Who feels it knows it: Black bodies and the sensory experience of the dance-hall

ABSTRACT Through post-war Caribbean migration sound system culture has creolised the material culture of the dance-hall space in terms of sartorial aesthetics of raver dressing up to go out dancing, the sonic vibrations of bass, and the corporeality of the dance-floor. This began with music played on the radiogram in the front room, where house parties and bluesparties took place in the domestic interior, and eventually the public domain of clubs and dance-halls where sound systems played. The ongoing policing of these spaces of dancing Blackbodies recycles colonial tropes about fear and desire in the Britishimaginary that intersect race, class, gender and sexuality. This isan embodied knowing of ‘who feels it, knows it’, which informs the unpacking in this review of the sensory experience of Black bodiesin the dance-hall, and its material culture. From a self-reflexive perspective, this approach also draws on my lived experience as a raver, as well as my online Writers Mosaic guest edition Sonic Vibrations: Sound system culture, lovers rock and dubthat includes contributions from writers, artists, sound women, choreographers and scholars (McMillan, 2021) and installation based exhibition Rockers, Soulheads & Lovers: Sound systemsback in the day (McMillan, 2015-16).