Not long ago, tearing up the dance floor was just a distant memory for most of the world. Here’s Claire Marie Healy, editor of A24 latest coffee table book on the dance floor: spinning on the screen, I remember it very clearly. “We started writing the book in 2021 as we emerged from a series of lockdowns,” she said. “With the dance floor closed for that time — and only really starting to reopen — it felt like an interesting moment to reflect on what dance floors really mean to us, and what they mean to us. And they What can mean for our future.”
Across 24 Fun designs and gorgeous The illustrated page, on the dance floor
does just that. “I think it’s definitely worth the money,” Healy said, but that might be an understatement. This thick tome delves into some of the most memorable dances in film, art, and literature—from medieval woodblock prints to Jennifer Lopez’s performance at the pole in Hustlers Stills from . and Edith Wharton Excerpts from The Age of Innocence between Gaspar Noé and choreographer Nina McNeely about the former Dialogue on drug craze movies, Climax (2021). also There’s a series of original articles and so-called dance floor dispatches, the latter from a variety of artists, musicians and writers pondering what it is that gives the dance floor its enduring cultural power.
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“There have been a lot of incredible books looking at specific nightclubs and specific dance culture histories, but we wanted it to be different,” explains Healey. “We wanted to think about what it means to be a dance floor through the movies we watch, the books we read and the photos we love – how our experience of the dance floor is shaped by all this visual culture and literature and these ideas that we create and consume It. These influences influence the free-flowing dynamic layout of the book, which deliberately juxtaposes images and text from decades, if not centuries, meaning you can always open the book and find a way “We want the materials to really respond to being with each other in this instinctive way,” Healy pointed out.
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To further foster the bubbly spirit, Healy invited a motley crew of guests to join her at the party. (If they were on the dance floor at the same time, imagine what would happen It was a very hot night.) The foreword was written by none other than Cher – yes, the Cher – although the above is from notorious night owl Charli XCX ; Lizzy Goodman, who wrote a book about New York’s millennial indie scene when she met me in the bathroom with ; and Gay Bar by Jeremy Atherton Lin. Writers such as Marlowe Granados, Madison Moore, Rachel Syme, Fariha Róisín and Rachel Tashjian have contributed to this from Phantom Thread From the New Year’s Eve scene in “With Do the Right Thing. The imaginary diary of Uma Thurman’s character Mia Wallace in Pulp Fiction about her relationship with Vincent Vega ( Vincent Vega) dancing. It all comes together to form a weird, wonderful, very wild whole.
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this book The more meaningful side of the dance floor is also explored. It doesn’t just document the intersection between nightclubs and counterculture – photos of Danceteria’s Keith Haring, Paradise Garage revelers throwing poses at Larry Levan, Michael Alig’s nightclub kids, Northern Soul and VHS screenshots from the British acid house era — and it also touches, however implicitly, on the powerful meaning of the dance floor for marginalized groups of all kinds. “I think the dance floor is a space that has this transformative potential,” Healy said. “There’s a sense of freedom and liberation, a space away from real life. When you start using film as a starting point, these are the stories the filmmakers are telling. Stories of marginalized communities and what they discover on the dance floor Stuff is basically what just came out—that sense of freedom and self-discovery.”
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As Healy points out, you really can’t make a book about the dance floor without crossing time, space, and community. “When it comes to the idea of the dance floor and expanding the scope of the dance floor, I wanted a certain amount of playfulness in the book,” she said. “I like to have some more unexpected ideas, like the Edith Wharton segment, because of course, historically, the dance floor is actually a very coded, confined space—in terms of our sense of freedom, Edith Wharton’s dance hall is not The dance floor we’re just talking about. But at the same time, in terms of the act of glancing and looking and judging that happened in that scene in the ballroom or on the dance floor, it still exists today. I think those older texts and older images have a continuing Relevance, maybe surprising, silly or serious — or all of these, hopefully.”
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Of course, all of this begs the question: when do you stop digging? There are so many rabbit holes you can explore, so many cultures you can explore, so many scenes and moments from film and literary history… When does this book feel finished? Even Healy admits she doesn’t have the answers. “I would watch the movie and think, oh yeah, I totally forgot about this dance floor scene, it felt so pivotal that we should probably include it in the book. I basically spent a whole year looking for the dance floor scene, ’ she added, before laughing. However, she also admits that it “takes a village” to put together a book of this scale and ambition. (Archival consultants for the book include Fox, Amy Sall and Miss Rosen of SUNU magazine, while the images and ephemera included in the pages were collected from various locations at the Museum of Youth Culture, London) Arab Image Foundation in Beirut.)
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Finally, the afterword to the book is provided by New York magazine party columnist Brock Colyar, who charts their journey as – awkwardly in Walk through the city’s clubs. (After all, we can’t all be Bianca Jagger riding into the studio on a white horse 424.) Keep insisting you look absolutely ridiculous and EVERYONE IS LOOKING AT YOU AND OH MY GOD WHAT YOU ARE DOING WRONG,” they wrote “If you only focus on that sound, you’ll never really understand the value of the dance floor, which is: Letting go. ”
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