Boys on the Dancefloor
in six parts
Part I
I saw you looking for me on the dancefloor but something took over me to not reach in, and say I am here. I wanted you to look for me more.
You machete your way through the crowd.
I watched you from the back of the room —you,
swallowed by men you call brothers or lovers; and I washed in neon.[1]
Part II
Sprinkles said, “House isn’t so much as a sound as a situation.”[2]
“Well,” he said, “fuck Sprinkles.”
“I just want to get fucked
by the music.”
We take in this situation. Add to it. Vary it. Update it, freshen it. Add an accent, a move, in time. The moment will pass on to the next no matter what you do. The rhythm machines exceed us. They’re relentless. They’ve displaced what was once called history. There’s space between the beats, though, still to be.[3]
Part III
Gay boys in overpriced cropped tank tops—
Maiden China [mād ɪnˈʧaɪnə];
lips protesting—see me, see us.
Their eyes cruise near the door,
always looking to escape [4]
or dangers inches away.
Get Your Hands Off My Man! [5]
Unsex me here, I wish
I wasn’t biological, a machine sticky
as marzipan. [6]
Part IV
Rave is black [7, 8] prescription [9],
Lazer caressing water, a wet dream unmade
by cheap bear and RUSH [10] >> >>
We can embrace a hopelessness
without cropped tank tops, even though
we/I dance like any Othered-s.
Part V
Back home on the metro
Stations named after boys who wronged the world
legacies made into LED lights
blinking on board —
taunting my crookedness;
beats. Beats me.
Part VI
The couples’ lips still
raving against each other,
beaten—
outrunning time. [11]
I don’t want to see death no more.
1. You can keep the fucking book.
2. Thaemlitz, Terre. “Midtown 120 (Intro).” Midtown 120 Blues. Mule Musiq, 2008.
3. Wark, McKenzie. “Raving.” Duke University Press, 2023. 2.
4. For madison moore, the dance floor has been a potent symbol as well as a performative enactment of a world better than this one. The floors of dance venues have been repeatedly invoked by the denizens of nocturnal party-worlds as places of self-invention, experimentation, escape, comfort, refuge, transformation, connection, and communion. moore, madison. “Fabulous: The Rise of the Beautiful Eccentric.” Yale University Press, 2018.
5. Vasquez, Junior. “Get Your Hands Off My Man.” Get Your Hands Off My Man (Remixes). IRS Records, 1994.
6. Wong, Nicholas. “American Standard after Lady Macbeth.” In Superstition[review] 10.
7. madison moore, and McKenzie Wark. “Editorial: Black Rave” in e-flux journal 132, December 2022. https://www.e-flux.com/journal/132/508881/editorial-black-rave/
8. Lauryn, Ash and Kai Alcé. “Underground & Black.” NDATL Muzik, 2023. In the track, Ash lists out Black predecessors of music, culture, family, movements who shaped the development of Black dance music and the formation of Black popular culture.
9. Trent, Ron. “Ron Trent presents - Prescription: Word, Sound & Power.” Youtube, uploaded by Rush Hour, 16 Dec. 2016, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MFt5W0uQ6wU.
10. I really don’t care for Troye Sivan.
11. At 140 BPM a calendar year is 73,584,000 beats long.
Dunaway (he/him) is a sound person based between Hamilton, Ontario and Hong Kong. He mixes, gossips, writes, listens, podcasts, teaches, and hosts radio shows with other Hamilton sound persons. He created a DJ collective in Hamilton titled Places, to address the lack of resources, venues, and opportunities for electronic music programming in noncities. From DJ workshops in local artist-run spaces, creating curated dance events, and weekly on-air radio shows, Places is dedicated to raising and cultivating and connecting new Hamilton sound selectors of global sounds.
@dunaway
@places.wav
