When Did White People Stop Dancing

Yikes, multiple typos. Sorry, I've been drinking.

Totally agree OP - as a white middle aged gay who loves to dance. There were so many places we could dance as gay men until the 2000s. Then it seemed bottle service and posing replaced going out to get your groove on. So sad - it’s like a whole essential part of gay life just disappeared. Why? I guess kids just don’t have the confidence to get out on a dance floor and get their freak on.

What's a "pally"?

The question is moot. Hardly anybody actually dance now. Most just randomly wiggle, others are simulating fucking standing up or in other positions.

Shit. I’m a Gen X person and used to go out dancing all the time.

Was in Barcelona 10 years ago and dancing was a big fun thing, mixed gay and straight clubs.

Whitey be uptight.

Because...

[quote]. but this especially happened in white culture.

No it didn't. Shut the fuck up racist troll.

R7, see also:

R3 I'm not sure but I believe it's the name as "Palaise", a fancy name for a local dance hall(French meaning Palace). "The Palaise"(which would be pronounced Pally particularly by a not necessarily sophisticated British person) was likely meant to be the name of the dance hall his sister frequented. It wouldn't be unusual, American dance halls often had grand sounding names as well.

White people stopped dancing soon after these two died.

Who wants to see this?

Encore.

R8 Yup, it's the twisted, obsessive Race Troll. She's a mental case. Big nutjob.

Buck Rogers killed it. Or maybe Janet.

I was so worried about the Black supremacist troll, nothing for so long. So glad you’re back, honeybun.

To be fair, many white people dance very well.

Taking dancing lessons used to be required. I can't imagine many of today's yutes know how to dance.

They have to learn at least one dance for their weddings, otherwise they just hang on each other and sway until their parents cut in.

Lots of socializing stopped: dancing; card clubs; bowling leagues; clambakes; local carnivals; and more.

we stopped after Al and Tipper danced to Don't Stop Thinkin' About Tomorrow

When we got too self conscious for being made fun of for our white dance moves.

White people can dance.

Bowling leagues, clambakes and local carnivals are still going. At least they were before Covid.

That's how I met my first husband. He watched me dancing.

Same here R24. Dancing was the ESSENCE of gay life - almost as much as sex - what the hell happened. I’m amazed young gays don’t want to to dance - what a shame.

Since the 2020 convention has started, here's a glimpse of the 1996 convention. Hillary looks so young. And white people are dancing.

Music is terrible now. People no longer have any joy.

Beautiful dance

R15, that was amazing. Victoria Principal had some very womanly moves.

It is the drugs. Back in the good old days we had weed, cocaine, and GHB - all naturals for dancing because they let you get in touch with your body.

Nowadays, all that the young gays have is molly, which makes your body move like a praying mantis whose brain has been devoured by a fungus.

Why are people posting professional dancers? I thought this thread was supposed to be about regular schmegular people.

But I thought white suburban women love to dance like no one is watching?

Now this is dancing, bitches. Wurk it!!!

I blame Elaine Benes.

I think it's a legit question, but not necessarily a racially segregated one. I'm not sure POC dance socially like they used to, either, at least here in NYC.

Some potential factors:

The obesity epidemic (yes, really), particularly among young people.

The scarcity of really good, fun dance music, at least known to the public.

The loss of venues (bars, small clubs) where social dancing took place without a cover charge or with a small one. In NYC, for example, cabaret laws were changed in the 90s/00s and many of these places closed or lost their cabaret license due to "community interests."

The overt sexualization of dancing in public, at least for young women. It's not a spontaneous act of joy or a response to music anymore. It's an ADVERTISEMENT, a sexual come-on, an invitation, a narcissistic boast of one's beauty and desirability posted on social media in order to SELL something.

I think a lot has to do with the fact that even the most even mediocre gay club now has a velvet rope policy. Policed by an asshole bouncer making the decisions on who gets in immediately and who has to stand their like a fool waiting for the bouncer’s long awaited anointment to let the rest in. Plus most of today’s dance music sucks.

This white boy can dance.

Y’all are so out of touch. TikTok is filled with white people dancing

Why are people posting professional dancers? I thought this thread was supposed to be about regular schmegular people.

The OP made no mention of regular schmegular people. The post was about white people and culture.

And R38 doesn't quite comprehend "social dancing...."

It's pretty telling that the universally known/loved song in the video at R37 is from 1991... almost 30 years ago.

The music sucks. What was the last great dance song that came out and became a worldwide smash and made everyone want to dance?

Clubs have turned into condos.

People don't want to go out anymore, and if they do, they sit and stare at their phones. Social media has killed so many things. People meet online now. No need to go to a club.

COVID. People don't want to go places where there are too many people. Afraid of germs.

And, as much as I love to dance, it can also be nerve-wracking. Go to a concert and people are sitting. That first person to get up has probably contemplated in their head for 10 minutes whether they should get up and dance. I think people are still timid and shy about dancing in public spaces.

After the sexual revolution, you didn't have to do social dancing in order to touch other people's bodies.

R10, Palais

People are unskilled and too drunk for it.

I love dancing. I'm an amazing dancer, by all accounts.

I guess the 1950s was the last great moment of pair dancing. It seemed to go downhill in the early 1960s, after the popularity of The Twist.

[quote]The question is moot. Hardly anybody actually dance now. Most just randomly wiggle, others are simulating fucking standing up or in other positions.

It’s true. I think it’s because “music” today is hard to dance to because a lot of it isn’t music, just a bunch of computer generated sounds.

R41 - you are so right. I went to see the Chainsmokers last fall and almost everyone was just watching and recording it with their phone. Hardly anyone standing or dancing or engaging with the concert. It hurt my soul.

There are tons of dancing videos on TikTok - which is why it is so weird. It's like no one wants to dance in public unless they do it at home and can post it.

Big dance places have been crushed by urban development. I remember when Guiliani cracked down on clubs - the dance scene in NYC practically collapsed overnight.

Most big gay dance places would get continuous noise complaints from the new condo owners next door. I can think of 5 different places (not in NYC) that had major issues with the 'new' neighbors - invariably living in brand new condos that were built next to these places.

If you don't like noise, don't move in next to a CLUB??? These developers bought the property cheap BECAUSE it was in a commercial area and next to clubs. Then they shut them down.

My mother was in high school in the late 50s/early 60s. She said everyone knew how to do the Lindy. I think dancing started declining after the 80's. Maybe when rap and hiphop gained popularity, because you can't really dance to it.

[quote]It's like no one wants to dance in public unless they do it at home and can post it.

We now live in a society where nothing is spontaneous anymore. People have to practice and rehearse EVERY thing they do because people are so obsessed with how others view them. Just look at these people who take 100 selfies of the same pose in a desperate attempt to find the “perfect” shot to put on Instagram. It’s sad everyone is so rigid these days.

TikTok is teeming with white dancers

The Caucasian Circassian boys are still dancing....mostly with each other looks like.

dancing starts at about 2'50" 1 female and about 40 men fighting it out on the dance floor at a wedding.

Nowadays whites are prolly afraid to dance out of fear of sjws lashing out and accusing them of cultural appropriation.

I was having a conversation with a friend just before lockdown hit over here and we were saying that when we were younger we spent virtually every Friday and Saturday night out dancing somewhere. It just doesn’t seem to happen now. Interesting thread, OP.

'Bout 1967?

[quote] Why are people posting professional dancers? I thought this thread was supposed to be about regular schmegular people.

r37's cadet is a regular schmegular person.

[quote] I went to see the Chainsmokers last fall

[quote] It hurt my soul.

Serves you right.

Top 40 music these days is not supposed to make you dance. It's supposed to make douchebros and their weekend hookers raise their hands and holler "YOLO" in some shitty, tacky Russian/Albanian mafia owned club or soundtrack your Uber ride. Most of today's hits are either novelty songs or extended, annoying ringtones.

Well, dudes can only move in a restricted manner. Otherwise, people will think they are effeminate or corny. Hip hop rules culture, so dancing has to be done within a masculine hip hop sensibility

R58 even blacks aren't moving that well with Hip Hop everywhere. I miss the ole' Motown sounds that got the whole world a jumpin'

Nobody wants to dance to Wet Ass Pussy and such. I remember dancing in clubs as recently as 2015. Music today sucks, it’s all pimps and hoes and pussies and nastiness. The fun is gone.

R61, Plenty of young girls are dancing to WAP. Where r u? Most clubs are closed bit their dancing to it at house parties.

Is this hip hop shit EVER going to die? I know it’s been around since the 80’s, but it was like as soon as 2000 hit, it just completely took over all other types of music and hasn’t stopped since.

R61 firstly it’s they’re. Secondly my reference was to gay clubs, this being a gay forum and all.

Staggering staying power isn't it R62. With BLM now don't expect any hasty departure of said genre.

R62 agreed. It’s like nails on a chalkboard to me.

Hip hop evolves

Where do black people dance these days?

On TikTok like everyone Else

So white and black people are still dancing exactly the same then. OP's premise is flawed.

Thanks for that video, R51! It reminds me of a wedding I went to in Turkey. I couldn't speak the language and didn't know the right way to dance in that situation, but I got up and did it anyway, haha! Watching that video too really reminds you of mating dances of birds, especially that second guy. Fascinating!

Oh god, R52, I can absolutely see some people arguing that. "Those moves have sacred meaning!", "Some people are BANNED from dancing in the workplace and now you are just doing it like that right out on the dancefloor!" etc. And then videos passed around with people like Roxane Gay commenting: "Ugh, so tired yt people doing this!" 😂

I love dancing, and wish it would come back. I was trained in dance as a kid in the 90s and even then it was considered weird for me to do by others.

One more time, slowly, everyone....

Performative, solo dancing posted on social media...

Is NOT social dancing.

Well that’s the dancing I like

R51, where is that video from? It looked like a 12-step meeting for sexual predators.

I watch so much TCM that I think about this quite a bit, OP, albeit through the lens of a different era.

When disco died.

Disco died due to homophobia and racism and to this day, many straight folks, especially men, are taught that dancing is behavior of one or both of those communities.

OP should be less concerned with white people are doing and more concerned about her own life. The obsession over whites never ends.

Sorry. It's just that I haven't taken a shit for three months and I get a little touchy.

R63, Fuck off you fkin cunt. You are so out of touch.

When Lou Bega drops Mambo No. 6 white people will dance once more.

When did your mom stop sucking off truckers? We all have questions.

White dance

Uptown Funk was probably the last great dance song...sad.

White people only have 2 moves

When they began instead having sex with each other with drinks in one hand on the dancefloor in the 2000s?

TikTok dancing

No more dance shows to learn moves from.

The nightclub culture never recovered from the new licenses instituted in 2000. It was like watching a switch get flicked. I'm grateful that I had the brief post-college club experience in NYC that I did. It was gone in a little more than a year.

My favorite place was Centro Fly and my favorite memory is of myself dancing with two straight male friends and just having a blast trying to out-dance each other.

Not all straight guys back then thought dancing was weird or queer.

Tap In

Middle-aged and/or married straight white couples stopped dancing when dancing when "freestyle" in the late 60s. Straight guys were comfortable with dances that had defined steps they could learn. They could feel as though they were "doing it right." Being expected to let it all hang out or express themselves on the dance floor was not a comfortable experience. Straight single and/or young whites still danced when dating. In the 80s, more defined steps made a comeback. Straight guys could learn the Hustle or whatever.

I wonder if this affected the rise of country music, which has never stopped having defined dances. It even has line dancing, which I suspect a straight white guy might feel more comfortable with.

Video equipped smartphones.

Dance

King

Sam Rockwell's got some tasty moves.

People don't want to be recorded by someone's phone and then go viral looking goofy for millions to see on repeat.

Beach

Remember when going to the club and watching people dance, and dancing with them, determined whether or not they’d be good in bed if they danced well? Lol!

But there was a truth to that theory.

I love dancing and went in hard in club life when it was a popular thing. It was never about going to the club to get laid, it was always about going to the club to have fun and get those major endorphins one gets from hours of sweating on the dance floor with the music pounding though your body and everyone else feeling the same ecstasy that comes from dancing together and having a singular purpose, in doing so.

Clubs are no longer even around, and the ones that are, suck.

I went home with someone from a club ONCE. Some white boy who lived in his truck. He was very sweet and didn’t know how to dance, however, he knew how to live in his truck and get romantic after the club in the back of my apartment building, in a parking spot, and he was the sweetest guy ever, and i’ll never forget his genuine nervousness and awkward way of wanting to really know how to dance.

People need to get back on the dance floor. Dancing isn’t about sex. It’s about fellowship and communion.

R96 - exactly. I picked up so many men that I wouldn’t even consider on Grindr - because they could dance. And vice versa. Dancing allowed you to show sex appeal. There is nothing sexier to me than a guy who can dance. Still true 25 years later.

I keep thinking dancing HAS to come back. How do people - especially young gay men - NOT dance?!? But almost 20 years now since dance clubs started dying. Possibly the saddest part of internet culture - to me.

Why do you discount TikTok dancing? It’s how people today dance. Stop longing for a past will never return

When Obama got elected.

The majority of straight white people cannot dance. I was watching Sixteen Candles the other night (nostalgia) and the school dance scene was full of embarrassingly bad dancers. Seems most of them were just kind of jumping up and down.

OP Did they ever really...?

White people in Greece, Israel, Turkey, Eastern Europe, Russia, Georgia, Armenia & other places dance all the time at weddings & parties, OP. Are you existing in some hermetically sealed universe?

R97, it really was the funnest thing ever. I miss it, and if there were a club to go dancing to right now nearby, I’d be there.

The one culture in America that still dances and may have clubs, is the Latin culture. There was this one club in Hollywood that I went to all the time, and they had salsa, merengue, cumbia. That was always fun as well and everyone there knew how to get down.

La Floridita, on Fountain. Everyone calls it La Floridita, though it’s really El Floridita.

If anyone here is in LA and wants to have fun and learn how to dance to Latin music, this is the spot. Great food, too.

Man, I wish I were in LA right now. I’d tell all of you to meet me there and shake your money makers with me, cuz one thing I know how to do well is dance my ass off.

Here’s a video. This place seas THE spot and I’m sure it’s still hoppin’

Plenty of gays go there with their hags, by the way, so no reason to be shy of any of you wanna show up and boogie. Gorgeous Latin men and YES, they dance with each other. No one bats an eye.

Oooh! I found Mike’s birthday footage. Here he is with all of his Latin hags.

Latin girls are very sweet and they love their gays

Boys, if you are in Los Angeles, hit this place up and get on the dance floor. I promise you that you’re gonna have a blast. Trust me. 😘

White people dance. All people dance. I can’t speak to GenZ/Zoomers and what they might do at a Prom or whatever, but dancing hasn’t gone anywhere.

Do you mean trained dancing? People who know STEPS? The difference between a waltz or a polka? Even a basic box step? Sure.

But white people dance all the time. White people dance more varied and to a wider range of music than black folks do.

And there are still plenty of gay clubs with dance floors. The fun clubs are the Latin ones though because reggaeton is way better than the top 49 nowadays.

Give me back the 90s greats anytime though.

This is how we dance today.

R107 - They're auditioning for Twyla Tharp

Where are all these dance clubs you speak of? Other than El Floridita in LA. In NYC, 90% of dance clubs closed. Before Covid.

Millions of people dance at home in privacy

Plenty white people dances! I dance!

^What the hell is going on there?

Maybe you just haven’t been hanging out in the right places, OP.

No one can resist the seductive moves of this QAnon honey trap. No one.

You can definitely find white people dancing at:

Office holiday parties

Bar Mitzvahs/weddings

Smooth

Wealthy white families still put their kids in ballet. Ballet is dominated by whites.

[quote]When Did White People Stop Dancing

When we started being accused of cultural appropriation every time we moved a muscle?

Hiphop killed it.

No it revolutionized it

R117 I think OP meant social dancing, not dancing as an extracurricular/hobby/activity to help you get into college. Think sockhops, not ballet.

I learned in New England how to two-step years ago, to country-western music when that was a fad. This was probably in the 1990s. Then I went to a really nice (straight) wedding on the side of the mountain in Palm Springs. The sister of my gay best friend, so it was gay-adjacent. It was truly glamorous. The band was Russ Brown and his Band of Renown. Russ was middle aged but, surprise, his Dad, who originated the band, played at my Mom’s prom in the 1930s. Funny, right?

The music was “lounge music” - songs from Sinatra, Tony Bennett, and so forth. It so happens that the “two step” is universal. The old music had the same beat. All the girls were asking me to dance because their boyfriends didn’t know how to. I distinctly remember being asked to dance, and I had to say, “Sure, but I promised the next dance to her, and the following to her over there...”. It was quite fun. It was almost my grandest day.

As an aside, I learned years later, that the officiate was not legitimate. The bride wanted a wedding, but not a marriage, so it was all pretend! No one knew it was a sham. I don’t blame them. It was quite inventive. I almost admire the bride’s boldness.

Never mind the picture on the link. The short video is a southern debutant dance. It’s the Tennessee Waltz. But there must have been other songs played at the party. It must have taken a lot of practice, by the boys and girls. No date of the video. Looks like the 1990s. Maybe the 2000s..

[quote] White people in Greece, Israel, Turkey, Eastern Europe, Russia, Georgia, Armenia & other places dance all the time at weddings & parties, OP.

I think he means native born white Americans.

Going dancing was a weekend gay ritual back in the day. We'd dance so long and hard we were drenched in sweat. Sexy sweaty bodies everywhere, poppers, ludes. Ah yes, it was magnificent . Here's a clip of Studio One in West Hollywood at it's peak

I took my friend Katie on the 2 hour drive on the Sunday night of Martin Luther King Jr. Holiday weekend, to a Boston club, The Metro, which was Gay on Sundays. We were dancing to [italic] “Its Raining Men”, [/italic] when she raised her hands into the air, and was blocking her face with her arms, well, whatever, right? It’s not like there were “steps” to the dance. I had my shirt off and was a young hottie.

It took me quite a while to figure it out, but the club had a guy behind me filming us, and it was simultaneously protected up on the big screen at the end of the dance floor. The other dancers had actually formed a circle around us, like George Bailey and Mary in their dance scene in [italic] “It’s a Wonderful Life”. [/italic] We talked about it all the way home. What fun!

It gets better. We returned for Presidents’ Day weekend a month later. As we entered, we heard [italic] “Its Raining Men”, [/italic] playing, and we rushed to the dance floor. As we entered the room, we saw the video of us from a month earlier, playing on the big screen! We wondered if they’d been playing it every Sunday for the previous month!

And [italic] that, [/italic] was the grandest day, of my youth.

Sadly, Katie died of a rare brain cancer at age 31. I miss her tremendously.

Not true

I would love to learn how to dance slow, close and romantically.

It seems like straight white men are the only group who are socially prohibited from dancing - by that I mean that sometimes (often?) they'll be made fun of or looked down on if they do it. Clearly, SOME straight white guys dance, but just generally, they seem to be the group that would get shit just for the very act of dancing - whether good or not. The social pushback just doesn't exist among black people generally, gay people generally, women generally.

From what flyovertan shady pines are you writing, OP? European cities all have hopping dance clubs, for all types of white people, and New York and esp Brooklyn just had a golden age of white people EDM and progressive clubs.

Elaine killed dancing for white people.

White people can dance, and dancing isn't only club dancing. Cajuns dance socially (and often, as do Irish folks (Ceilis), Polish people, back I the day Appalachian people got together to dance at house parties.

I remember it well, OP. It was June 8th, 2004. The day the dancing died. The night before we had all gotten together, the old gang, and we cut a mean rug until the sun was nearly up. We did the Charleston, the Freddie, the Watusi AND the Batusi, the Twist, the Shimmy, the Bump, the Robot, and the Electric Slide. We twerked and nae naed and crumped and boot scooted. We did the Urkel. For a brief moment in passionate rhythm we also did the Lambada, the forbidden dance. We prayed to the gods of dance offering our flailing bodies as sacrifice but we must have offended them because the very next day I could not do so much as a box step.

R15, Awesome! I could watch so much more! Sherman Hemsley---who knew?! Patrick Duffy! Gil Gerard!

Ed Harris's hair in r9 is awful!

I'd like to see that terrific r37 dancing cadet give Sam Rockwell a run for his money!

R133, Inspired.

R132, Well, sure, but as you note: back in the day.

R97, Because if a guy can dance, you know he has the right moves elsewhere.

A girl dancing shows you she's willing; a guy dancing shows you he's able.

I looked for this song for decades,does anyone else remember dancing their asses off to this ?

[quote]When Did White People Stop Dancing

Ask Dave Chapelle.

White people still do the old shuck and jive.

Do high schools still have dances, I mean besides the prom?

I love to dance, but doof doof EDM makes me wish for the sweet peace of death. And that’s all they play at the dance venues where I live

Edgar

It started in the 00s when lounges started becoming more popular than dance clubs. It's interesting how dance clubs are still huge in Europe but not in America, minus Vegas and Miami (and NYC too I guess).

Let me dance for you!

When they saw their mother's fat dancing, she left everyone traumatized.

Serious question, though. Is there something about Caucasians that just makes them lack rhythm? Is it a coincidence that blacks and Latinos seem to all have it?

^ What it should look like.

Dance like a high white boy!

When they were shamed for cultural appropriation.

If a white guy acts or performs black (Elvis, Eminem, Timberlake, Bieber) they're considered cool and become megastars for a white audience. If a black man does the reverse ( Bryant Gumbel, Wayne Brady, Tiger Woods) it kills their cred.

Bryant Gumbel, Wayne Brady, Tiger Woods are arguably acting like themselves. That argument is stating that the stereotypical is the authentic.

It's a shame there's not a good quality version of this old clip of David Gregory dancing to Mary J. Blige.

Well acting credibility black is considered cool, whatever one’s race. Acting white is synonymous with being unhip, lame, outdated, starchy, or square.

Reading this thread is making me so nostalgic and mournful for what I have never even experienced. I definitely agree something has been lost.

I think I could really have gotten into the ecstatic club dancing of the ‘90s-early ‘00s, like in the movie GO! or the QUEER AS FOLK tv series; alas, I was a kindergartener at the time. Hard for me to believe that highschool kids would routinely sneak out and party all night in drug-fuelled orgiastic raves, that must have been wild.

My folks kept me under lock and key til I was 21, and by that time it was the 2010s, parties like that didn’t happen anymore, probably because everyone was recessively broke and depressed and introverted by collective trauma. As a Zennial, I have no memory of ever consciously dancing in public, outside of school events (didn’t even dance at my Prom, I was a bullied outcast unhappy to be there) or family weddings. My mother says I used to jump around to disco tunes or attempt showtune choreo as a toddler, though.

One of my favourite group-dance scenes in film is the impromptu street party in JUNGLE 2 JUNGLE (yeah, it is a Disney movie with Tim Allen, overlook that for a second). Lots of white people in the assembled crowd at Central Park in the middle of the day seem to have a great time letting loose. The song is a lovecore-ish Riot-Grrly cover of The Animals ‘It’s My Life’.

A few reasons:

Social media - if you were a bad dancer in the past it would be something that maybe your friends mocked you about but now with smart phones and social if you a bad dancer in a club you could end up all over the internet, become a meme and mocked for years. It's caused to much self awareness to let yourself go, be in the moment and just dance.

Being white - Culture has spent the last 40 years telling white people, specifically white guys, they can't dance. Now we are at a point where boys have heard their whole lives that they'll be mocked for dancing, so why try?

When we had to spend all our time supervising and creating "private" bathrooms for the help.

When they figured it was easier to simply hate Disco.

What is the definition of acting black? And why can't black people just be whatever they are. What is the black trope, that people are "acting" like?

White dancing

I prefer your example, R163, to this Congolese Sphincter Dance

Twerking mechanics

Oh they dancing

Black comedians started goofing on white people dancing in the 70s on. It became a thing.

Still dancing

OP, you OBVIOUSLY know nothing of us Belles and Beaus!

The last gasp for social couple dancing was in the early-mid 90’s, around when, “Swingers” was released. There was a huge surge of people learning how to Swing dance and Lindy-hop.

I went to Buenos Aires a few years ago, and loved visiting a Tango club where everyone was over 50- it was lovely seeing people dancing with each other without being overtly sexual.

Such dancing is thought of as uncool, corny in America

Cool dancing

Who dear, me dear?

Smart phones. Who wants their uninhibited joy blasted on Tiktok or Twitter?

This white boy can dance.

Oops...link.

White people who hang around black people know how to dance

Great Quotes of History:

I cannot tell a lie. - George Washington

In spite of everything, I still believe people are really good at heart. - Anne Frank

May the force be with you. - General Dodonna

Yikes, multiple typos. Sorry, I've been drinking.- OP