Raising The Bottom

Name: Raising The Bottom
Brand: Duke University Press

Duke University Press

Raising the BottomBounce Music and Black Queer Performance in Post-Katrina New Orleans\nAuthor(s): Alix Chapman\nFormat: Paperback\nPublisher: Duke University Press, United States\nImprint: Duke University Press\nISBN-13: 9781478038610, 978-1478038610\nSynopsis\nIn the wake of Hurricane Katrina and the subsequent mass displacement of black neighborhoods in New Orleans, black queer performers redefined notions of belonging throughout the city. These unlikely figures, such as artists Big Freedia and Vockah Redu, played a significant role in calling the displaced back home and serving as beacons of hope. In Raising the Bottom, Alix Chapman engages in performance ethnography, taking to the stage while writing about the lives of these bounce artists and their extended community. He theorizes an epistemology of the bottom a way of knowing, praxis, and aesthetic which contests hierarchies of value that place black and queer bodies at the lowest rungs of the social ladder. By engaging in t.