Novelty and fad dances
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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- "Dance craze" redirects here. For the documentary film see Dance Craze.
Fad dances are dances which are characterized by a short burst of popularity, while Novelty dances typically have a longer-lasting popularity based on their being characteristically humorous or humour-invoking, as well as the sense of uniqueness which they have.
Fad dances
These are also called "dance crazes". Dancing style fads have always been a part of social dancing, sometimes gliding smoothly into tradition after their "newness" has faded, and sometimes simply fading away into oblivion.
Since the Renaissance, the courts of European monarchs and nobles played host to a long succession of dance fads, many of which became social 'crazes' that spread into general society. They include the minuet, the allemande, the schottische, the mazurka and the waltz. Many of these European Renaissance dance crazes -- such as the allemande -- have long since faded into obscurity, but their rhythms were preserved in European classical music. By the time of Bach, the tempi of these dances had evolved into standardised rhythmical frameworks that formed the basis for the various movements of Baroque and early Classical instrumental works
In modern times new dances ("fads") arise and disappear much more frequently. This is certainly spurred by modern communication improvements (printed media, radio, movies, television, internet).
In the early 1920s a string of dance crazes swept the world, including jitterbug and the Charleston. Perhaps the most significant of all these early 20th century crazes originated in Argentina in the early 1900s. The tango swept the world in the late 1910s and early 1920s, sparking a worldwide craze that was fanned by its use in Hollywood movies, and the style was soon appropriated to become part of the standard dance repertoire.
The tango was the first in a series of 20th century Latin music dance crazes that included the merengue, the samba, the rumba and, in the early 1960s, the bossa nova. Each new Latin style enjoyed massive popularity, and many transcended their fad status to become standardised styles in the repertoire of western popular dance tradition.
Latin dance styles also exerted a huge influence on the direction of western popular music; this was especially true of jazz, which was profoundly altered by the advent of the first wave of Latin music in the 1940s and then by the bossa nova craze of the 1960s, which also had a massive influence on American pop music.
From the 1950s to the 1970s, new dance fads appeared almost every week. Many were popularised (or commercialised) versions of new styles or steps created by African-American dancers who frequented the clubs and discotheques in major U.S. cities like New York, Philadelphia and Detroit. Among the dozens of crazes that swept the world during this fertile period were the Madison, "The Swim", the Mashed Potato, "The Twist", "The Frug" (pronounced 'froog') and "The Watusi", "The Shake" and "The Hitchhike"; several '60s dance crazes had animal names, including "The Pony", "The Dog" and "The Chicken" (not to be confused with the later Chicken Dance).
As the pop music market exploded in the late 1950s, successive dance fads were commercialised and exploited. Standardised versions were printed in dance and teen magazines, often choreographed to popular songs. Many pop hits of the Sixties were purpose-written to exploit emerging new dance crazes -- notable examples include "Mashed Potato Time" by Dee Dee Sharp and this appropriation continued into the 1990s. Other songs such as "The Loco-Motion" -- composed by Gerry Goffin and Carole King and first recorded by Little Eva -- were specifically written with the intention of creating a new dance style.
Two notable later examples illustrate this trend. Breakdancing was a radical new style of solo dance which first emerged in the early 1980s. Like doo-wop, it appears to have been originally developed by black urban street gangs (mainly in New York) who used it as means of non-violent competitive expression. Breakdancing, which developed in tandem with hip-hop music, gained worldwide exposure through its appearance in music videos by pioneering hip-hop acts like Grandmaster Flash. Breakdancing is the term used by the general public and media. Purists refer to it as breaking or b-boying.
Vogue (dance), a popular style in New York gay discos in the late '80s, evolved from a much earlier style known as "performance". In this flowing freestyle mode, dancers punctuate their movements with an improvised series of static poses which, as the name implies, are meant to evoke the poses seen in classic fashion photos in publications like Vogue magazine. This style was first popularised/exploited internationally by entrepreneur Malcolm McLaren, whose single and music video for the song "Deep In Vogue" was the first to namecheck the style in the mass market. Vogue enjoyed its widest recognition in 1990 with the hugely successful single and music video "Vogue" by Madonna.
In the early 1970s new dance styles fuelled the emergence of the disco phenomenon, which spawned a succession of dance fads including the Bump, and "The Hustle" and the YMCA. This continued in the 1980s with the popular song "Walk like an Egyptian", in the 1990s with the "Macarena", and in the 2000s with "The Ketchup Song" dance. Contemporary sources for dance crazes include music videos and movies.
There are fad dances which are meant to be danced individually (solo), others are partner dances, and yet others are danced in groups. Some of them were of freestyle type, i.e., there were no particular step patterns and they were distinguished by the style of the dance movement (Twist, Shake, Swim, Pony, Hitchhike). Only some of them survived until now, sometimes only as the name of a step (Suzie Q, Shimmy) or of a style (Mashed Potato) in a recognized dance. Fad dances are in fashion at the time of their popularity. They are associated with a specific time period, and evoke a nostalgia when danced nowadays.
Novelty dances
Novelty dances might include quirky and unusual steps, or have an unusual name. Novelty dances may also have been fad dances which have remained popular over a longer period. It is not necessary that they ever were fashionably popular. These are also referred to as "party" or "dance party" dances. Novelty dances that have remained popular are no longer associated with a specific time period--they are timeless. Novelty dances are meant to be funny, and to evoke general mirth verging on silliness in participants.
See also
