, and a million Disclosure remixes imprinted on your hangover. As the genre continues to commodify itself faster than you can say Duke Dumont, these events can often feel tediously hetero and geezered out, a million miles away from house musics roots in queer club culture, when clubs were spaces for activism and social change as well as escapism.
Thats the bone that transgender DJ and producer Terre Thaemlitz has to pick with todays house music boom. It seems that the queer factor of todays house events is really low, she says. If youre in the US and its a straight, white club then its just a fucking nightmare. These events are the celebration grounds for heteronormativity. There is a historic connection between queerness and deep house, and also things like transgenderism and vogue, that, to me, was really important and its utterly absent. Its not just about the music having broader appeal, either: It has to do with this cultural shift away from the necessity to actually have clubs function as safe spaces for different types of sexual enactment.
Continue reading...
by Kate Hutchinson via Electronic music | The Guardian
No comments:
Post a Comment