Together, Somehow: Music, Affect, and Intimacy on the Dancefloor

by Luis Manuel Garcia-Mispireta

In Together, Somehow , Luis Manuel Garcia-Mispireta examines how people find ways to get along and share a dancefloor, a vibe, and a sound. Drawing on time spent in the minimal techno and house music subscenes in Chicago, Paris, and Berlin as the first decade of the new millennium came to a close, Garcia-Mispireta explains this bonding in terms of what he calls the kind of warmth, sharing, and vulnerability between people that happens surprisingly often at popular electronic dance music parties. He shows how affect lubricates the connections between music and the dancers. Intense shared senses of sound and touch help support a feeling of belonging to a larger social world. However, as Garcia-Mispireta points out, this sense of belonging can be vague, fluid, and may hide exclusions and injustices. By showing how sharing a dancefloor involves feeling, touch, sound, sexuality, and subculture, Garcia-Mispireta rethinks intimacy and belonging through dancing crowds and the utopian vision of throbbing dancefloors.

Genres: Music, Nonfiction

320 pages, Paperback

Published August 8, 2023

Reviews

[University of Chicago Magazine]

From our Fall/23 issue: Contemporary electronic dance music parties can be inclusive spaces where strangers find intimacy through shared sensory experiences. Ethnomusicologist Luis Manuel Garcia-Mispireta studies the house and techno music scenes of late-aughts Chicago, Paris, and Berlin to explore how music, gesture, and touch create a sense of excitement and belonging. These parties, the author argues, are utopian projects, seeking to embody an ideal community. But exclusionary practices often hide behind efforts to ensure a party will “attract the ‘right’ crowd” for getting the desired “vibe.” Garcia-Mispireta explores new ways of thinking about intimacy and its limits.

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[Kevin · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is one of the best studies of culture and affective experience that I have read in the past several years. The book takes commitment to stay with it because the work is incredibly scholarly and filled with thought provoking analyses that link the study of participant observation with a broader scope of literature. The books is an examination of electronic dance music and dance club culture in Chicago, Paris, and Berlin. The author uses this examination to engage in complex discussions of utopias, loose or liquid forms of belonging, stranger intimacy and vibe, entrainment and collective feeling, and the power structures and exclusion structures that remain in the pursuit of utopias. It is such a profound book.

[T S · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting that the artificiality of techno dance floors is mirrored with the artificiality of an academic study of said art form. The author raises many good questions and some of the best parts are closer to the end in terms of accessibility and inclusion and also how the sound drives much of the dance floor. Not for the faint of heart because this is a very academic monograph.

[Ryan Wiebe · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fantastic insights into dance floor and underground music culture. I loved it. Parts definitely went a little over my head but it’s given me an even deeper appreciation for the culture and music.