ABSTRACT
Forms of dance subject to considerable social criticism included the Charleston, jitterbugging, rock’n’roll in the 1950s, the twist in the 1960s, and disco dancing in the 1970s. Adorno saw jitterbugging, a popular and flamboyant form of dance in the 1940s, as a ‘stylized’ dance style whose performers had ‘convulsive aspects reminiscent of St. Vitus’s dance or the reflexes of mutilated animals’ (1991:46). As Negus (1996) observes, such responses reflected a distaste for overt expressions of sexuality, a racist fear of ‘civilized’ behaviour being undermined by ‘primitive rhythms’, and a concern that young people are being manipulated and effected by forms of mass-crowd psychology (see effects).
