The Good Old Days Weren't All Good

The Good Old Days Weren't All Good

The other day I'm sittin' with a guy who grew up in the 30's and the subject of dancing comes around. I tell him that I like the big bands and I can only imagine what it must have been like for a guy like him - coming up in the era of swing, Basie, an every town having a ballroom or dancehall. He shook his head and chuckled knowingly before giving me the skinny.

It seems like those of us who dance are just about like everyone else when it comes to assuming that things were better way back when. It's a kind of nostalgia trance we all go into from time to time…usually when our job or government gets us down. Maybe you catch an episode of Andy Griffith or I Love Lucy and you find yourself falling under the black-and-white spell - oh that simpler time, wasn't life just grand way back when?

Well, not really. You see Puritanism was alive and well in the 30's - that ought to be obvious from the existence of prohibition. Many small towns across the Midwest (and many large cities) had laws banning dancing because it was a doorway to vice and amoral behavior. In reality anti-dancing laws came from a deeper root in American history. In New England, colonial inns and taverns were banned from providing 'performances of Shakespeare and other dramatic presentations to puppet shows, sleight-of-hand, magic and ventriloquism, tight rope walking, juggling, trick riding, animal exhibitions, and acrobatics' and traveling entertainers were lumped in the same legal category as beggars, rogues, and wandering preachers.

Sure, some of the dance bans were a little more specific. Washington State enacted a ban against dance marathons in 1937 - it wasn't repealed until 1987. In Reno, Nevada it's still illegal to hold a dance marathon - and a walking marathon too. I'm not sure if dancing in marathon format is more salacious or if there's just a fear that twenty-six mile long dance floors will be showing up and impeding other development…or maybe the folks who write these laws are just morons.

You're probably thinking, 'Gee, DC - it's a good thing I live in the modern era (and in a state where marrying first cousins isn't legal) when I can dance wherever I want with whoever I like…'. Get a grip, bright-eyes - it ain't exactly so. In February 2007 New York City upheld a ban on dancing in establishments without a license that permits dancing. Can you imagine that? Your local tavern needs to have a dance license just in case someone feels like shagging to a band that catches their fancy? And, heaven forbid, in that behemoth city of New York that likes to consider itself far ahead of the social curve to which the rest of the nation bends.

Well, you can take heart in the fact that at least it's better than it used to be - in some places.