'We Don't Have Steps': History of Social Dance pt.2

Love is the Message: Dance, Music and Counterculture

For this episode, Tim and Jeremy pull on their dancing shoes to explore why the Downtown dance floors of the early 1970s were such historically unique places. Situating the forms of dancing found at the Loft and the Sanctuary as part of a turn away from the forms of partner dancing covered in our previous episode, we hear how these new forms of dance deconstructed how people experienced their bodies socio-sexually and conceived of themselves as part of a newly self-conscious audience.

Tim and Jeremy discuss how developments in both sound, DJ practice, lighting and the now famous mirror ball contributed to a ‘polymorphously perverse’ experience for dancers. We also try to understand how people were actually dancing, ‘freakout gestures’, ‘lofting’, and how the ‘hustle’ reterritorialised disco for a suburban market.

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Tracklist: Earth, Wind & Fire - Power Lloyd Price - Bad Conditions James Brown - Cold Sweat (Live at the Apollo vol.2) Dinosaur L – Go Bang! #5 The Meters - Hand Clapping Song Tribe - Koke Van McCoy - The Hustle