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Library

Michele Saunders

June 24, 2024

|

Catskill, NY

Song

Recorded by

Kate Borchard Shoen

This interview is available in-person only. Please get in touch if you would like to listen.
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Summary:

This interview with Michele Saunders was conducted on June 24, 2024 in Catskill, NY at Michele’s home during OralHistory Summer School ‘24 for the Community Library of Voice and Sound. Michele discusses her upbringing in France, growing up in Paris, and how she felt different because her style and tastes didn’t match the mainstream. She speaks about coming to America as a teenager for the first time and going toCalifornia, where she was exposed to soul music, which changed her life trajectory. Michele discusses coming to New York for college at Mount Holyokeand the early days of clubs and discos in New York City, especially in Harlem.She speaks about her time living in Amsterdam, where she went to early musicclubs playing disco. She talks about the evolution and beginnings of house music, which became the biggest influence on her life. Michele speaks about working as a stylist and manager for big names who she met through the music scene in the 80s. She mentions how she has lost so many of her friends to both drugs and the AIDS crisis. Michele discusses how she came to live in Catskill, NY. She discusses important relationships, such as her son. Michele reflects on her love affair with New York City, and how her passion for music, dance, photography and vintage fashion all come from her desire to experience the world tangibly. Michele speaks about how for her music is something you feel deep in your soul and how dance is the natural physical expression of that passion.

 

This interview will be of interest to those interested in: the development of house music, the history of clubs and dancing, the heyday of 80s club dancing, the 80s-90s house music scene in NY,NYC/Harlem in the 60s/70s, the music/recording/producing scene of 80s NY, artists and musicians of the 80s, vintage fashion, Mount Holyoke alumni, French expat life in the U.S., growing up in Paris, the international music scene in the 70s-90s, how music and dance has changed over the last 40 years, and the power of music and dance to transform your life.

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Themes:
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Interviewer Bio:
Kate Borchard Shoen

Kate Borchard Schoen is a public historian, oral historian, and creative who is originally from southern California but has spent the last 12 years living and working in the Carolinas. She is currently a freelancer/consultant, working as the Project Director for the South CarolinaPreservation Toolkit Project as well as the Taveau Oral History Project. She is interested in the role of oral history in giving voice and agency to folks who have been left out of the historical narrative. She is excited about the power of oral history to provide a special level of space, care, and attention to the narrator’s story.

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Additional Info:
Interview language(s):
English
,
Audio quality:
Medium

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Permissions: 

This interview is hereby made available for research purposes only. For additional uses (radio and other media, music, internet), please click here to inquire about permissions.

Part of this interview may be played in a radio broadcast or podcast.

Oral history is an iterative process. In keeping with oral history values of anti-fixity, interviewees will have an opportunity to add, annotate and reflect upon their lives and interviews in perpetuity. Talking back to the archive is a form of “shared authority.”

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