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as the lights rise
after the dance, each face is wiped clean of sweat...
Throughout discourses on
House
Music, the primary focus is situated within
the realm and world of the DJ. Powerful and potent with the ability to
control numerous bodies simultaneously, the DJ is a source of joy and
admiration to the children of house. But there is yet another image, another
icon, another enigma: the
House
Diva. The diva in house music and other transgressive dance music texts vocally articulates the subliminal desires,
unrealized ecstasies, and hopeful yearnings of house enthusiasts worldwide.
'Diva Delight' is a subjective mediation mixed with personal thoughts and
abstract speculations on house music and house divas. From a profound love
of the music, this project centers the diva through the performative
cultural practice called house.
There are many informative websites and diverse forms of documentation on
house music and club culture. Diva Delight wishes to enter
these dialogues with an emphasis on the theoretical and analytical
configurations of this music and culture. The
Diva Delight website
grew out of a growing interest in the creative technologies of computers and
the cyber realm, democratizing voices, notions of otherness, diasporic
travels, media activism and a generous curiosity. It is an interactive part
of research on ethnographic methodologies, cultural capital, industries, and
economies, queer theory, critical race and gender studies, cultural
expressivities and modes of identification through distinct music
texts. Although house music and club culture enjoys diverse audiences around
in the world, a primary focus of Diva Delight
is placed upon the assumed racialized and so-called
'non-normative' sexualities and genders in the
historical formation and subsequent relationships of particular communities
to house music and club cultures.
Diva Delight expresses gratitude to the many friends, mentors, and
colleagues in various political, social, cultural, and academic environments
that forward the growth of house enthusiasts in the classroom,
out in the community and on the dancefloor.
In addition to dance music divas, the alias and personae of
Diva
Delight's Princess TamTam pays homage to the classic divas of the
Harlem Renaissance by utilizing the appellation of the chanteuse in
Josephine Baker's 1935 French film 'Princess Tam Tam.'
Princess TamTam merely strives
to be a writer and documentarian on house music and culture
through the tool of 'Diva Delight.' One
who attempts to textually present a visual of clubbing experiences
by the deployment of a fluid
narration. A disguise of so-called first and third person, persons, things.
A flexible variant of the 'i', the 'we', the 'she', and the 'it'. Unabashedly
subjective and candidly frank most times,
this tool is informed by
her own lived experiences,
and selfishly, with no affinities to parlay to
or entertain. In
essence, her declarations are one of many personal
and worded narratives of house music, a primarily audible culture
experienced and heard within the spatial context of the club.
The author forewarns
site visitors
about
the particulars of her partiality in
musics, scenes and cultures. Hence, the perception
of her words is simply a personal communicatory
expression and style to creatively and consciously grow and learn through
and with music. Given this framework, 'house'
is more than
the technicalities of musical
configurations for Princess TamTam. It becomes the people,
her interaction with them, the vibe of the club,
dancefloor chatter, attire, the dj, the divas, the dancers, and more.
If readers will have her,
Princess TamTam hopes
to present to you a chance to experience it
through her words and lens.
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