Vintage Dance Craze 1960s- Image of a 1960s couple doing the twist.

Few years ago I did a blog post on Vintage Dance Crazes and I always meant to getting around to doing a part 2. Well after much wait here it is!

Dance Craze or also called Fad“, is characterized by a short burst of popularity and sometimes gliding smoothly into tradition after their “newness” has faded (like the twist which is still done today and the Lindy Hop which was originally a “Dance Craze/Fad”), and sometimes simply fading away into oblivion (source).

Vintage Dance Crazes Part 2

Black Bottom Dance

Source: Wikipedia

Black Bottom, Jazz dance combining shoulder and hip movements, danced by African Americans in the U.S. South as early as 1907. In a modified version it became a national craze after its appearance in a 1926 Broadway musical.

The black bottom exhibited a number of features derived from the aesthetics of African dance, most notably syncopated rhythms, bent knees, crouched torsos, and hip and pelvic movements. Along with the Charleston, another dance that was popular in the 1920s, the black bottom helped shatter the dominance of couple dancing. Although people may have continued to dance opposite each other in pairs, they no longer held each other or danced in unison, and it was perfectly permissible for the dancer to dance singly (Source).

Some original pattern names for this dance are “The Flick, The Side Shuffle, The Walk.”

Other notes about the dance:

Originally starting in New Orleans the Black Bottom later worked its way to New York. Some say blues singer Alberta Hunter introduced the dance. Others say Perry Bradford in Nashville, Tennessee introduced it to white America in 1919 when he wrote the Song “The Black Bottom.” Bradford’s sheet music had the music as well as the dance instructions printed on them.

The stage Play “Dinah” in 1924 Harlem showcased the Black Bottom to the Public and almost overnight became as popular as the Charleston.

Jelly Roll Morton wrote a song called Black Bottom Stomp, there was a town called Black Bottom in Detroit, Michigan from 1900 to 1960. The dance was performed at the Apollo Theater in 1927 with the George White Scandals and the Roseland Ballroom (New York) even hosted a Black Bottom endurance (marathon) contest in 1927 (seen below). It was popular! ( Source)

1920s Vintage Photo: Black Bottom endurance contest, Roseland Ballroom, New York City, New York State, USA. 1927

The Hully Gully

The Hully Gully is a type of unstructured line dance often considered to have originated in the sixties, but is also mentioned some forty years earlier as a dance common in the black juke joints in the first part of the twentieth century.

The Hully Gully dance craze was started by Frank Rocco at the Cadillac Hotel in Miami and was based off the song of the same name, made popular by the Olympics in 1959.

While researching this dance, I came upon so many different descriptions of how this dance was actually done. From being a more “structured line dance” (Sadly the video is no longer avail), to a freestyle version that you see in the Olympics video below. I’m totally confused, but I do know that whatever version you do end up dancing it sure looks fun!

The Stroll

The Stroll was both a slow rock ‘n’ roll dance and a song that was popular in the late 1950s.

Billboard first reported that “The Stroll” might herald a new dance craze similar to the “Big Apple” in December 1957.

In the dance two lines of dancers, men on one side and women on the other, face each other, moving in place to the music. Each paired couple then steps out and does a more elaborate dance up and down between the rows of dancers. It was first performed to “C. C. Rider” by Chuck Willis on American Bandstand. Link Wray’s “Rumble” was also a popular tune for doing the stroll.

The Diamonds would go on to have a hit song entitled The Stroll in 1957.

When 1950s nostalgia came to the forefront in the 1970s, The Stroll saw renewed public awareness. It was used in the film American Graffiti (1973) during the scene at the high school dance and is mentioned in some of the lyrics in the musical Grease.

The Stroll was an integral part of most episodes of the dance TV series Soul Train, where host and creator Don Cornelius dubbed it the “Soul Train Line.”(Source).

Lastly the stroll is also very popular in the Rockabilly world and is almost always seen being danced at some Weekender (Like VLV) or Rockabilly Party (as seen below). It should be noted though, that the Rockabilly stroll is danced differently then the Dick Clark version shown above.

Well friends, we have come to the end of Vintage Dance Crazes Part 2. I feel that a part 3 is in order because I still have not touched on so many others. So stay tuned for that!

Question Time: Do you have a favorite dance craze either mentioned above (or in Part 1) or not featured? Share in the comments section below.

FURTHER READING:

Swing Dance & The Big Band Era – Archived blog posts from the Vintage Inn Blog
Ontario Vintage Dance Hall History – Archived blog posts on various dance halls
Vintage Photo Tuesday-The 1947 Dance Teachers Strike
Vintage Photo Tuesday: The Social Dance
Vintage Dance Cards
Time to Dance! Vintage Instructions to get you dancing in no time
1940s Women’s Fashion Ideas For Your Next Vintage Dance
The Dancing Side of the Viva Las Vegas Rockabilly Weekend

Now to end this fun post here is a short video on the “Latest in Dancing” circa 1962.

Liz

The Stroll

The stroll you see at Rockabilly events is not the original Stroll (seen below) that involved holding the hand of your partner as your “strolled” down the center.

The stroll of today is a repeating dance mostly done by the ladies but I have seen guys jump into the lines on a few occasions, but 99% of the time it’s mostly ladies (but guys..join the fun!). Once you get the pattern, it’s pretty simple to do and great way to dance if you don’t have a partner.

Music tends to be bouncy RnB, slower beats and rockin’ garage tunes.

Here is yours truly and some friends doing the “stroll” at Viva many moons ago. Gosh I look lost.

Boppin’

This dance I have never heard of until I went to VIVA but apparently I have been doing a version of it almost every-time I went out dancing and did not have a partner.

This wild solo freestyle dance was more of a man’s dance from the ’30s to the ’50s, but in this equal opportunity millennium, gals and guys alike bop around with this fast crazy dance, popular worldwide, after remaining far underground for most of the ’60s.

This is a great workout – think rockabilly aerobics! Bopping is a passion-filled mix of tap, step and jive beats fueled by your love and feeling of the beat, the beat, the BEAT, each person feeling it in their own way.

Boogie Woogie

I honestly never heard of this dance until about 5 years ago and then I realized that I had been seeing it on the VIVA dance floor many times. Like Lindy Hop, it’s not as popular as Jiving at the event but you will still see it.

About: Although its music had its beginnings in the 1870s, and its glory period from the 1920s to the 1940s, the dance didn’t emerge until a little later. The dance known as Boogie Woogie took influence from what was danced to Rock ‘n’ Roll music in the 1950s, and has certain similarities to Lindy Hop (Source). The 6-count footwork of the dance is step step, triple-step, triple-step. It’s VERY Energetic!