Analysis of the Process of Recreation of the Self, Explored through the Passage from Whole-Body Eroticism of Disco Music to the de-Eroticization of the Body in Rave Culture

Background: The potential of Disco music in the creation of new social practices and values, associated with its computerization and its evolution into Rave, made Dance music able to generate alternative sense of identity, through the direct experience of the body that it offered. Aim: In this paper authors are going to analyse the way in which self-identity is renegotiated in Dance music context with reference to Disco and Rave music in the period between the beginning of the 1970s and the end of the 1980s, respectively the moments when these new genres developed. Method: Authors will explore the concept of Disco music and its extension into Rave culture, concentrating on the effects that they had on the music scene of the period and the ways in which they challenged the mainstream musical norm of the time. Then, we are also going to approach Dance music policy of freedom that allowed breaking down the traditional rules of sexuality and building an alternative system of social values through which the process of re-creation of the self was enacted. Finally, we will focus on the notion of ‘jouissance’—whose production is the final pursuit of Dance music—also with reference to the importance the use of drugs like ecstasy had on the achievement of this liberating state. Conclusion: This work can track the evolution of the process of renegotiation of the self in the Dance musical scene during the 1970s and 1980s by determining the intersecting factors that contributed to the production of new types of identities.