The weird thing being I’ve been told Cocteau Twins isn’t danceable before.
And I had an entire group of people like a large group of people, just flat-out leave the room when I put a Cocteau Twins song on during a dance. I feel like the DD community around here has memorized a particular playlist of songs that happen at all DD-related dance events anywhere in the entire state, and anything that isn’t on or closely resembling that playlist of songs and bands is met with “WTF did you do with the real music, I’m outta here.”
I find it way easier to dance to Cocteau Twins, Rasputina, anything that sounds like either of those, certain kinds of old-school R&B, or equally old-school country, or bluegrass, than most of the “danceable” stuff at dances here. I mean I can dance to this stuff, it’s just not my preferred dance music.
Amusing concert story: At an all-lesbian R&B concert I was part of the very loosely-organized setup crew, and had a front-row seat. Unknowingly my wheelchair was parked right in front of the main speaker. The intensity of the sound meant rather than dancing I was compelled to do intense rhythmic rocking. So... after awhile I notice the drummer has been staring straight at me throughout the entire performance. I get a suspicion in my head. I test the suspicion by altering the speed of my rocking. No matter how I alter it, the drums follow suit and play to the same rhythm I’m rocking at. She was using me as a metronome. I spent the entire rest of the concert trying very hard not to laugh.
Amusing conference story: At a DD sexuality conference, a few people are running around very pleased with themselves because they’ve been able to set me up with another lesbian for the dance. We start dancing. I’m doing my usual freeform dancing with heavier arm involvement because I was still in a wheelchair back then. She’s grinning, trying to make lots of eye contact, and dancing in a way that’s enthusiastic, bouncy, and almost aggressively cheery. Within less than five minutes, we’ve each sized the other up, gone “WOW not my type”, laughed about being set up by people who clearly didn’t know us, and quit dancing together.
Which I suppose is a fairly ordinary life experience -- being set up with someone so incompatible you both laugh about it -- but when you’re both LGBTQ and developmentally disabled, the chances to even have that experience become minimal. It’s a good memory to have.
Anyway, I still find the Cocteau Twins more danceable than most music out there, and I don’t know exactly how weird that makes me.
