I thought through various friends and people in general that had been to New York city, Usa, recently where telling me tall stories!! Tales of not being able to dance within bars, etc I quickly dismissed as ridculous. I listened to the stories from various sources but I quickly put I put them out of my mind.

Visions of the film called "Footloose" kept cropping up in my mind. Remember that film that starred Kevin Bacon??

First of all I asked, I asked Ron Bess - Rowenlb22@aol.com , who writes for weekly dance newsletter called "DanceTalk", about the stories and fears that many people were talking about within New York, and other cities within the Usa via the Nightclub industry.

1. Why has New York City, and most major cities in the USA lost the will to dance? Is it all down to Mayor Giuliani?

"Mayor Giuliani has stepped down from office over eight months ago. The current mayor, Bloomberg is looking to pass a law that forbids smoking in night clubs and restaurants. Interesting enough Zagat (the restaurant guide) did a survey that showed that 85% of the public welcomed removal of smoking from public places".

"As far as dancing goes, the dancing is still there. It has shifted from the Hustle of the 70's to WCS in the 80's and Latin dancing thru the 90's. Dancers have evolved and have expanded their dance horizons. During the mid ninety's when our economy was grooving, it became very posh to smoke expensive cigars and sip martini's. This changed the social scene".

"Dance Halls had historically been the place to meet, dance and romance. The Martini bars changed this a bit".

"The Rap sound also has had a big impact on the touch dance arena. The rap sound encourages break dancing, popping and free style. Rap music has successfully crossed over into the main stream and top 40 chart. But the dance music is still out there".

"It currently is reminiscent of the early days of disco where only a few radio stations played dance music and more so in the evenings. Clearly, every major city still has hot dance radio stations and clubs to support them. NY has WKTU, Florida has Mega 103.5 and Phila has 106 Power along with NJ's Dance station The Buzz 102".

Question 2. I feel that the Disco culture is another reason why the authorites in New York City have tried in every way possible to stop dancing in New York and other major cities in the USA.

"The dancers will always be there. Today they line up to get into the Copa in NY. The question is what came first the chicken or the egg? Did salsa dancing drive the music or vise versa. The hottest dancing today is Salsa. Ricky Martin, Shakira, Jennifer Lopez, Mark Anthony have helped drive this sound".

"In the dance world there is still wonderful music out there. Amber consistently puts out hits that we dance to. We love the music of Cher, Perpetuous Dreamer (The sound Of Goodbye by) Shena's I'll Be Waiting by, all the new music by Kylie Minogue and the hot song by Delsena "Trippin". The music of today is faster ( 130 BPM). The dance style of the 70's doesn't adapt as easy".

Question 3 - Why was it that the music of disco that had it all before it then fell like a pack of cards?

"The DJ put the bands on the back burner. This created a backlash. The word Disco became a dirty word. The music is still there but retitled "Dance". As I write to you there is a major Disco dance contest taking place in multiple night clubs thru out Florida. It is sponsored by a radio station and they are giving away $5000.00 to the winning couple. Many of the 70's artists continue to perform and tour the country. Donna Summer, the Bee Gees, Trammps, KC & the Sunshine Band all play Las Vegas and the Casino's in Atlantic City".

"The kids of today still dance but are doing more free style and Latin dancing to todays Top 40. But rest assure there are still unlimited number of Disco dancers dancing at clubs and dance studios all over the USA".

1. Why has New York City, and most major cities in the USA lost the will to dance? Is it all down to Mayor Giuliani?

Although the 70's was a unique period for the dance scene during the "Disco Boom", you can still find clubs today that are really fun nightspots (if you know where to look). I attached a copy of a digitial photo that I took at SIDETRACKS last night (Thursday, August 15, 2002) which you can download. Maybe Diane Nardone, Ron Bess and David Mancuso may be able to help you identify some other city spots that are fun. Do I think it was better in the 70's... sure, but sometimes our personal preference is affected by what we were intimately involved with.

Question 2. I feel that the Disco culture is another reason why the authorites in New York City have tried in every way possible to stop dancing in New York and other major cities in the USA.

Although it is well known that Mayor Guiliani was not an advocate of dancing establishments, the new New York City Mayor Bloomberg does not seem to be an opponent. I believe you will see a more tolerant atmosphere for dance clubs now that we have a new administration in New York City.

Question 3 - Why was it that the music of disco that had it all before it then fell like a pack of cards?

When you say disco fell like a pack of cards, let me give you my perspective. The 70's "Disco Boom" caused many latecomers to jump onto the "Disco Bandwagon", many of them didn't have a clue about what the scene was all about. Jerks came out of the woodwork opening clubs, practically on every block, expecting to make piles of money, even though they didn't know the first thing about the movement. The music business also saw a flood of garbage music coming from artists who were convinced all they had to do was release a song with a catchy title and a tempo of about 128 beats per minute and they would be stars. The "collapse" was more like a "return to normal" where the wanna-be's were eliminated and those who were authentic survived.

Armed with those answers, I thought I knew these stories were not right.

"Not being able to dance in New York city!! Yeah likely story. Get out of here I thought. Next they would be telling you that you could only wear certain clothing at certian times of the week!! We are talking about the "City that never Sleeps"

A line made famous by the late great Frank Sinatra.

But strange as it may sound I still carried on and did some more research onto this matter and came up with some fascinating facts.

The city of New York, has a had stringent law in force since the Prohibition years of 1920 -1931. This was brought into to force in a determined effort to try and suppress the then spiralling jazz scene in "Harlem" of that period of time.

New York's Cabaret laws began in the 1920s(*1926 to be precise!!), during Prohibition (As mentioned above), and were historically were even more restrictive than they are now.

They were used on one hand to keep whites and blacks from dancing together. A club with an all-black band and an all-white audience was OK. A club with an all-white band and an all-black audience was fine. But it was not acceptable for racially mixed bands to play or mixed audiences to hear them. New York's finest shut them down.

Defining a cabaret as any place with music entertainment that also sold food or drink, the laws at various times limited the kinds of music that could be played and, infamously, required ID cards and fingerprinting for everyone who officially worked in a "cabaret."

Through lawsuits and relatively more enlightened city officials, they were chipped away at over the years until now, when pretty much the only thing a cabaret license gets you is the ability to have dancing at your nightspot.

Please click on to the website link below which enforms you of the rules to apply for a Cabaret licenses.

http://www.ci.nyc.ny.us/html/dca/html/cabaret.html

In the late 1980's, after a long five year legal battle on behalf of the Musicians Union led by New York University Law Professor Paul Chevigny, the courts declared the three musician rule to be unconstitutional and accepted live music in zones where bars and restaurants are permitted. But nothing was done to lift the stigma of dancing.

Most officials turned a blind eye to the cabaret laws until the late 1990s, when in 1997, Mayor Rudy Guiliani created the multi-agency Nightclub Enforcement Task Force to crack down on clubs as part of his "Quality of Life" campaign.

Mayor Giuliani has been widely hailed as a hero in the wake of the Sept.11th, 2001 via the attack on the World Trade Center, but before the crisis he drew criticism for policies that many construed as an attack on New York's club culture and nightlife industry.

Various reseachers from many walks of life state that there are only 296 venues with cabaret licenses in all five boroughs where you can legally dance in, down from 12,000 in 1961. Although there are currently over 5,000 liquor licenses in the five boroughs you can only dance in 296 places. You are not allowed to dance to the jukebox or DJ at your local bar. You are not allowed to move to the rock band or jazz act at your neighborhood club.

From 1997 to 2000, New York city officials temporarily closed 69 bars and clubs for violating the cabaret laws. Peoples within the music industry state that this is ruining New York, and has allowed London,England to take its place as the world number one city when it comes to dance music and culture.

Most people don't have a problem with nightclubs as long as it not in their neighbourhoods. Previously commercial areas of the New York such as Soho, Flatiron, downtown Manhattan have now become or begining to become residencial.When peoples gets home from work most residents want peace and quiet; not hooting and laughter, cars horns and squabbles late at night.

House-music legend Nicky Siano (Of the Gallery nightclub fame in New York!!) bemoaned the mayor's pandering to real estate interests. "He's left us no space to open a club; there's no commercial space anymore," -(Taken from the No Dancing Allowed website)

A short Documentary has been made that highlights the problems that the music and nightclub industry from the city face. It was made by a media company called - XLS Productions. There e-mail is xls@interport.net . Please give them a buzz if you want to get in touch with them.

Please click on this link that will produce a 15 minute documentary on what has happened within the music industry/nightclub industry via New York.

http://www.konscious.com/films/clip4/no_dancing_56.ram

Any thoughts on the matter? Please leave your views on this by:

E-mailing me here via this e-mail address - carl@garage-music.com - or better still get back to this website and leave messages there via your comments. http://www.nodancingallowed.com/

This is copyrighted. If you would like to use articles or stories present within
the thoughts Column then please do get back to me,
Carl Brown, Ipswich, England.

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