In 1926: living at the edge of time - Monoskop

DANCING
slowly around the floor, obeying obscure rules, never growing tired,
because one can't grow tired this way. No heaving breasts, no blushing.
Here and there two girls dance together, sometimes even two boys; it's
all the same to them. So they follow the exotic noises of the gramophone,
which rotates under the sturdiest of needles to make the sound
of the shimmies, fox-trots, and one-steps as loud as possible. The
Double Fox, the African Shimmy, Java Dances, and Polka Creoleswild,
perfumed steps, now languid, now military style, with foreign
rhythms, monotones with orchestral ornamentation, drums thumping
and snapping, spewing out Negro amusement. (Mann, 514)
The younger generation is eager to assimilate the new rhythms of the
fox-trot and the shimmy, the Charleston and the blackbottom. What
many of them have learned in their professions comes out in their dancing:
they let their bodies be coupled to rhythms imposed from outside.
[see Assembly Lines, Employees] So tight is this coupling that the dancers
relinquish all control over their bodies and continue moving until the
point of total exhaustion. [see Endurance] So immediate is the connection
of their individual bodies to the rhythm of the music that they need
no longer be guided through coordination with a partner. Some contemporary
observers hail this change as a new peak of gender emancipation.
[see Male = Female (Gender Trouble)] Yet while the new dances certainly
have a gender-neutralizing effect, they do not really foster individual
freedom of choice; rather, they promote a shift from dependence on a
partner to dependence on an external rhythm. Instead of a site of domination
and surrender, the body of the dance partner becomes a site-or,
rather, a point of reference-for association and coordination. This is
the "deindividualizing" principle (Jelavich, 179ff.) of the kick-lines
which conquer the revue stages, transforming the individual bodies of
the "girls" into complex systems of well-coordinated limbs. [see Revues]
This is also why the role of the gigolo does not turn into a role of
surrender and therefore hardly ever humiliates male gender-pride. And,
finally, this is why the new dancing bodies are so often perceived as pure,
unerotic surface.
The erotic excitement of the interaction with a dance partner is replaced
by the excitement of continually changing fashions in rhythm.
Dance schools therefore emphasize the variety and novelty of the dances
they teach: "To become an exceptional dancer-not merely a 'walk-
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