History is made at night

'you Frug, Surf and Watusi and you don't need a band - Discotheque Dancing.  As of last night, the smart dances to do were the Frug,...

In 1944 the Nazi occupation of Paris was in its last deadly phase. The RAF was bombing the city's railway stations and the Resistance wa...

Thanks to Google news and other archive searches it is possible to date reasonably accurately when words came to be widely used, at least...

Luc Sante is the 23rd person to complete the Dancing Questionnaire. Luc has written extensively on New York cultural history, and much mor...

In 1933, the photographer Brassaï (real name Gyula Halász, 1899–1984) published Paris de Nuit (Paris by Night), a remarkable photographic ...

In my street in New Cross last week, somebody left a pile of books outside for passers-by to help themselves to. So it came to pass that ove...

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...

Interesting article in New York Times (10 Janyuary 2010) on decline in Paris nightlife: '...Despite its reputation as the bustling spiri...

Next up is Pete, a one man link connecting jazz, mod and techno rave scenes. He is currently involved in the Young Unknowns gallery project...

A couple of (related?) new blogs with similar interests to this site: Apples from the Underground - ' blog inspired by the underground ...

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...

Tom from Vamos a Bailar: Salsa in Cardiff and Around steps up: 1. Can you remember your first experience of dancing? Dancing to a rhythm’n’...

Au Petit Rocher (also known as Chez Dinocheau after its owner) was a popular tavern/restaurant frequented by Parisian 'bohemians'...

The credit crunch clearly hasn't hit the world of super-rich art collecting - last week Danseuse (above), a 1915 painting by the Futuri...

The Joseph Rous Paget - Fredericks Dance Collection at the University of California consists of 'approximately 2,000 original drawing...

Last week I went to the launch of Here We Dance, at Tate Modern . The exhibition aims to look at 'the relationship between the body and ...

The French novelist Sidonie -Gabrielle Colette (1873 -1954), known as Colette, lived life to the full in Fin de Siecle Paris, a period des...

This chronology of raves, clubs and policing was compiled from the dance music press at the time ( Mixmag , Muzik , Eternity, DJ etc.). Much...

The writer Anais Nin (1903-77) lived between Paris and New York in the 1930s, and her diaries provide a vivid account of bohemian nightlif...

In an earlier post , we referred to the revivalist jazz raves organised by Mick Mulligan and George Melly in London in the early 1950s, the ...