ABSTRACT
The curtain of silence and invisibility has been raised, revealing a stage strewn with suffering bodies set against backdrops of repression, punishment and control; of collusion, bad faith and false consciousness; of reaction, struggle and heroic resistance. The image of woman as eternal victim or resisting heroine opposing the might of a universal and monolithic patriarchy is no longer an adequate way to understand either the meaning of the historical experiences of femininity or how gender constitutes the social world. Marshall Berman in his book All That Is Modern Melts Into Air (1983) identifies three terms embraced by the notion of the modern: the socioeconomic process of modernisation, the aesthetic of modernism, and the historical experience of modernity. The dancing craze was not just an entertainment to be consumed by increasing numbers of young women and men across the spectrum of Australian social life.
