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#med332 Disco and dancing
Overview
• Defining Disco • Key dates and figures • Highs and lows • Backlash
Revolu?onary disco
Defining disco
Tim Lawrence: disco an ‘overburdened’ term 1. Spaces organised around the playback of
recorded music by a DJ – the discotheque 2. The social prac?ce of individual freeform dancing
that was established within this context 3. The music genre that crystallised within this
social seNng 1969-‐1979
Seriously?
15,000+ discos open across US
Abba – ‘Gimme, Gimme, Gimme’ Madonna – ‘Hung Up’
Aiming for the dance floor
Poli?cal target • American New Right
Developing a model of diversity and inclusivity, par?cipants established the prac?ce of dancing throughout the night to the disorien?ng strains of heavily percussive music in the amorphous spaces of the darkened dance floor. While the non-‐linguis?c prac?ces of these partygoers differed from the direct ac?on of their counterpart street ac?vists, they were similarly commiaed to the libera?on of the dispossessed, and a number of faces could be spoaed shuffling between the club and the street -‐ Lawrence , 2006: 129
Stonewall Riots 1969
David Mancuso The Loc 647 Broadway & Bleeker Lower East Side ‘Love Saves The Day’ Invite-‐only Audiophile
The Loc 1970+
Loc classics: 1970-‐73 • Manu Dibango ‘Soul Makossa’ • Barrabas ‘Woman’ • Beginning Of The End ‘Funky Nassau’ • The Equals ‘Black Skin Blue Eyed Boys’ • Eddie Kendricks ‘Girl You Need A Change
Of Mind’ • War ‘City, Country, City’
Nicky Siano, The Gallery 1972-‐1977
Philly Sound • MFSB • Harold Melvin and the Blue Notes • Teddy Pendergrass • The O’Jays • The Jacksons (co-‐prod w/ CBS) • Jones Girls • Dexter Wansel
Philadelphia Interna?onal Records
George McRae – ‘Rock Your Baby’ (1974)
The dancefloor as a cultural space where the usual hierarchies of society are inverted -‐ Paul Gilroy, 1991
The disco phenomena of the late 1970s thrust dance music forcibly into discussions of popular music, but dancing was most ocen portrayed nega?vely as a feminised (or demasculinised) ac?vity associated with women and heterosexual courtship rituals, or homosexual display -‐ Wall, 2013: 264
Casablanca Records (L.A.) • Donna Summer • Giorgio Moroder • ‘Love to Love You Baby’
Female/sexual libera?on
LaBelle -‐ ‘Lady Marmalade’ (1975)
Female/sexual libera?on?
Andrea True Connec?on -‐ ‘More, More, More’ [Tom Moulton mix] (1976)
Yet…
Success without industry support
Highs and lows • 1977 • Saturday Night Fever • Studio 54
Notable aaendees: • Grace Jones • Mick Jagger • Michael Jackson • Grace Jones • John Travolta • Calvin Klein • Andy Warhol • Truman Capote • Diana Ross
Excess
Saturday Night Fever and the hyper-‐heterosexual moves of John Travolta
Backlash
Such a violent reac?on must seem impossibly dispropor?onate to its object, if that object is taken to be nothing more than a style of popular music. But there was more at work and at stake than such a surface-‐bound reading can admit. The cultural crusaders of Comiskey were defending not just themselves but society from the encroachment of the racial other, of ‘foreign’ values, and of ‘disco fags’ -‐ Hubbs, 2007: 231
Comiskey Park 1979
Diana Ross ‘I’m Coming Out’ (1980)
HIV Of course it was AIDS, rather than the histrionic gestures of Steve Dahl, that killed, or at least came close to killing, disco. So rampant was AIDS within the city’s gay clubbing popula?on that the virus was ini?ally dubbed ‘Saint’s disease’, acer the Saint, the biggest, most renowned white gay venue of the 1980s, where dancers were dropping in dispropor?onate numbers. -‐ Lawrence, 2006: 137
Summary • Pivotal in expressions of non-‐heteronorma?ve sexuali?es • Largely inclusive cultural iden?ty • Without disco, no house music
Images • Brian Talbot (2005) Disco Balls • Sebas?an Niedlich (2001) Disco • Jovino (2010) disco neon • PTGreg (2007) Disco • Juska Wendland (2013) Disco sucks.