{"id":573,"date":"2020-04-22T14:33:53","date_gmt":"2020-04-22T19:33:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/performinghistory\/?p=573"},"modified":"2020-04-22T14:33:55","modified_gmt":"2020-04-22T19:33:55","slug":"music-in-the-closet","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/performinghistory\/2020\/04\/22\/music-in-the-closet\/","title":{"rendered":"Music in the closet"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Paris in the 1920s (much like New York) is often seen as an era of gaudiness, irony, and a general sense of the avant-garde in regards to arts, culture, and society. Important aspects of modernism were developed such as Dadaism<\/a> in art, camp<\/a> in fashion, and a myriad of changes in music, including the incorporation of jazz and a rejection of tonality. Many of these movements served to express multiple messages at the same time, often an obvious surface level message and a more subtle underlying message to those “in the know”. Paris, as the center of many of these cultural changes, found itself populated by many subcultures that emerged during the 1920s. Specifically it was the home for a queer subculture that flourished in the 1920s parallel to these cultural movements. Many people associated with the music scene in Paris participated in this subculture in their private lives, while maintaining a public persona in order to keep their social standing. This sense of being “in the closet” is reflected in their music. On the surface the music seems to tell a specific story, but look past that and you can see into the private minds of the musicians.<\/p>\n\n\n