Among its fabulous strengths, Move Ya Body: The Birth of House, directed by Elegance Bratton and produced by Chester Algernal Gordon, presents a compelling portrait of the wistful utopian history tracking the transition in Chicago from a disco culture to the thriving house music scene that queer musicians, DJs, and producers of color propelled into global acceptance and cultural prestige.
Sundance has always been a fine premiere venue for feature documentaries about music. in Move Ya Body, Bratton and team do a superb job weaving in treasure troves of archival material, oral histories, present-day materials and autoethnographic anecdotes and recollections that are periodically re-enacted with actors.
Covering five decades of music history territory, the film is commendable for distilling the scene of achicago’s underground dance clubs. One of the standouts in the film is Vince Lawrence, a brilliant strategist as a promoter and distributor who laid the groundwork for TRAX Records. He collaborated with Jesse Saunders, on the 1984 release of On and On, recognIzed as the first house album on vinyl and set the standards for the first generation of house music’s sonic pallet with bass synthesizers, drum machines, and the iconic Poly-61 synthesizer. Shortly afterward, house’s tree would sprout branches that propagated numerous styles of genres, with deep house and acid house leading the way. In 1986, from Chicago, Marshall Jefferson’s Move Your Body, from the The House Music Anthem EP ignited the now eternal flame for the global embrace for house.
Discussed extensively in the film, the pivotal event for this story arises from one of the most infamous promotional events to take place at a Major League Baseball game. On July 12, 1979, when the Chicago White Sox played the Detroit Tigers, the stadium hosted a Disco Demolition Night, sparked by a Chicago rock music radio DJ (Steve Dahl) who was known for mocking disco music. Fans could purchase game tickets at just 98 cents if they brought a disco record, which would join others in being blown up at centerfield in between the twilight doubleheader. However, the promotional stunt ended in a riot so violent that the White Sox had to forfeit the second game. As noted in a post by the Chicago History Museum, Nile Rodgers, cofounder of the disco band Chic, said that in looking at the footage the next day, “it felt to us like a Nazi book burning.” Indeed, the event stunned many, given that disco had met with backlash, often from white, heterosexual, male rock-music listeners. Incidentally, Dahl refused to be interviewed for the film. Immediately following the public brouhaha then, Dahl was anything but apologetic or judiciously temperamental about the damage he had unleashed with this event. However, the documentary demonstrates potently the vindication of historical judgment, validated by the receipts which prove the thematic mile makers in the film.
Bratton is mindful of showcasing the profoundly personal impact of a culture of music that really was a church for spiritual enrichment for young people who yearned to be a part of something unprecedentedly fabulous in the dance tracks, the people, fashion, art and aesthetics of lifestyle. The project, indeed, is ongoing. Celebrating the holistic fabulousness of queer life in its full spectrum, dance clubs strive to promote inclusiveness but as we know, no space is ever fully safe, as the contemporary social politics indicate. Move Ya Body reminds us that the work is never complete.
Just as significant, the substantial historiographical approach in the film rebuffs against the critique of a house music form that some cast aside as unimportant, frivolous or self indulgent. Watching this film, a quote from Michel Foucault, the French postmodern philosopher, emerges as relevant: “From the idea that the self is not given to us, I think that there is only one practical consequence: we have to create ourselves as a work of art.”
The point sharpens a subtle but unquestionably important observation that should not escape the astute viewer’s attention. Sensing her opportunity, Rachael Cain, who eventually attached to Trax Records and proclaimed herself as queen of house, was rooted in Chicago’s punk scene previously. While Cain can be justifiably tied to the growth of industrial and post-punk branches in the spreading underground house music, the credit as the genesis creator belongs to the likes of Knuckles, Jefferson, Lawrence, Saunders, Leonard “Remix” Roy (a DJ at a South Side Chicago tavern that may have actually been the birthplace of house), Farley Jackmaster Funk and others. Move Ya Body excels in its creative brief to chronicle a monumental shift in dance music culture. Bathed in nostalgia, the film is a wonderfully empathetic testament of kinship in the underground queer dance club scene that illuminates the creative pioneering enterprise that continues to be often looked in the historical music chronicles.
Move Ya Body is one of the Sundance premieres that received a Utah Film Center fiscal sponsorship and is among three presented by Impact Partners Film, with Geralyn Dreyfous, cofounder of the group and the film center.
For festival tickets and more information, see the Sundance website.