Disco, Introduction: A Very Brief (+ Incomplete) History of Dance

Dance was always an integral part of the human experience. Then, there came a time when a certain dance was the dominant force in pop culture. That dance was called disco - and LGBT+ people were there to make it happen.

Veiled dancer, ancient Greek terracotta figurine from Myrina, ca. 150–100 BC. Louvre Museum

Dance would serve many purposes throughout human history; it was used in ceremonies and rituals. Here are ceremonial dances of African tribes, Xhosa, Zulu, Pedi, etc. in Lesedi Village, South Africa:

This is the Maibi Dance, the ritual dance of Manipuri priestesses, in India. They dance and worship the forest gods, called the Umang Lai.

Dance would also be used for folk celebrations. This is the Pyrrhichios dance ("Pyrrhic dance"; Ancient Greek: πυρρίχιος or πυρρίχη) that was the best-known war dance of the Greeks. It was probably of Dorian origin and practiced at first solely as a training for war. Plato describes it as imitating by quick movements the ways in which blows and darts are to be avoided and also the modes in which an enemy is to be attacked. It was danced to the sound of the aulos.

It was described by Xenophon in his work the Anabasis. Also, Homer refers to Pyrrhichios in the Iliad and describes how Achilles danced it around the funeral pyre of Patroclus. The dance was loved in all of Greece and especially the Spartans considered it a kind of light war training and so they taught the dance to their children while still young.

This dance survived mainly through the Pontic or Pontian Greeks, who used to live at the southern coastal line of the Black Sea. These areas eventually would belong to Turkey and the USSR. Today many Pontians live in Greece, but also all over the world. This is from a folk celebration in a Greek village:

Dance would also be used as a method of healing. Medieval European danses macabres were thought to have protected participants from disease; however; the hysteria and duration of these dances sometimes led to death due to exhaustion. Also, Sri Lankan dance goes back to the mythological times of aboriginal ying-yang twins and "yakkas" (devils). According to a Sinhalese legend, Kandyan dances originated 2500 years ago, from a magic ritual that broke the spell on a bewitched king. Here is one such example:

Dance would also be a means of social communication and bonding. La Java is a dance, which is a variation of the waltz. It was extremely popular during the first half of the 20th century in France. Here, to illustrate the dance, clips from films of the 1920s and the 1930s are used:

Dance would also be a method of expression. One of the earliest structured uses of dance may have been in the performance and in the telling of myths. It was also sometimes used to show feelings of an emotional or lustful nature: It is also linked to the origin of "lovemaking." Before the production of written languages, dance was one of the methods of passing these stories down from generation to generation.

The most famous use of this form of dance would be the ballet. By the 18th century, ballet had migrated from the French and Italian royal courts to the Paris Opéra under the careful direction of composer/dancer Jean-Baptiste Lully. Lully "preserved the ballet de cour's basic concept of a composite form, in which the dance was an essential and important element." From Lully's Atys, this is the entrée et danse des Zéphyrs:

The era of Romanticism produced ballets inspired by fantasy, mystique, and the unfamiliar cultures of exotic places. Ballets that focused more on the emotions, the fantasy and the spiritual worlds, heralded the beginning of true pointe-work. Now, on her toes, the deified ballerina (embodied in this period by the legendary ballerina Marie Taglioni) seemed to magically skim the surface of the stage, an ethereal being never quite touching the ground. It was during this period that the ascending star of the ballerina quite eclipsed the presence of the poor male dancer, who was in many cases reduced to the status of a moving statue, present only in order to lift the ballerina. The ballet of one of the world's best composers ever, Russian LGBT Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, demonstrated that. Here is an excerpt from Swan Lake:

Here is Anna Pavlova giving the definitive version of The Dying Swan, in 1905:

Then there was Matthew Bourne's legendary adaptation for male dancers only - one of the best things that I've seen in my lifetime:

Long before that, the status of the male dancer was redressed by the rise of the male ballet star Vaslav Nijinsky, with the Ballets Russes, in the early 20th century. Here he is in Claude Debussy's L'Après-midi d'un Faune in 1912:

The biggest ballet star in the second half of the 20th century was the gay Tatar born in Siberia, who defected from the Soviet Union when he was 23. His name was Rudolf Nureyev, a true megastar. Here is an introduction of his early years:

... And here he is with Margot Fonteyn in La Corsaire:

Another Russian, Mikhail Baryshnikov, was the next big thing. His overall visibility was helped by his presence (which included a Supporting Actor Oscar nomination!) in The Turning Point, 1977, a movie about ballet also starring Shirley MacLaine and Anne Bancroft. He later starred in White Nights.

It was during the explosion of new thinking and exploration in the early 20th century that dance artists began to appreciate the qualities of the individual, the necessities of ritual and religion, the primitive, the expressive and the emotional. In this atmosphere, modern dance began an explosion of growth. There was suddenly a new freedom in what was considered acceptable, what was considered art, and what people wanted to create. All kinds of other things were suddenly valued as much as, or beyond, the costumes and tricks of the ballet.

Isadora Duncan, an American from San Francisco, CA, was one of the pioneers of modern dance. Famous gay French choreographer, Maurice Béjart, founded the Ballet du XXe Siècle in Brussels, Belgium. One of Béjart's masterpiece works of dance was choreography he set to French composer Maurice Ravel's Boléro. Amongst the dancers, who would later perform Béjart's interpretation of Bolero, would be Sylvie Guillem from the Paris Opera Ballet, Grazia Galante, Maya Plisetskaya, and Angele Albrecht. In a twist, Jorge Donn, the gay ballet star from Argentine who was sadly (like Nureyev) another young victim of AIDS, also played the role of the principal dancer, becoming the first male to do so. Here he is:

Dance was also a big part of 20th century's dominating art form, the cinema, especially when sound became a part of the package, in the late 1920s. In fact, a new film genre came to be, the musical, a genre in which America's hegemony was never in question. I will present a number of dance clips from the movies, musical or not. Before that, let me point out that if you have a Facebook account, you should check out the page of "Somebody Else", which is the alias of our good friend, Alan. His presentations of dance scenes from the movies are absolutely top-notch.

Now here are some scenes from the movies: In only the second year of the Oscars, the ultimate prize of Best Picture went to MGM's first musical, The Broadway Melody, 1929:

One of the most famous choreographers in the early years of the musical was Busby Berkeley. Here is one of the classic scenes from 42nd Street, 1933:

And this is from Footlight Parade, 1933:

Marlene Dietrich doesn't do a lot of dancing in Der Blaue Engel (The Blue Angel), 1930, but the little she does manage to totally seduce the character played by Emil Jannings - as well as the rest of the world. And those legs! Here is her screen test; she interrupts three times. Let me translate for you: 1st break: "You call this music? Again." 2nd break: "How dare you! You call this playing the piano? How the hell am I supposed to sing to this garbage? Idiot! Again!" 3rd break: "Jesus Christ! This doesn't work, don't you get it? Some genius you are. Because of you, I'll have to sing the old crap, haven't I? Because that's the only stuff you can play. (Sits on piano.) If you play another wrong note, I'll kick you."

The story goes that the pianist was told to do the mistakes to see how the actresses reacted, the others started crying, but Marlene was the only one to scream at the poor man and a star was born:

But since this is about dance, here is Marlene seducing us with her moves in Kismet, 1944:

Here's another lady unconditionally bewitching us with the most original strip-tease: Rita Hayworth performing Put The Blame On Mame from the film-noir classic, Gilda, 1946:

I obviously wouldn't leave out Marilyn Monroe singing and dancing to My Heart Belongs to Daddy, from Let's Make Love, 1960, would I?

A big ball scene was often used for dramatic effect. Like this scene from Jezebel, 1938, where Bette Davis, in the company of Henry Fonda, enters the room wearing a flaming red dress, while unmarried women were supposed to wear white. The movie was in black & white, yet director William Wyler manages to convey the shock everybody feels when Bette enters the room. We don't see red, but we can certainly feel it.

Dance is also used for character build-up in another classic of the era, Gone With The Wind, 1939. Rhett's invitation to dance to the recently widowed Scarlett shows his unconventional nature, while Scarlett's acceptance shows her rebelliousness. They make a firecracker of a couple.

In the follow-up to Orson Welles' Citizen Kane, The Magnificent Ambersons, 1942, an early dance scene elegantly foreshadows nearly all of the story that follows it, a testament to Orson Welles's genius.

In Luchino Visconti’s 1963 classic Il Gattopardo (The Leopard) the dance scene, besides being visually stunning, also moves the story along as much as the action-heavy scenes do.

In The Godfather, 1972, the marriage of Don Corleone's daughter, Connie, and mainly the dance that is at its centerpiece serves to introduce us to the characters and the dynamics between them. Here are two clips from that scene:

Here's the whole scene (it's dubbed in Italian though):

I shouldn't be presenting The Deer Hunter wedding/dance scene, since the film came during rather than before the disco years, in 1978, but its functional and aesthetic similarity to both Il Gattopardo and especially to The Godfather, prompts me to present it, in order to complete a trilogy of sorts:

Back to the classic musicals, Fred Astaire brought class and superior moves to the craft, as well as his pleasant singing voice. Here he is in one of his best musical films, Top Hat, 1935, dancing to Top Hat, White Tie & Tails:

And here he is performing his classic "dancing on the ceiling" to the tune of You're All The World To Me, from Royal Wedding, 1951:

Gene Kelly was Fred Astaire's heir apparent. Here he is in two of his finest moments. First, is An American In Paris, 1951, the first musical to win the Best Picture Oscar since The Broadway Melody:

I simply cannot leave out one of the most iconic song-and-dance scenes of all-time: that scene from Singin' In The Rain, 1952.

Cyd Charisse was also an excellent dancer, as well as a beautiful lady. Silk Stockings, 1957, was a musical remake of the Greta Garbo 1939 hit, Ninotchka.

In 1952 John Huston made Moulin Rouge, where he faithfully recreates French Can-Can:

In 1960 the musical Can-Can gave us the Hollywood version of that "infamous" dance:

... And this is a ballet version of the dance, based on Jacques Offenbach's ubiquitous tune:

West Side Story, 1961, a winner of ten Oscars (Best Picture among them) revolutionized the use of dance in a musical; it was now part of the natural flow of the story, organically evolving to accelerate the action, instead of stopping it dead in its tracks, as was often the case before. Here are few classic scenes from the film. The amazing opening:

... Which segues into the Jet Song:

... And this is the wonderful America:

Bob Fosse took this concept and went even further with it. In Cabaret, 1973, the songs and dance carry equal dramatic importance as the story. Here's the opening song, Willkommen:

... And here's Liza Minnelli in her Marlene Dietrich moment, Mein Herr:

1964's huge hit, Mary Poppins, enriched the musical genre with state-of-the-art special effects and even animation; it was, after all, a Disney production. This is Step In Time:

From a musical that pretends to be English (Dick Van Dyke's unintentionally funny cockney accent!), to a musical that actually is; this is my favorite scene from the Best Picture Oscar-winning Oliver!, 1968. The song is Who Will Buy:

Let's move away from Hollywood in order to present a few more movies that used dance incredibly well. First, comes Ευδοκία (Evdokia), 1971, from Greece. This dance scene, which acts as a mating call, as well as a rebel yell, and the music that accompanies it (by the late Μάνος Λοϊζος/Manos Loizos) has become a classic in Greece and elsewhere.

We cannot leave Greece without presenting Zorba's dance from Zorba The Greek, 1964... It would be a sin, wouldn't it?

Then there is this film that is all about dance. Michael Powell's The Red Shoes, 1948, from the UK, is a visual feast. This is the ballet sequence:

I'm gonna break my films-before-disco rule for (three) more times... (In case you haven't noticed, I like to set up rules for the pleasure of breaking them... Anyway, I digress.)

In 1998 there was a film that celebrated tango. it was called Tango, directed by the Spanish auteur Carlos Saura and it was nominated for the Best Foreign Language Oscar on behalf of Argentina.

A few years earlier, in 1992, there was the definitive tango scene in Scent Of A Woman. You know the one, it helped Al Pacino finally win a much deserved Oscar:

Almost a decade earlier, in 1983, Italian director Ettore Scola made an unusual film called Le Bal. Utilizing only music and dance, without any dialog, it presents the 50-year story of a ballroom in France, from the 1920s. It was nominated for the Best Foreign Language Oscar on behalf of Algeria.

And this concludes our introduction. Our next story will include most of the popular dances of the 20th century before disco, the evolution of disco itself, from Paris, to London, to Berlin, to New York, to Los Angeles, and to the rest of the world, as well as the early disco hits, before disco became the music of the moment. Then we'll get to the main course... Till then, "Keep your feet on the ground and keep reaching for stars," as Casey Kasem used to say.