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Feb 1 08 / Riff on house
RIFF #1:House is ripe to be explored, theorized, documented in a nuanced way – House is a manifestation of local/global cultural politics, as discourses of gender/sexuality, race/ethnicity, class, communities of belonging, as an embodied dialectic of the sacred and profane, of US puritanical respectability and a counter-resistance of slackness, sexuality, of a critical utopia, a place to imagine/witness the body theorized as power, knowledge, labor, meaning, code, action and as a historical narrative of continued discrimination, disenfranchisement, disempowerment, displacement.
This is the story of a regional movement gone global. A story about migration, pain, milk & honey dreams, release, using rhythms to prepare for the next day. Of recharging through sweat. Of a dance syntax that theorizes a contemporary condition and an epic historical one. Of an urban folk form that edifies and strengthens, nourishes and nurtures…All this and more is house….Event, lifestyle, consciousness…
House is…
Nostalgia
Rememory
Yearning
Community
Ideals and ruptures
“I have a dream” embodied politics (thanks for pointing this out Abo)
A generational shift
Vernacular practice
Continuum of black cultural expression
Embodied knowledge
Blues, drum/percussion/heartbeat
Call & response
Polyrhythm
Working class/grassroots
Postmodern, sophisticated urbanity
Posing/Becoming other than you are/Performance
This past December I went home for the holidays after moving away just five months ago. Where is home? Well, I love my new home. Quiet, my sanctuary, and a comfortable space where I am at ease raising my son. But, is it the home of my belonging, where (as Trinis would say) I bury my navel string, where I feel a strong roots connection, where I stoke a desire to plant even stronger foundations? Naw…That will always be Chi-town.Chicago is a big city with a jook joint feel. House echoes that. Not just music, house is a feeling, a way of making style, and most pressing to articulate - the reason why I even attempt this blog - a mode of consciousness, a way of thinking and being in the world.
This is the story of a regional movement gone global. A story about migration, pain, milk & honey dreams, release, using rhythms to prepare for the next day. Of recharging through sweat. Of a dance syntax that theorizes a contemporary condition and an epic historical one. Of an urban folk form that edifies and strengthens, nourishes and nurtures…All this and more is house….Event, lifestyle, consciousness…
House is…
Nostalgia
Rememory
Yearning
Community
Ideals and ruptures
“I have a dream” embodied politics (thanks for pointing this out Abo)
A generational shift
Vernacular practice
Continuum of black cultural expression
Embodied knowledge
Blues, drum/percussion/heartbeat
Call & response
Polyrhythm
Working class/grassroots
Postmodern, sophisticated urbanity
Posing/Becoming other than you are/Performance
This past December I went home for the holidays after moving away just five months ago. Where is home? Well, I love my new home. Quiet, my sanctuary, and a comfortable space where I am at ease raising my son. But, is it the home of my belonging, where (as Trinis would say) I bury my navel string, where I feel a strong roots connection, where I stoke a desire to plant even stronger foundations? Naw…That will always be Chi-town.Chicago is a big city with a jook joint feel. House echoes that. Not just music, house is a feeling, a way of making style, and most pressing to articulate - the reason why I even attempt this blog - a mode of consciousness, a way of thinking and being in the world.
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