If you want to shake your thing while you’re cleaning for spring, then a Vermont disc jockey has the perfect offer for you.
DJ Cheetahtah will come to your home for one hour with a full bag of gear – turntables, DJ controllers, mixers, and headphones – and do a set while you do the dishes. Or fold the laundry. Or declutter the living room. Or straighten up the bedroom, or whatever other tedious chore that you’ve been putting off.
Taraleigh Weathers, DJ Cheetahtah’s real name, told KTVZ 21 that she was new to the music scene, hitting Burlington’s bars and nightclubs when she had the idea of changing things up.
The novice DJ decided she would take her newfound passion for dropping beats directly into homes to make household chores a slightly less dreary affair than they had to be.
“I’m all about making things a little more fun,” Weathers said.
Part of that fun is donning wacky, eclectic outfits like the one she wore when she serenaded Burlington resident Dov Michael Schiller in a WPTZ 5 video report.
“I dress like I’m in a costume all the time,” she said, flashing a smile.
The beat maker came dressed as if a cheetah and a butterfly had a love child, with a pair of wings and a puffy rainbow headband.
Schiller requested DJ Cheetahtah’s services so he could finally get around to cleaning the dishes and tidying up his living room.
“This very creative, animated, colorful woman has arrived in our living room with this full DJ set up,” Schiller said.
While DJ Cheetahtah spun tracks and leapt in the air, Schiller bopped his head to the music and gleefully tossed a colander in the air like a pizza chef throwing his dough.
Weathers said as much as she wants to bring fun into people’s homes, there is also a clinical dimension to her gigs.
She said she has ADHD and that for people like her, simple chores can seem overwhelming. Having another person there to keep her accountable for getting the task at hand done helps her successfully complete it — a tactic known as “body doubling.”
“I have a lot of friends who have ADHD,” Weathers said. “One day, my friend invited me over to sit on her bed while she put her laundry away that she wasn’t able to put away for a month. She put it away in half an hour, and it was amazing.”
She had the idea of combining the tactic with her love of DJing.
Weathers took classes at the Tulum DJ Academy and became enamored with DJing, and now wants to bring that passion into people’s homes.
“I’m here because music is in my bones,” she wrote in a Facebook post. “I want to create spaces where you can dance your face off, sweat out your stress, scream-sing at the sky, and remember who the hell you are — all in a space that feels safe, free, and wildly joyful. That’s my why.”
DJ Cheetahtah has endured some hateful online commentary since she spun herself into the spotlight — most of it has come from spiteful men, she said on a Facebook post. But she said she hasn’t let the negativity stop her from doing what she can to brighten the drudgery of choredome.
“My sparkle-covered booty isn’t DJing,” she wrote. “My hands, ears, heart, and soul are. If my sequins and lady parts offend you, there’s a whole internet out there — feel free to click away somewhere else.”
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