Dancing Trends

"Dancing Trends"
Written by Jose Diaz
September 4, 2001

Dancing, like anything else has trends. It seems one minute a certain style of dancing is hot and then the next minute it's not.
We can look back on styles from the past and then look upon what is being done today only to observe that nothing is even remotely the same. The times sure have changed but the question is how much...and why? I will venture as far to say that music dictates which dancing styles are and are not popular.

If you think about it, in the 50's there was the sock hop and swing dancing. The dancing style back then was loose and in some cases high flying. In the 60's a new genre of music broke on to the scene as early rock and roll paved the way along with rhythm and blues. All of a sudden there was a shift as the paced slow downed and more people began to slow dance and head bang as opposed to the previous decade's faster paced dances. In the 70's we saw more of the early rock and roll invasion. Groups such as The Beatles had already made their mark on the world and we saw the introduction of faster rock and roll songs from groups such as the Beach Boys. The dancing style changed to adapt to those styles accordingly as we began to see the beach bopping age.

In the 80's rock and roll dominated the music world and branched out into more hardcore genres such as heavy metal. However rhythm and blues also had a strong following and we saw a lot of that as well. However the introduction of rap and freestyle music made the 80's the most diverse musical decade in history at that point. Dancing really became complex at this point because now there was a lot of new styles and in addition variations to old ones such as pop. Then came the 90's, it was do or die. Many genres of the past died and only the strong survived. Rap, hip hop, pop, r&b, rock and techno evolved to all new levels of greatness meanwhile we witnessed the birth of alternative music. Older styles either diminished or remained the same. The club scene exploded as New York alone has about 15 different clubs just for techno music. Can you imagine the total for all the other categories in the music scene?

The difference of styles can best be compared by watching the movie Back to the Future. It's about a boy who with the help of his eccentric professor travels back to the year 1955 from the original year of 1985. In the school dance scene, he finds himself lost in their old traditional form of music and dance. He then goes on to play a rock song on his guitar (rock does not explode on to the scene until a couple of years later) and the crowd looks at him as if he was some kind of weirdo.

Alas here we are in the new millenium. What will this decade hold for us as far as musical evolution and the corresponding breakthrough in dance? I can't say but I will say if history is any indication the scene will become more complex, more exciting and more innovative in the years to come.

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