HOLO

Q: The DJ booth is a heavily coded space. Tremendous meaning is derived from the musical gestures that emanate from it and many unspoken rules dictate who gets to be in it. It’s a site you put under the microscope in a 2021 workshop facilitated by Syrus Marcus Ware. Could you tell us a bit about how that went and walk us through what a more accessible and equitable version of the DJ booth looks like?

A: The workshop that Syrus Marcus Ware facilitated was called “Cripping the DJ Booth.” In terms of language, we use words like Crip and Mad because they are politicized terms that have been reclaimed by a range of communities around disability, mental health, chronic pain and illness, etc. These words are often taken up as an identity but our objective is to enhance the conditions of work and play for anyone with related lived experiences, regardless of what language they use or identify with (if any). Crip also gestures to a political and artistic orientation or a praxis that exposes and counters the ways that ableism, sanism, and audism, for example, shape the norms that guide non-disabled spaces. By approaching ‘the DJ booth’ from a Crip politic, Syrus invited attendees to learn and engage with technology in a way that works for—instead of asking us to override—the body and mind. He emphasized building a track list with time for a bathroom break in mind to working with the multi-sensory nature of sound through the visual act of DJing, and the importance of bass and vibrations for Deaf folks. He also advocated for threading activist and abolitionist archives into your set and DJing with attention to economic justice, because, and these are his words, “crips are often under-resourced—over-talented and under-resourced.”

A large part of our work is challenging the narrow and limiting understandings of disability by emphasizing that Mad and Crip DJs and producers are already in the room, while simultaneously addressing the industry and societal norms that have pushed people out or made it impossible for them to be there in the first place.

Q: Bigger festivals, clubs, and more underground DIY communities have varying relationships with capitalism. What differences do you see across this spectrum of more commercial to less commercial event organizing, in terms of how they are responding to disability advocacy? Where is the most progress being made?

A: There’s certainly a wide spectrum, but the most progress is undoubtedly being made in DIY and underground spaces that are value-driven and have the fewest resources. There has been huge work around the creation of safer spaces and collectives prioritizing underrepresented talent, which contributes to accessibility in both direct and indirect ways, and more and more, we are seeing a broader interest across the spectrum from promotors and festivals wanting to learn and make changes that address barriers for disabled communities in particular.

Engaging this work with attention to economic justice means both challenging the impulse of capitalism to profit above all else, while also acknowledging that under capitalism people need to make money to survive. Most organizers need to make concessions and we want this work to be sustainable while asking ourselves hard questions about the values, assumptions, and norms that shape or define what we understand as non-negotiable and who is commonly excluded from the decision-making as an effect. We’re really excited by festivals and parties doing what they can with what they have. Sharing event accessibility information is a great place to start—even sharing the aspects of your event that are likely inaccessible for many people still works in service of generating greater accessibility.