History is made at night

'Yesterday evening a grand ball, attended by the leading members of the Hebrew persuasion in the city, took place at the London Tavern, ...

Some musical/dance images from Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum, which I visited this weekend: 'Melody' by Kellock Brown (1894...

In the last weeks before he was drowned in 1822,    Percy Bysshe Shelley  wrote a series of poems inspired by his friend Jane Williams   an...

Blackheath Cavern, also known as Jack Cade's Cavern, was a  series of caves under Blackheath Hill in Greenwich South East London (pres...

On the occasion of Queen Elizabeth's Diamond Jubilee, I am reminded of James Connolly's denunciation of Queen Victoria's Diamo...

'The dance can reveal everything mysterious that is hidden in music, and it has the additional merit of being human and palpable. Dancin...

Earlier this year I went to the Eadweard Muybridge photography exhibition at Tate Britain. Of particular interest to me are his studies of d...

A while ago I went to a talk by the great radical historian Peter Linebaugh on 'The Invisibility of the Commons' . In the course of ...

Flesh and Stone: the Body and the City in Western Civilization (1994)by Richard Sennett ‘is a history of the city told through people’s bod...

In previous posts on the origins of rave, ravers and raving , we have established that the use of these terms in relation to parties goes ba...

In 1889, Oscar Wilde wrote an article called 'Poetical Socialists' for the Pall Mall Gazette (February 15), reviewing a book of soc...

'It was a fine September evening, just before sunset, when yellow lights struggle with blue shades in hairlike lines, and the atmosphere...

The International Working Men's Association (later know as the First International) was established in 1864, with its famous statement ...

In the late nineteenth century a mandolin craze swept America and Europe, leading to the formation of numerous mandolin orchestras with mai...

Before the mirror's dance of shadows She dances in a dream, And she and they together seem A dance of shadows, Alike the shadows of a d...

A prediction from 1897: 'Lady Ancaster's moan over the decay of dancing in London has called forth numerous letters on the subject...

Here's another very old flyer (click to enlarge). This one is for a Grand Masquerade, Garden Party and Fancy Dress Ball at North Woolwic...

When did people start passing out flyers to get people to come to their club or dancehall? The earliest I have come across so far is this ca...

I first became aware of the line 'We are the music makers, we are the dreamers of dreams' when it was quoted on the cover of Sasha a...

On this day in 1871 (the 16th May) there was a unique party in Paris during the days of the Commune . The occasion was the destruction of th...