Dance Halls

St. James Encyclopedia of Pop Culture by Ethan Hay

Dancing has been regarded as a social institution in America for over a century. Many famous dance venues, from the Cotton Club and Roseland in New York, the Avalon Ballroom on Catalina Island, Aly Baba in Oakland, to the Old Roosevelt Hotel in New Orleans, attest to the tremendous influence which dancing has had on American culture. These are just a few of the popular meeting spots where people interact socially and can be seen publicly, dancing to the popular music of the day. Local community dance halls thrive in recreation centers, churches, and high school gymnasia as well as commercial night clubs. The primary requirement in any dance hall is to provide ample music and the room for people to dance. Food and beverages are often served as light refreshments, and seating arrangements allow people to meet, to comment, and to view others who are out on the dance floor. An important concept of the dance hall is "to see and be seen," and rites of passage into society including coming-of-age events, proms and pageants, ceremonies such as weddings, and musical debuts have centered around dance events and subsequently are popular uses for dance halls.

The forum of entertainment generally known as the dance hall evolved over the course of several centuries, taking on a distinctive function and purpose in each succeeding generation. The notion of halls as social meeting places may have its origins in northern Europe during the middle ages, when one large, central room with an elevated ceiling was used for dining, reveling, convening, and even sleeping by large groups of tenants and visitors of no particular relation. The British connotation of the word "hall" more often refers to a large common room used as a meeting place for particular events. By contrast, the American sense of the word, as a central space or passageway usually into which the front door opens, is related in the sense that the hall is a room common to all people who enter a particular building.

As feudal houses grew in stature and European nobility became more pronounced, "great halls" were designed as distinct chambers for meeting and gathering. Great halls were featured in many palaces and country manors of the 14th through 18th century, used as places of social gathering for important events, coronations, festivals, and celebrations. Court dancing evolved in these great halls throughout Europe, developing intricate codes of conduct and ritual which persisted through the turn of the 20th century. Grand balls were an important social component of the 17th through the 19th centuries, and dancing was regarded as a prime element of display, courtship, and social manners. Dance balls of the Victorian era usually lasted entire evenings, where the hosts served multi-coursed suppers and attendees literally danced "until they dropped," finding back rooms and quiet corners to sleep when they could dance no longer. It is notable that most dance events of the western hemisphere are for the celebration of social occasions. In the east, dancing is more often reserved strictly for religious ceremonies, with elaborate costumes and traditions which have remained intact for centuries.

The modern dance hall has a more obscure origin. Dance halls in America seem to have grown out of refugee immigration from eastern and southern Europe during the mid-1900s. Folk dancing, most particularly the polka, has enjoyed a rich tradition in the immigrant working-class, who find dancing to be an essential element of recreation after long hours in labor-intensive jobs. Dance halls naturally grew up around this need to socialize. Many dance hall regulars attribute the Polish immigration of the 1940s and 1950s with the establishment of the American dance hall. The Nazi and Soviet occupations, leading up to the outbreak of World War II, forced thousands of working-class and minority Poles and Slavs to come to the United States. Once arrived, Polish immigrants succeeded in venerating traditional customs including social folk dancing. Primary among these was the polka. Polka parties, international polka associations, and dance competitions continue to thrive in the late 20th century in the United States, while in eastern Europe this dance form has virtually died out, mostly likely due to the influence of foreign political regimes.

In rural areas, dance halls are generally known for their live bands, and it is not unusual for attendees to drive in from 50 to 100 miles away. Dance halls in rural areas tend to feature food and beverages more prominently, whereas the urban disco will emphasize dance floor decorations, settings, and acoustics. The dance hall's modern cousin, the discotheque or night club, has distinctly urban origins. Discotheques, or discos, began in Paris with the advent of the phonograph album in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Discos tend to feature more modern forms of popular music, and many new dances have been invented in reaction to new music. Whether the music is being played live or in recordings, the important feature of all dance halls, night clubs, and discos is the emphasis on dancing and socializing.