CLAUDE J. SUMMERS - The Queer Encyclopedia of Music, Dance, and Musical Theater

THE QUEER ENCYCLOPEDIA OF MUSIC, DANCE & Musical Theater introduces a remarkably rich cultural achievement. It surveys the contributions of gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, and queer people to popular and classical music, modern dance and ballet, and musical theater and opera, and also their representation in and sometimes vexed relationship to these varied arts. That is, this work is interested in glbtq individuals not only as composers, choreographers, lyricists, and performers, but also as subjects and objects and consumers of music, dance, and musical theater.

Presenting some 170 articles on individuals, artistic movements, musical genres, and topics such as Music and AIDS, Women's Music, and Cabarets and Revues, The Queer Encyclopedia of Music, Dance & MusicalTheater offers a revisionist history of these arts by seeing them through a queer lens. It places the achievements of gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, and queer composers, musicians, and performers in historical contexts and privileges the representation of subjects that have traditionally been censored or marginalized.

Celebrating the richness and variety of queer contributions to the musical arts, this book presents that achievement as an invaluable cultural legacy to be celebrated and treasured. This legacy includes accomplishments as diverse as the protean and transforming vision of Sergei Diaghilev and the iconoclasm of John Cage; the contributions of composers as different but equally seminal as George Frideric Handel, Cole Porter, and Billy Strayhorn; the vital work of blues artists as redoubtable as "Ma" Rainey and Bessie Smith; the accomplishments of performers as distinct as Joan Baez, Ray Bourbon, Liberace, Janis Joplin, Peter Pears, Charles Pierce, and the Indigo Girls; and the community-building efforts of gay and lesbian choruses and bands and women's music festivals.

It would be hard to imagine twentieth-century classical music without the presence of such gay or bisexual composers as Aaron Copland, Samuel Barber, Leonard Bernstein, Benjamin Britten, Manuel de Falla, or Karol Szymanowski, or to appreciate opera without understanding the phenomena of castrati, opera queens, and diva worship. But glbtq performers and composers have also influenced musical genres as apparently "nongay" as hard rock and even as reputedly "antigay" as jazz and country music, even as they have also pioneered in creating genres particularly associated with modern lesbian and gay culture, such as women's music, drag performance, and disco and dance music. Moreover, certain performersJudy Garland, Mabel Mercer, and Chavela Vargas, for exampleand certain genresopera and musical theater, most obviouslyhave had a particular resonance with glbtq audiences.

The queer presence in the musical arts is so various and pervasive that it resists neat summary. Indeed, it is an integral part of humanity's artistic expression, and as diverse as humanity itself. It can scarcely be divorced from "mainstream music and dance," for so many of the world's most prominent composers, choreographers, and performers have in fact been of alternative sexualities. One could not write a history of world music and dance without acknowledging the pivotal contributions of individuals whose sexual interests or gender expression varied from the orthodox (though, of course, many histories have been written that suppress the sexualities of those individuals).