This Christmas I purchased an amazing book called “Lets’ Dance-A Celebration of Ontario’s Dance Halls and Summer Dance Pavilions by Peter Young” which gives a brief history of each of the amazing venues that you could have danced at between the 1920s to 1960’s in Ontario, Canada. Some places still exist and some are long gone 🙁
As a Lindy Hopper and a lover of Big Band Music and 1950’s Rock and Roll I know so much about the history of Harlem dance halls (like the Savoy, Cotton Club), that it was nice to be able to find a book written about the dance scene in my own backyard and so I was excited to learn all that I could from this little gem over my Christmas Holidays.
The book….is AWESOME! and as I was reading it, I started to get an urge to:
A) Want to visit these places, existing or non existing;
B) Share some of the history with my readers and with the Ontario Lindy Hop dance scene as well.
So I thought I would do a blog series in the New Year where I would visit locations and then do a little write-up about the venue I just visited (with help from Peters book).
Here is a taste of where I plan to visit first:
Palace Pier-Toronto, Ontario (March 18th, 2022 Update…HERE IS THE POST)
SERIOUSLY???? WOW!!!!!! Sigh…Yikes!!! Man oh Man I would have given anything to have been able to have danced a swing out or two on this famous dance floor but it sadly would never be as it burnt down in the 1960’s. However there is a plaque I can visit so this is where I will start the first of the series. In the mean time if you can’t wait for my blog posts, you can purchase Peters book on Amazon right now.
Other ‘Lets Dance Posts’: Kenwick on the Lake, CNE Tent, Port Dover Summer Gardens
Liz
