2009 Pop Conference Bios/Abstracts

Douglas Wolk

Douglas Wolk is the author of Live at the Apollo (Continuum, 2003) and Reading Comics: How Graphic Novels Work and What They Mean (Da Capo, 2007). He writes about pop music and comic books for Blender, Rolling Stone, Pitchfork, Salon and elsewhere. He lives in Portland, Oregon.Panel(s):
Dance Off the Beaten Track
Friday, April 17, 2009, 2:00 - 3:45

Moderator:
Pop Babylon
Friday, April 17, 2009, 11:00 - 12:45Abstract:

"My Other Body Is a Temple"
Dance music promises a glorification of the vile body, a physical awakening that''s so closely tied to sexual awakening that it''s hard not to conflate them. But what if you don''t wake up at all? What if you''re the human conduit between body-moving music and moving bodies, but neither the maker of music nor a body in motion? What if you''re doing it wrong and the only way to do it is to do it properly? What if the speakers are pointed away from you rather than toward you? What does it mean, in short, to be alone in a DJ booth?

The DJ is a dancer by proxy, who is supposed to provide an ecstatic experience without either creating it or being part of it--a panderer, an unmoved mover, an asexual entity at the center of a threesome. This investigation of the DJ''s strange experience will involve soft-focus images of naked people on horseback, songs about several versions of the same body, a man performing his hit dance record on television by hitting a toy piano with a rubber chicken, and a film clip of an excellent fake Donna Summer song.