The most popular dance in the sixties is the twist

2024 Author: Leah Sherlock | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 05:25

The twist dance began its attack on dance floors around the world in the early sixties of the twentieth century. Fashion came to him when the excitement around rock and roll had not yet subsided. The ABC of modern dance was the film "Rock Around the Clock", which starred wonderful stars: Bill Haley with his Comets, Freddie Bell with the Bellboys group and the Platters vocal ensemble. High-class dancers performed complex acrobatic numbers to fervent music, and it was quite clear to the viewer that not everyone could master such steps. It was then that a plump black performer Chubby Checker appeared on the stage, demonstrating a new dance - a twist that is accessible to everyone, regardless of physique, age, weight, and does not require special physical skills. His pas were extremely democratic.

Unlike rock'n'roll, which is a mixture of movements characteristic of boogie-woogie, including the partner's throws through herself and requiring a clear coordination of the partners' movements, the twist dance was performed individually. Any person not devoid of a sense of rhythm could master it in general terms in just one short lesson. Somewhat parodicthe lesson was depicted in the film comedy "Prisoner of the Caucasus" directed by Gaidai, in which visiting swindlers teach naive citizens to extinguish cigarette butts with their toes. In general, Experienced, the character of Morgunov, conveys the essence of the dance correctly, forgetting, however, to add that the main rule, in addition to rotational movements of the legs, is the immobility of the shoulders, while the hands hold an imaginary towel that rubs the hips.

The spread of the new fashion in the West was facilitated by radio broadcasts and a regularly broadcast television dance school. The twist became so popular that not a single party could do without it, and Checker's hits "Let Twist Again", "Fly", "Do The Twist", "Limbo Rock" and many others filled the radio airwaves. At its core, these musical compositions for the most part represented the same rock and roll, but in a smoother and more major version, with less accentuated rhythm and blues roots.

The Soviet party leadership traditionally took the new youth fashion with hostility. First Secretary of the Central Committee of the CPSU N. S. Khrushchev called the twist dance "whistling" and was simply furious when he heard a "song about Moscow" performed by Muslim Magomayev, in which he caught the hated rhythm. He no longer had time to ban it, in October 1964 Nikita Sergeevich was removed from the leadership.

In the mentioned film "Prisoner of the Caucasus" not only negative characters performed the twist. The dance of the “Komsomol member, sportswoman and beauty” Natalia Varley on the stone meant permission to “twist” all Soviet youth. VIA"Akkord" released several very successful records in this genre, giving rise to modern rhythms in the domestic stage.

The twist fashion did not last long. Already in the mid-sixties, he changed, turning into Madison. In essence, it was the same dance, but it was performed more slowly and by a group led by a steward who gave commands to change the type of movement.

Then came the slop, an even more relaxed variation of the twist. Of the subsequent, often replacing one another, fashionable dances of the second half of the sixties, only hali-gali and ye-ye are remembered. Today, few people distinguish them from a twist.