Daft Punk revealed in bootleg video at the 1996 Even Further festival. [more inside]
posted by loquacious on May 10, 2009 - 31 comments

Ron Murphy cut records, but not just any records. Responsible for cutting the actual vinyl master plates of much of the now revered Detroit Techno including Jeff Mills, Carl Craig, Underground Resistance's seminal Knights of the Jaguar, and much more - he demonstrated impeccable craftsmanship and skill in both mastering records for sound and aesthetics at company known as Sound Enterprises source link AKA National Sound Corporation. Schooled in Motown, dubplates and jukeboxes, he is the bespoke-crafted, analog link between the digital future and analog past that is the roots of Techno music and modern techno DJ culture. [more inside]
posted by loquacious on Feb 13, 2008 - 15 comments

"While we live, let us LIVE." A History of Social Dance in America, complete with vintage cheat sheets, a look at the perils of crinoline and lots of other period detail. Naturally, there were those who objected to this scandalous practice. See also the Library of Congress' An American Ballroom Companion: Dance Instruction Manuals 1490-1920, especially here and here. [via BibliOdyssey]
posted by mediareport on Sep 25, 2007 - 6 comments

The Dance, historic illustrations of dancing from 3300 B.C. to 1911 A.D. A Project Gutenberg ebook. Brief, illustrated history of dance in India. Vintage belly dance YouTube videos.
posted by nickyskye on Jun 9, 2007 - 20 comments

I'm no dancer, but I'm fascinated by the Dance History Archives. The index of dance styles is comprehensive, and the individual entries provide everything from history to related music links. (Jitterbug, May Pole, The Watusi) There's a short glossary, an index of dancers, a voluptuous section on burlesque (including some great NSFW pictures), an archive of posters (Josephine Baker!), and so much more. The list of Dancer Related Celebrities is pretty extensive (Fred Astaire, Rita Hayworth), although there's no Jennifer Grey, so I guess Baby got put in a corner after all.
posted by OmieWise on Feb 24, 2006 - 17 comments

Electro-funk is a often overlooked genre of dance music that is very influential for many genres of dance music that came around it and after it, including Hip-Hop, Dance, Disco, Electric Boogie, Freestyle, Techno and Drum and Bass.
One of the most prominent Electro-Funk DJs was Greg Wilson, who has set up electrofunkroots.co.uk to document the history and influence of Electro-Funk. Wilson interviews Quentin Leo Cook, (a.k.a. Norman Cook, a.k.a. Fatboy Slim) on Cook's impressions of Electro-Funk and how it has influenced him as a music producer and DJ.
Wilson has also provided a personal history and retrospective mix of top Electro-Funk songs to A Guy Called Gerald for Samurai.fm.
posted by gen on Nov 29, 2005 - 27 comments

Single shuffle, double shuffle, cut and cross-cut; snapping his fingers, rolling his eyes, turning in his knees, presenting the backs of his legs in front, spinning about on his toes and heels like nothing but the man’s fingers on the tambourine. Dancing with two left legs, two right legs, two wooded legs, two wire legs, two spring legs–all sorts of legs and no legs–what is this to him? And in what walk of life, or dance of life does man ever get such stimulating applause as thunders about him, when, having danced his partner off her feet, and himself too, he finishes by leaping gloriously on the bar-counter, and calling for something to drink, with the chuckle of a million of counterfeit Jim Crows, in one inimitable sound!

Dancing Across The Color Line.   In 1842, Charles Dickens came to New York City, where initally, he was wined, dined and theatrically entertained by the upper crust. Afterwards, he then went slumming and soon saw William Henry Lane, aka Master Juba, a man of whose dancing a number of historians say is where tap dance began, step lively in a cellar in the neighborhood called Five Points--the very same neighborhood creatively misrepresented recently by one Martin Scorcese in Gangs of New York. The dance he did was known as Pattin' Juba and the first time it's rhythm--which we think of as the Bo Diddley beat--was used on a sound recording was in 1952, when Red Saunders and his Orchestra, with Dolores Hawkins and and the Hambone Kids recorded Hambone. Continued within
posted by y2karl on Apr 4, 2005 - 3 comments