Dance 103 Module 3 Exam

The Twist

This dance was developed in the 1960's. Dancers twisted their hips back and forth. Variations with standing tall or squatting very low while still twisting the hip side to side were also typical. The Twist was made famous by Chubby Checker but was written by Hank Ballard.

Steve Rubell

from a Andy this is my ography when Steve had a childlike sense that life could be immensely enjoyable he was a big life enhancer here's this boy who bought a brief moment controlled the reins of a certain world and people wanted to come into his world you could behave any way you wanted at Studio 54 and you knew that no one was going to say what you had done and before he knew it everything that he did was way out of hand and there was really no way to go back he bit off more than he can chew on a few occasions but it never stopped them from taking another big bite again East New York in the 40s was a place where boys played stickball in the streets and Families ate dinner together at six neighborhoods social life revolved around the front students everybody was on the stoop every day from the end of school till you had to go in and meet dinner and then as soon as you can get rid of your homework you were back out on the stoop again everybody lived on the streets that condition didn't exist any degree television was just starting everybody lived on the streets it was into this middle-class Jewish community that Steve Rubell was born on the 2nd of December 1943 the second son of Ann and Phil Rubel his older brother Donald had been born three years earlier Steve shared the family's one-bedroom with Donald his parents slept on the living-room couch the Rue bells were a tight-knit family and Steve would remain close to both his parents and his brother throughout his life Steve's mother Anne taught Latin at a New York public high school from her Steve inherited the gift of understanding people she was always the person that everybody all the friends all of the relatives would always come to where their problems and Steve had the ability to see the other people and to know what the other people wanted and where they felt Steve's father Phil delivered mail from 5:00 in the morning to 2:30 in the afternoon he loved playing tennis and after a long day's work bill would come home and teach the local children as soon as he got out from work he was over at Lincoln Terrace park giving tennis lessons until Doc phil was backhoes de racket man that was his logo becos the racket like his father Steve was small as an adult only five foot five it was his brother Donald who got the height in the family Donald would grow to be six foot two from Steve's perspective his older brother got the looks and brains as well I mean there's silly things from childhood but I think a lot of those early those really precious and this the whole idea of going into a classroom and then the teachers saying oh you're Donna Donna Bella's brother how can that be you know these all those kind of things are quite interesting when you get into the relationship with the family it's really it makes a lot of sense as to his his dr steve learned early that a big personality could compensate for a lack of height he was known in the neighborhood as an energetic little kid who would talk to any and everybody Steve's father taught him to play tennis not surprisingly he became one of the best players in the neighborhood but tennis was never any real competition for conversation my father taught us both had to play tennis and demanded absolute concentration except when Steve played there always ten people behind the court that he was talking to endlessly and it used to drive I guess both of them crazy with it for Steve school was also another opportunity for conversation though he was a good student his best subject was socializing and by high school he had realized the advantage of charming those in power well Stevie was the right person in school he knew all the teachers the principals and he knew who he had to know in order to get what he wants he didn't take advantage of it but he knew people and people loved him no problem Steve okay because of his connection in high places Steve and his friends were allowed to eat lunch at an off-campus diner instead of the school cafeteria Steve was always happiest at the center of a group of friends he organized after-school parties and kept a busy weekend social schedule every Friday night ended at the local diner one of Steve's favorite hangouts he loved the bustling social energy there Stevie always said I'll meet you at the diner I'll meet you well let's meet someplace else no we're gonna meet at the diner at 11 o'clock everyone would meet down there he'd sit there and hang out until 1:00 2:00 in the morning and go home during those high school days little thought was given to careers marriage or life in the real world no one ever discussed what they were gonna do when they grew up if anything there was a delaying process no one was in a hurry to grow up so no one would discuss growing up in 1961 after graduating from high school Steve enrolled at Syracuse University socially College turned out to be high school all over again and he quickly became the guy to know on campus everybody knew Stevie at Syracuse University I mean fifteen thousand students at Syracuse University Stevie was best friends with the Chancellor and as a result of that relationship I think he divvied out all the seating for the football games which was an immensely powerful position he wanted a good seat for the football game he had a deal with Steve so he was a big man on campus Steve knew that he wanted to be successful but he had no idea at what so he chose dentistry as a major because he knew a successful dentist then last too long but blessed herb as far as biology I think you know what good is doing something where the people can talk to you Rubel quickly realized that the life of a dentist would not suit his personality and he changed his major to history this was the era of the Vietnam War and like many young men Steve feared being drafted by joining the Army Reserve he knew he could lessen his chances of being sent overseas Steve was stationed in New Jersey and in Oklahoma and as always he made the system work for him at Fort Dix New Jersey he refused to stay in barracks that he described as filthy and he managed to work out a better alternative when everybody else was sleeping in tents and on bivouac or whatever it was Stevie's slept in motels he just found a way of making things comfortable for himself without creating any sort of problems soon his entire reserve unit had checked into the motel and it was Steve who smooth things over with their commanding officer Steve Rubell had managed to charm even the United States Army into letting him have his way in 1965 Steve received his degree from Syracuse but he wasn't ready for the real world quite yet so he stayed on at the University for graduate studies finally in 1968 24-year old Steve Rubell realized he had no choice he had to leave Syracuse and get a job and he landed one is a broker with a small Wall Street firm Steve would never be afraid to gamble and he proved unnatural and playing the market but working for someone else held no appeal for Rubel he was in a hurry to make it big on his own even his college friends were amazed at Steve's plans I remember being a little bit surprised at how actually ambitious he was and how which he wanted to be in how he sort of wanted to take the world by storm at age 25 Steve put together a plan to buy a franchise of the steak and ale chain of restaurants he found the perfect location and according to his brother the company was so convinced they went ahead but without Steve the next morning after it happened when you walked into his room on the floor with these just enormous scrapping zuv pencils then he just paced the room the entire night and trued had one pencil after another and he said my entire life is over of course it wasn't Steve would always be able to bounce back from life's setbacks in 1971 with thirteen thousand dollars he borrowed from his parents Steve Rubell and his college friend Neil Schlesinger open their own restaurant called the steak loft in Rockville Centre New York Stevie didn't even know how to turn a hamburger he didn't know at the end of the night you have to fill up the salt and pepper shakers obviously he had a very very good business sense but Stevie did not know the first thing about the restaurant business what Steve did know was how to bring customers into his restaurant and soon he began expanding the business he wanted to create this restaurant Empire and whether we had 15 restaurants of which one was successful and the other wasn't weren't as successful it was secondary to him he just wanted to recognition as being a restaurant mobile within three years Steve on 13 restaurants and an age 28 was well on his way to ruling an empire of course running those restaurants didn't leave Steve much time to play but then the aspiring mogul wasn't exactly a wild guy didn't drink date or go out much at all then one night friends persuaded Steve to join them as they explored Manhattan's underground nightclub see Steve he wasn't really a club person but yet at one point they convinced me said let's just go out and start meeting people just the becoming a little bit more social and one seduced by the nightlife Steve Rubell would find it impossible to let go by the mid-70s Steve Rubell was running a thriving Empire of 13 steak houses all over New York and rebell had left the streets of Brooklyn for an apartment in Manhattan New York in the 70s was a city at the end of its rope crime was high trash blue along the streets President Ford had refused to bail the city out of one of his worst financial crisis since the depression well you know at that moment the city was pretty much on its ass the economy was bad graffiti was everywhere the dirty failed sort of like Berlin in the 30s City there was a real void in New York nightlife at the ton at this point the only real nightlife were a couple of big Sergey oriented dance places that that had opened but they hadn't caught out and really swept the nation in his off hours the 31 year old kid from Brooklyn now delighted in exploring this underground disco scene we worked hard and we played hard if it meant that we came home at 12 o'clock at night and we had to be in the restaurant at nine o'clock in the morning and we didn't get any sleep we did it he just worked or played 25 hours a day Steve Rubell love this new uninhibited world so different from the one he'd grown up with after the troubled years of the Vietnam War people were now ready to party and after years of hiding their sexuality gays were ready to flaunt it all to the throbbing disco beef that was replacing the earnest folk songs of the 60s in the bright lights and pulsing music Steve and his college friend Ian Schrager saw a lucrative business opportunity we didn't go into these nightclubs in Manhattan and there would be pulsating music and a blinking light and and rampant sexuality everywhere it attracted us like the way a moth gets attracted to a flame and we used to see lines of people waiting on line clamoring to pay money to get into a place and so it didn't take a rocket scientist to see if this would be a big business the garden rebelled I formed a second partnership with Schrager and in 1975 the two bought an old golf club house in Douglaston Queens within a few months they transformed it into the enchanted garden nightclub and restaurant the disco complete with themed rooms and decorations that changed weekly the enchanted garden was an immediate success with the Long Island crowd its popularity actually caused its downfall neighbors complained constantly about the noise about the antics of the drunken clientele and demanded the city take action this state senator wanted the city to evict us right away but Stevie as a master negotiator as he was convinced them to let him stay for a year and at the end of the year he would leave how he did it I don't know but he did it far from being discouraged at the closing of the first club Steve and Ian were now eager to cross the bridge and make it big in Manhattan it began looking for just the right space for their next club when they toured a huge abandoned television studio on West 54th Street rebelled knew they had found it the size of the space intimidated shraeger but Steve knew they could fill it he kept nudging his partner until Schrager agreed to sign a one-year lease Stephen Ian complemented each other skills Schrager preferred to stay in the background overseeing operations while Rubel employed his natural social skills Stephen Ian were perfect partners it wasn't just the matter of skills or they liked one another it was a really deep kind of vapor lock they now set to work creating the most extravagant Club New York had ever seen nothing less would satisfy Steve Rubell he envisioned elaborate stage settings with theatrical lighting and flying set pieces Stevie would would come up with these ideas and he said Stevie this is crazy I said you know he wanted to make a swinging moon he wanted to have banquettes he wanted to have lights that came up and came down things that you never heard of you never saw before Rubell and Schrager worked feverishly to make their dream disco a reality they decided on the simple name studio 54 and while Ian supervised construction crews Steve worked on getting the word out about Manhattan's hot new night spot Stevie came to take Manhattan by storm and get to meet everybody and get into the scene and to try and make his presence in Manhattan felt so that people would come Michael if he was involved with rubella sent out thousands of invitations and hoped for a modest turnout despite his efforts there was no media buzz surrounding the opening the press didn't seem to think that this club would be different from any other they were wrong studio 54 opened the evening of April 26 1977 and by 9 o'clock a crowd beyond Steve's wildest expectations had spilled onto 54th Street waiting to Guinean there was just so many people and it got very hairy at one point I mean we really we really had quite a time keeping control but it was just it was it was like being a rush-hour subway with nowhere to go I got there and it was a mob scene outside and this was early maybe was 9 o'clock at night but surely a mob outside a police cars all over the place by midnight it was clear that Rubell and Schrager had a hit proof came with the delivery of the morning paper Cher's appearance at Studio 54 opening night made the cover the New York Post and I remember Steve calling me up very early the next morning like 8 o'clock or 9 o'clock he hasn't been to bed yet he just could not believe it we did it but on the heels of their triumphant opening came several sparsely attended nights then Steve shrewdly arranged to host a birthday party for jetsedder Bianca Jagger at studio 54 the next Monday Bianca wrote a white horse around the club and in the flash of a camera studio 54 achieved international recognition and that picture was the catalyst that really got studio on the international map because that picture went around the world I think it showed the glamour it showed the excitement and it showed the outrageousness of what studio 54 was crowds now descended on 54th Street each evening and soon the club couldn't hold all the people who wanted in it was up to rebell to select from the hordes and he created studio 54s infamous door policy symbolized by the velvet rope across the entrance for serious Club goers getting past that velvet rope became like the quest for the Holy Grail Rubel had hit upon a brilliant marketing ploy there is nothing that is more infuriating to New Yorkers who know how to do everything than to be told that they cannot cross and so it was a great marketing tool it had phenomenal allure and he was also creating a scene at the door to allow more people more of the hype to build more of the buzz to build will I get in the studio 54 well I have to wait there if I get in that would be great that was all part of the game if you were tapped to come in you were on cloud nine it was a magical moment in your life to be escorted through the crowd Steve Rubell ruled the door and seemed to know instinctively who would add energy to the party and who wouldn't he described the mix as a tossed salad of people he understood the mix he understood that you you had to have the voice and the voice and it wasn't enough to have all famous people yet have some 1/10 to tame him and the crowd was invented I mean you couldn't get a crowd like that anymore everybody dressed up to go studio or dress down or took it all off but whatever it was they did it well no one questioned Dru bells decisions at the door no matter how random they seemed oh you're not shaved there's no way it doesn't matter if you're not shaven listen just go home one Halloween night two women dressed or undressed as Lady Godiva arrived on horseback Steve left the horse past the velvet rope made the two naked women wait outside Steve had a saying where he called people the gray people you know people who he felt didn't contribute anything in other words people who just come around and stand inside and not contribute one of the main reasons studio worked is because it was dependent upon its clientele to to make it work and make the action happen inside movie stars and moguls transvestites and fashion models the famous and the unknown all mingled on equal terms it's not like you went somewhere and you saw celebrities and people wanted to get your autograph it was a party with celebrities and you were there and you were having a great time and each night at Studio 54 Steve Rubell reveled and throwing the biggest party in town as hosts Rubel got to do what he loved best make people happy Steve was the greatest giver I ever knew and he gave without wanting anything back what he wanted was just to be your friend he made you feel at the moment you were with him that there was you and him it wasn't about anything else really going on and it really wasn't so much even about your position you know he felt that when you were with him that you were the person that he needed to be with after only a few months in business studio 54 had taken a hold of the New York social scene Steve Rubell had taken center stage in a bigger arena than he'd ever played before and the party would get much wilder the board was over with Studio 54 34 year-old Steve Rubell and partner Ian Schrager had managed to create not only a successful nightclub but a symbol of the decadence of the 1970s every night people stood outside the club yearning to be allowed in once inside studio as it was known to regular people felt free to act in ways that would have made them blush in the cold light of day I think the feeling was that that there were two separate lives that could be led that you were protected with in that moment I think to a large extent you were you could behave any way you wanted at Studio 54 and you knew that no one was going to say what you had done with whom or to them was about making sure that everyone felt safe inside just safe to be fabulous if you will sexy if you will or just to be in that post Vietnam War pre-aids era people felt free to be wild at least at night the drugs were plentiful promiscuity and accepted pastime both activities could be indulged in Studio 54 is a strange time and it was a time when do you know presidents of major corporations were getting stoned senators were getting stoned congressmen were getting stoned whoever showed up was getting stoned people were having sex out in the open especially in the balcony and in the bathrooms and in the basement boys and boys girls and girls girls and boys mills and fire hydrants anything goes here and everything is very relaxed it was like an island in time where you had a kind of passport to his own where everything was permitted and everything was possible and you were really you know face to face with what your own predilections were if the nightly party often tested the limits of so-called acceptable behavior Steve Rubell was not the ideal chaperone Steve allowed and deed encouraged other people to do things that he would not have done himself because he thought that would give them pleasure and this club that provided safety for celebrities and mortals alike became a safe haven for Steve as well as a middle-class kid from Brooklyn Rubel had never wanted his private life to be public knowledge now within the confines of studio 54 he felt comfortable being openly gay well he was a very complex human being he was incredibly straight and narrow and and puritanical in one aspect and totally hedonistic and the other I mean he was a great respecter of his family Steve shared with you what he wanted to share with you I think there was kind of an unspoken understanding that existed so it was sometimes hard to cross that line with him Rubel ate slept in Brees Studio 54 he left work at 6:00 in the morning and walked to his sparsely furnished apartment which was only a block away and after just a few hours sleep he was back on the phone finding out what celebrities were in town making sure they would be at studio that night and making sure the press knew all about it everything he did fed into studio 54 and Steve loved every minute he was a workaholic studio 54 was his love affair it was his boyfriend it was his life you know it was the thing he cared most about but it was all kind of tied in to studio I mean if he got invited to the opening of an art gallery or some show or theater or movie premiere fashion show they would always try to tie it into coming to 54 after he was always thinking that way by the summer of 1978 studio 54 had achieved international fame Rubell and Schrager talked about opening clubs around the world getting into the movie business even began marketing a line of studio 54 designer jeans now everybody can get into studio 54 jeans Steve Rubell the short kid from East New York had become a celebrity he was at the center of New York's biggest party and his face emblazoned magazine covers but Steve still went home to Brooklyn each Sunday for dinner and though he never showed his family the wild side of his lifestyle Rubel delighted in sharing his success with them everybody knows that the first thing you do when you fight your way out of Brooklyn is to abandon your family and Steve did exactly the opposite he was completely proud of who he was and who where he came from and I think that was about showing us how far he'd come and and and what he'd done and proving to my grandparents that five foot five Steve Rubell was a success that was a very major driving factor in his career in his whole life the success overwhelmed even the confident Rubel and it threatened to become more than he could handle the lifestyle the power the money the entire thing it was just out of keeping with any references he might have had he used to say with it you know it was absolutely seductive and there was no resisting the seduction and with Ravel's life on the fast track running him almost 24 hours a day Steve used and sometimes abused drugs just to keep going but still Rubel kept his business what's about him no matter how many drugs he'd taken he was so good with numbers it was incredible when you think maybe he was out of it he really wasn't he would say something you did it would stun you and he was in clear or you know had a clearer head than you did and it was an amazing thing I mean you have to understand that Bokan were very serious about their business and the bottom line is nothing got in the way no party no personality no sex life no drug use got in the way of taking care of business part of taking care of business meant carefully recording what had been spent providing favors for regular clients be it drugs alcohol whatever documents that would later come back to haunt Rubell and Schrager by 1979 36 year-old Steve Rubell had succeeded in satisfying his grand ambitions unfortunately with success came arrogance and even a bit of stupidity Steve sometimes said things he shouldn't have and his careless words set him up for a fall in a 1977 magazine article Rubel had rashly commented that only the Mafia made more money than studio 54 the IRS decided to see for itself with the help of an angry former employee it found more than it expected on December 14 1979 the federal government crashed the party at Studio 54 50 RS agents entered the club looking for evidence of tax evasion what they found was a second set of books that documented a skimming operation on a grand scale the club had not paid taxes on close to 80 percent of its income nearly five million dollars studio 54 was a cash business and authorities found the cash everywhere $100,000 in a garbage bag in the trunk of Steve rubles car money hidden in secret compartments behind bookcases in rappels apartment and $900,000 in a safety deposit box when they came in they said well should we break open the safe he said he'll open the safe Boyer they said should we we were they to a breakup who doesn't let us open the doors for you you know I certainly don't think that this is a normal operating procedure Steve Rubell and Schrager were arrested for tax evasion after two years in a fantasy world of his own creation reality had knocked rudely a steeper Belle's door he got hit by lightning in fact he he he got this thing studio 54 and before he knew it it was way out of hand and everything that he did was way out of hand and there was really no way to go back i riemann tell me that mayor or the governor promised him that nothing would happen that studio was 50-foot was too important to the city and nothing would happen it was impossible that that anything should happen you know his lawyer said he would keep it he would get off and this one said he would get off in that one and then they didn't get off not only were rebel and shraeger found guilty of tax evasion the judge decided to make an example of the two nightclub owners on january 18th 1980 he handed down an unusually harsh sentence of three and a half years after hearing the verdict the usually loquacious rebel kept his feelings to himself he reverted internally he internalized the entire thing and he just wouldn't that anyone in the world in today a moment but the contrast could not have been more stark the middle-class kid would become king of New York was now a common Rubel did not go quietly off to prison on the night before his departure he threw himself a grand going-away party at Studio 54 surrounded by friends like Diana Ross and Liza Minnelli Steve sang a bittersweet rendition of my way from the club's DJ booth but when the party was over Steve Rubell still faced three and a half years in prison and a future that seemed far from bright Steve Rubell had reached the height of success with studio 54 and then he crashed and aged 37 the former king of New York nightlife had been sentenced to three and a half years for tax fraud he and partner Ian Schrager now fond themselves sharing a prison cell there's just like vivacious intense social a person you know put in a room it's like for him who was I think a devastating experience adding two rebels misery was his feeling that he'd hurt his family the good son from Brooklyn was mortified at the thought of embarrassing his parents Steve once told me that the most depressing thing in his life had been to have his father and mother know he was in prison he said that that he could never get over having hurt them in that way on his first day in jail Rubel came face to face with the realities of prison life he walked into the rec room and took it upon himself to change the television channel without consulting the other prisoners Steve quickly found himself hanging from a nail outside the prison workout room a humbling introduction to his new home Steve Rubell and Ian Schrager spent their first six months at a detention center in Manhattan then were moved to a minimum-security prison in Alabama despite a shaky start Steve managed to adapt to prison life Steve is the mayor of prison he occupied the same place of prison that he had occupied every other time I saw him with a bunch of people he's popular though Steve made prison life bearable he didn't relish the prospect of three and a half years behind bars federal authorities often to shorten that sentence if the to help with investigations of other nightclub owners after several months of prison life shraeger and rebell agreed to cooperate they explained the secret bookkeeping practices of the nightclub world and though they never named names for fellow Disco owners were indicted as the result of their health Steve and Ian had their sentences reduced to 13 months they spent much of that time imagining their future whatever path he now chose her bail was determined to make it to the top again you know if you're a criminal you can come back and enter the criminal environment but if you were white-collar crime no one ever made a comeback from prison it became an obsession that he was gonna break that that mold and the baby was gonna come back in a sense I think this is part of what allowed him to get through it he was just so embarrassed by the whole thing you know he was too smart to be that stupid On January 30th 1981 Rubell and Schrager left their prison cell for a halfway house on West 74th Street in Manhattan Steve Rubell quickly discovered that many of the people who had once fond over the king of the velvet rope now shunned the ex-convict partly it was the stigma of prison partly the fact that the IRS had released Schrager Andrew bells secret list of favors that documented who took what drug many studio regulars felt betrayed oh I think it was terrific for Steve that people spurned him after JL was really character building and really good for him and you know life sort of simplified itself for Rebell life after prison centered on his family and those friends who had remained loyal to him starting over would be tough at age 40 Rubel found himself unable to open a checking account or get a credit card for several months he went through a serious depression but in the end he was even more determined to make it as a legitimate businessman New York had changed while Rubel was in jail the disco era had danced itself out and big money was the new effort Easy Act it was the beginning of the decade of the yuppies takeovers and junk bonds it was Wall Street it was real estate it was there their icons and models I think and people that they were looking up to and and trying to emulate had changed I mean it wasn't nightclub people and it wasn't you know theater people it was it was big business and I think that was for them a draw a real driving force Rubell and Schrager now decided to tackle the big business of hotels like restaurants and nightclubs hotels were a people business all steve and ian needed to begin was money but again and again financial institutions slam their doors when Rubell and Schrager came to call they refused to deal with two ex-convict ex nightclub owners finally in 1983 after two years they managed to convince a bank to trust them with three million dollars a down payment on a small rundown hotel on Madison Avenue Rubell and Schrager worked around the clock on renovations and 15 months later they opened Morgan's as studio 54 had revolutionized the nightclub world so the sleekly decorated Morgan's redefined the hotel business it was just so incredibly gratifying to turn this dump into something so special almost as satisfying or probably unpowered with when we did studio because it's it was a natural so it was just like just like textbook experience of how you create something out of nothing Rubell and Schrager were not sure that the new hotel would be a success so to help keep their bank accounts flush they turned to a business they knew inside-out nightclubs with the help of private investors they decided to open another disco on May 14 1985 the beautiful people flocked to the opening of Rubell and Schrager snoo club palladium from its first night palladium was a success though Steve still love the nightlife this new club wasn't his passion the era of the big disco was waning and Steve himself had moved on Steve described the Palladium as I think 13 cash registers the Palladium was just you know a money-making opportunity it was it was it was obviously a vehicle to get out and begin and start over but it wasn't like the blueprint because someone wasn't like the great moment with cash registers ringing at palladium and Morgan's making money Steve Rubell was back by 1986 he was worth 50 million dollars now that he was on top once again Steve went looking for the one thing he had been missing someone to share it all with five years after his release from prison 42 year old Steve Rubell was back on top with both a successful nightclub and an innovative hotel bankers now clamored for his business before prison success had been enough for Rubel now he also wanted the one thing that had always been lacking in his life a relationship he spoke to my wife and I repeatedly that he had an empty life that all this and he had no one close to him he really didn't have anybody close to him then in 1987 friends introduced Rebell to build a molten though the usually confident Steve was at first shy about asking Hamilton out he finally managed to arrange a rendezvous other dates followed at 42 the workaholic Steve Rubell found himself in a committed relationship you know he was a love and you got a good friend and he was happy and he had a meaningful relationship with someone and he was doing things like other couples enjoying it Steve's business was booming - in 1988 he and shraeger open to more chic hotels the Royalton and the century paramount the partners had reinvented themselves as hotel tycoons we finally had some security some some peace I think we just beginning out then to pick up momentum and - maybe we begin to make a real impact on our the industry then Steve began hearing about a mysterious new disease the illness later called AIDS was cutting short the lives of some former patrons of studio 54 every K man that I knew in New York City at that time worried that they were going to get it because no one knew what it was you know and it killed you and it was a social pariah people would deny it they would not admit to it people just disappear when Rubel began feeling ill in 1988 he didn't tell his friends but by the spring of 1989 he could no longer hide it doctors diagnosed him with hepatitis they told him it would take four to eight weeks to treat yet as the week's went on Rubel felt worse and the man who lived to socialize began limiting his activities still without admitting how sick he really was I was going out of the country for a month and he wouldn't even say to me look you know I'm not really feeling so well maybe you should hang out he never addressed the idea that he was dying then one Saturday morning in July of 1989 Rubel became too ill to travel to his weekend home in Southampton on Sunday friends took him to Beth Israel Hospital you know Steve and I had been through so much so much stuff together up and down and always there for each other and I was trying to give him a pep talk and say that it was gonna be okay and it was the first time that Steve looked at me with skepticism you know so that you know I knew that he knew that maybe it wasn't gonna be okay rue Bell's brother Donald Ian Schrager and Bill Hamilton kept a vigil by Steve's hospital bed they were there on Tuesday evening the 25th of July 1989 when Steve Rubell died at age 45 the official cause of death was given as complications from appetite as' and septic shock I think one of the reasons that Steve was so thwarted and so conflicted was he didn't want his parents to know he was gay and I think that's why AIDS was obscured you know when he was sick and you know after he died he died of other things I think that was you know even then beyond the grave to save his parents feelings Steve's friends were shocked at the sudden death of the lively rebel on the morning of his funeral the beautiful people gathered around him one last time it was really emotional it was totally packed it was people you know in deep stages of grief and really denial and it's hard to believe that Steve Rubell who was the most kinetic person you ever saw was in this tiny box Steve Rubell had not only created a mythic nightclub that had defined an era he also orchestrated the 1970s most outrageous party but at the core he remained the chatty kid from Brooklyn just trying to measure up my buddy from Brooklyn it was very very touching you know to to be a part of his life Stevie was always the the type of guy I guess that never really wanted to grow up you always wanted to be a kid he always wanted to have fun and see people have fun and that was Steve whenever I remember him and I think most of his friends would tell you this he just smiled he brings a smile to my face because he had such a zest for living know the wonderful thing about Steve is right to the end he was an enthusiast Steve always wanted to know more he always cared about you he wanted to know what you were doing what you had seen Oh Steve in heaven is even now looking for the next thing

Glossary

Art-01\ (Pre-20th\ Century): All art was beautiful. Art-02\ (Plato): Art must be fine and graceful. Contemplating beauty makes us better human beings. Artists are dangerous. Art-03\ (Aristotle) Art is not dangerous but rather cathartic Art-04\ (St.\ Thomas\ Aquinas\ [1225-1274]) Art is subjective. "Beauty is in the eye of the Beholder." Art-05\ (David\ Hume\ [1756]) Art in a standard of taste. Art-06\ (Edwin\ Burke\ [18th\ Century]) The sublime, to explain the unexplainable Art-07\ (Hegel\ [1770-1831]) Art is a method to understand the world and the human condition. Interpretation. Art-08\ (Clive\ Bell\ [1881-1964]) Art has to have significant form. It must be special. Art-09\ (Arthur\ Dantu\ [1969]) Art is Dead. Andy Warhol makes ordinary objects art. Art-10\ (Suzanne\ Langer) A work of art is an expressive form created for our perception through sense or imagination and what it expresses is human.

Interview wiith Hillary Billings: Lindy Hop

Hi, I'm Dolly Kelepecz, and I'm here with Hillary Billings. She's going to talk to us today about Lindy Hop. This is in the social dance module of the sex, dance, entertainment portion of this class. Hillary's real special to me, because she was one of my students in "Sex Dance, and Entertainment in Class" class. So it was really wonderful when she did this presentation. Ever since she's done it, I have asked her to come and present it to my subsequent classes since she's not in the class anymore. But now she's comes in and sees me every semester. And I thought, hey, what better way to have this always, but to have put it on film and have her do it for the online. Plus, she just graduated from UNLV, and I'm not sure how much longer I'm going to have her here to come into the class. So that too, and so I'm going to talk to her about Lindy Hop so you'll have a clear explanation of Lindy Hop. And then later on, we're going to talk a little bit about Burlesque, because Lindy Hop, Burlesque, pin-up, they're all kind of in the same era. She has a lot of information about that. So I'm really happy for Hillary to be here today. And I thank you for that. Oh, no problem. And also, a good thing about this is many of you asked me about the PowerPoint, and so now you're going to see a power point done by Hillary. It's a little bit more lengthy than what I require you to do, but it will give you an idea of what it is that I expect of you for the PowerPoint final presentation. So, Hillary, take it away. Thank you Dolly. Hi guys, I'm Hillary. I've been dancing Lindy Hop for about 3 and 1/2 year now. 3 And 1/2 years. Thank you. Tell them about the project here on campus. That's really cool. Oh yeah. I started a UNLV Lindy Hop dance club two years ago, because I really wanted to share my passion with others. And there wasn't a lot of dancing opportunities, at the time, around the Vegas area. So I decided to put together an organization. And we now teach dance lessons here on campus, which I will tell you more about later. I also founded a mentorship program for CCSD students working with middle schools, after school, to go in and teach them how to Swing dance. And that's exciting, because I went to see one of the performances at KO Knudson here in town, and it was really great. And you know how middle schoolers are very strange and weird about holding hands and touching? And she had them all doing Swing and Lindy Hop, and it was so cool to see. And she did a great job. It did take us about a day trying to get them to touch each other, because they're like no cooties. Yeah. It was fun. But anyway, I'm excited to teach you guys more about Lindy Hop and the history. So let's go to the PowerPoint, and I'll walk you guys through it. OK. So Lindy Hop is also known as jitterbug and Swing. It's a partner dance that was a blend of African-American rhythms and European dances, such as the Waltz. And it took a lot of inspiration from tap steps, breakaway, solo moves, Charleston, and jazz. Now Lindy Hop was coming up and birthing right around the time that Charleston was, also, around. It follows just a little bit, because Charleston came out in the early 20s, and you had the solo Charleston. We call it 20s Charleston. It's a little bit more of a boppy feel. And then we had the 30s Charleston, which kind of melded along side with Lindy Hop. So, normally, when you see Lindy Hop dancing, you'll not only see Swing moves, but you'll also see a little bit of Charleston, and a lot of that Jazz culture. So Lindy Hop is considered the grandfather of all Swing dancing. Normally, when I talk to people, you'll hear them be like, oh I'm a Swing dancer. And the thing is is that there's so many different types of Swing dancing and Lindy Hop was the first one. Because of it, it was able to bring upon other dances such as Balboa, Shag, and then West Coast and East Coast Swing dancing, which you see more popular is today, like on So You Think You Can dance and Dancing with the Stars. And one thing I want to interject here is that in the class, you're going to be taking a quiz. And on the quiz it asks what type of dance was popular at the Savoy ballroom. And a lot of you say Swing, and Swing is really an incorrect answer. I'm looking for more specific answer, which is the Lindy Hop, and just for what she just said. Swing encompasses a lot of different styles, within it. So going on. I like to interrupt a lot so you guys will get used to that. So Lindy Hop began in Harlem, in then early 1920s. I think it started about 1925. And it gave way to a lot of really popularized dance venues, such as the Savoy ballroom, the Cotton Club. And the great thing about this dance it was the first integrated dance in America. We often say that black people created the dance, because black dancers were the first ones to really popularize it. And then white people, because they want to learn it put it to counts. But the thing about this dance is that Norma Miller, who is considered one of the major players in Lindy Hop, will always say that there was never a better dancer based on race. White people could dance as good as black people, and that was the great thing about this dance is there wasn't any kind of segregation on that level. They could dance with each other, and for the first time blacks could dance at white clubs. So why do we call it Lindy Hop? It is not because we Hop around, actually. And in fact-- And that's the answer I get sometimes on the test. So that would be an incorrect answer. Yes. Most people think that there's a lot of Hopping in Lindy Hop. There isn't any in Lindy-- actually, we're really into the ground with our movements. It's because we try to pulse them to the floor. We're not trying to pulse up. A lot of our weight is carried in our knees and our heels. It's not up in our carriage, which is a big different from other ballroom dances. So it's kind of like a chugging action, than a jumping action? So more like a down, down than and up, up? Yeah. It's a down, down, I would say. And that also comes a lot from the Charleston being highly integrated into it. But the name came from Charles Lindbergh's famous Hop Across the Atlantic. So "Shorty George" Snowden was a very famous dancer back in the early 1920s. And this dance came around in 1925, but it didn't get a name until 1927. And it was becoming so big, and there were so many dance at these ballrooms. Hundreds and hundreds of dancers going to these ballrooms to dance. And they needed to figure out a name to call it. So it just so happened, when "Shorty George" and some of the other dancers were sitting down to talk about what they should name this dance though, all the headlines in the paper read Lindy Hop's the Atlantic, because of his famous transatlantic flight. So that's how it got its name sake. It's not actually because of the dance, but it's very historic in nature. And if you watch the video that accompanies the information that we're talking about with Lindy Hop, it will kind of clarify and expound upon that information. Absolutely. So as I was mentioning major players earlier, the great thing about Lindy Hop in this time is that musicians and dancers were so integrated with each other. You had big bands, such as Count Basie, Benny Goodman, Ella Fitzgerald, big singers that were really important to the music. Because at this time, most of these performers were playing for dancers, because social dance was the thing to do. And then you had very famous dancers, such as Frankie Manning. He created the first aerial, or air step, in 1935. And aerial is any time when a dancer's feet leaves the floor. So, and most of the time it's a girl flying, because we're easier and smaller to throw around. And how this happened is "Shorty George," was Frankie Manning's teacher. And oftentimes at the Savoy ballroom, they would have-- I'm sorry, the Cotton Club. They would have really big dance contests. And "Shorty George" had a partner named Big Bertha, and she was this big Amazon woman probably about, I think, 6'2. And he was very, very short, I think, a little under 5 foot. So their big thing was, their little gimmick at the end of all the performances, was she would pick him up and carry him off, and that was just how it would go. But Frankie's sitting there watching this, and he really wants to beat his teacher, and he thinks, well if Big Bertha can carry "Shorty George," why can't I throw my partner over my head? So he, literally, goes out in the back of the Cotton Club, takes a bunch of mattresses, puts them in the alley, and starts throwing her around until she lands on her feet. Until she lands on her feet. I would've loved-- That's the key to that. --to have been there for that conversation. When he's just like, hey, let me throw you around. Try it again. She lands on her head. Try it again. She lands on her shoulder. Oh, it's really frustrating. So anyway, they go to this contest with this move called the lamppost, and they end up, totally, nailing it. Everyone just goes crazy. The band stops, because they've never seen anything like this. Everybody in the room stops and is like oh my gosh. So he is very well known and very well loved in the dance community, because of the way that he inspired it. Now he didn't create the dance. That came a lot earlier, but he is a major part of why you see-- whenever you see a Swing dance clip there's all of the moves and the aerials and the hip rolls and stuff is because of him. And his dance partner's name was Norma Miller. She is still with us. I think she just turned 90. She is an old lady, but she's the best. And she was really young when she first came into this group called Whitey's Lindy Hoppers, which was the group that Frankie Manning was a part of. And I think she was 15 at the time, when she first decided to join, and it was because her family needed the money. And it was this dancing opportunity. Now Frankie Manning unfortunately passed away right before his 95th birthday. But the great thing about this is that he is so well loved and so inspirational to the dance community that thousands of dancers got together from around the world, in New York this past May 2009 to celebrate. And you had the remaining Count Basie members there. Ella Fitzgerald's granddaughter was there. It was a big deal. So it's good for you guys to know that these people are still a major part of dancing life today. So Lindy Hop in fashion. So the great thing about social dancing, this was the thing to do. You have to think of it as this generation's club dance. So it was very inspirational and very influential on the fashion. So, for example, then we're going to go out to clubs. They had to be able to dance in what they were wearing. So they would wear zuit suits, wing tip shoes. They wear the fedoras. Women would often wear Swing dresses, kind of flow-y skirts, and because this dance was coinciding along with a lot of historic events, such as World War II, you have the pin curls, the victory rolls, and the snoods and things like that for their hair. So Lindy Hop and sex. While most people think that Lindy Hop, or Swing dancing, is just very kitschy, and it's fun. It's actually a very dirty dance. There's a lot of very suggestive movements to it. The girls often will do a move called swivels, which show off their legs. We tend to wear really short skirts, and because we're flying around a lot, you tend to see our butts. So we tend to wear really short, shorts to cover that up. But it's just a fact of nature with it. And again, this was the original club dance. And you know this also gave away-- it was going along with the birth of blues and all those other dances. So you have to keep thinking that this is what they would do to go out and have fun, to let loose. We're dealing with a depression, at this point, and going into World War II. They didn't have a lot of money. This is what they would do for fun. And this dance would use a lot of elements of blues with the close contact. We're still dancing with partners at this point. And a lot of the music was, actually, pretty racy. You had "60 Minute Men," which is all about a guy getting it done in an hour. "Come On- A My House," is a song about a woman luring a guy to come home with her and what she'll do if he does. I mean, and you don't really think about it, because the music's all uptempo and happy and woohoo, we have horns and stuff. Sounds cute, yeah. Yeah, but if you really sit down and listen to some of the songs, they are not very clean-- Right. For that time. But again, this was this generation's club music. So as we talked about before, Lindy Hop is the grandfather of all Swing dancing. It fathered dances, such as East Coast, West Coast, Balboa, and Shag. Now East Coast Swing dancing, from its title, it was primarily done on the East Coast at the time. While Lindy Hop was a big nationwide event, it began to separate, and you got to see very distinct differences between the Swing on the East Coast and spring on the West Coast. East Coast Swing carries a little bit more of a blues feel to it. It tends to be more smooth. West Coast is the type of dancing that you will see in any ballroom. If you go to a dance studio that's a ballroom dance studio, they will teach you West Coast. It is what you'll see on "So You Think You Can Dance." It's what you'll see on "Dancing With The Stars." A lot of the pointing and the gliding. So is that more of a commercial form of the Swing dance? Yes absolutely. It's less into the ground. You tend to have more of that ballroom posture. And it tends to be a little-- they tend to be more up with their movements when they start dancing faster. What about those gap commercials, and didn't they have some commercials? They had a Lindy Hop Gap commercial. All right. That was actually Lindy Hop. OK. And we often talk about whether or not you're a pre-Gap or a post-Gap Lindy Hop dancer, because that really did inspire a lot of people to come into the dance world. Then you have Balboa. And Balboa was created, just purely out of necessity, because you had so many dancers going to these dance venues. Literally, I think the top number is as much as 1,000 at the Savoy ballroom, which during the 20s and 30s is a big deal. And there was no room to dance. Lindy Hop has this move called a swing out, which is this eight count move where the dancers come together and then they, literally, swing out away from each other, and it's this big kind of elastic band movement. And because of this, they cover a lot of ground. And when you have tons and tons of dancers, you're going to run into people. So it was becoming a problem, because people were always running into each other. So they literally had to have signs up around the ballroom saying no swing outs aloud. So they began dancing very close, chest to chest, with smaller movements, because they needed space. There were times when they, literally, said that the floor was bouncing, because there were so many people. And also-- Keeping the same rhythm to. So it was-- the down was always the down. Right and then also-- That's funny. --the floating wood floors. Yeah, right, right. Because there was a space in between the floors. You would have that nice give. Which is great, because now I'm sure a lot of Swing dancers have knee and ankle problems. Oh we have knee problems. Yeah. Because there's no give. Your hitting the concrete. It has a nice wood on top, but you're hitting concrete. Yeah. And Lindy Hoppers are, generally, known to be kind of the beggars of all Swing dancers, because ballroom dancers, they will pay a lot of money for their dance space and for their training. But Lindy Hoppers, with it being so homegrown and kind of grass roots, there really isn't a lot of commercial Lindy Hop centers out there. So we don't get to pick and choose. We just take whatever we can, and most of the time it's concrete or wood that's just hasn't been floated. Floated, yeah. So we deal with what we can. And plus, with all of that aerials, it's just your knees are going to give out at some point. And then there was Shag, and the cool thing about this dance, as well as Balboa, this goes back to the whole idea of the bands being such a big part of the music and the dancing. Because the bands, they would go and perform with the dancers and they like the dancers and everything. But you know they're also going to perform and show themselves off. And they were getting pissed off, because the dancers were always stealing their thunder with their aerials and their cool moves, and people were watching the dance instead of just appreciating the music. So bands started playing faster and faster tempos, because they kind of just want to-- That's funny. It is they just wanted to push the dancer off the floor. So the dancers still wanted to dance. So they came up with Shag and Balboa, which has a lot smaller and closer together movements. Of your feet. Of the feet. And not as much big Swing outs. So that they could dance to it. And that's also how phrase battles became created. Where you would go out for a certain number of counts and then leave the circle, because it was just too much to dance a whole song. So as we've mentioned before Lindy Hop and entertainment are very closely connected, because this was the entertainment for the time. Being the major social, this is how you met people. This is how you hung out with your friends. And this is how they relieved their stress. Frankie Manning got into Swing dancing, actually, because of rent parties, which is a big thing back in the 20s and 30s, where at the end of the month, if you didn't have enough to make your rent, you'd hold a party. And you'd charge everyone $0.5 to get in. And then you just hold a dance in your apartment, or your house. And that was actually how Frankie Manning got introduced to the dance was from his mother holding these rent parties. You know what's funny is that's completely illegal now. Is it really? Yeah. You can't do that. You can't say well I need some money for, whatever. I'm going to charge people $5-- Nice. --because you have to have a license. Right-- Yeah You have to have like a liquor license, and you have to have a license. Oh that's hilarious. Yeah it's really funny. You can't really charge. It's illegal. But-- Back in the day. So don't get any big ideas you guys. If you can't pay your rent you're going to charge $5 for people come over and party with you. Could make a killing though. So Lindy Hop today. Lindy Hop kind of died out around the 1950s, because we started seeing-- the Jive came in. And We had-- Elvis was more rockabilly music. And the music wasn't able to keep the kind of the tempo for the dancing. As well as you have the Twist and the other dances coming in. That kind of took over, and you know a whole new generation of people at this point, also. Everything changes. Right. There's the evolution of the movement. So it just changes. You're still touching each other when you do the Lindy Hop. Then we went into the twist, where everybody started separating and kind of-- Right. And the Monkey. Yeah. Going crazy all by yourself. Crazy things. But the great thing is that Lindy Hop had a revival in the 90s, partly, because of the Gap commercial, and partly because of Swinging band revivals, such as Cherry Poppin' Daddies, Big Bad Voodoo Daddies, and they're knockoffs of old songs. So-- Everything that's old is new again, right? Right. That's what we do, we just-- You hold on to something for 20 years. Right. Yeah. It's great. So everybody got back into the dance. And the great thing, there was a dancer of the name of Aaron. She lives in LA, and she really wanted to learn how to do the Lindy Hop. And she had seen some of the old clips from Hell's Poppin, and some of the Kangaroo stuff, and she really wanted to learn. So she looked up Frankie Manning who, at the time, had been a postal worker for about 30 years now, because there was no need for dancers or for a Lindy Hop teacher anymore. And she flew to New York, knocked on his door, and begged him to come back and teach. And he was really apprehensive about it. He didn't know if he wanted to do it. But because she was so passionate, he was just one of those great people that loves to share his craft, he went back to it. He brought out Norma Miller and a couple of the other old timers. And the great thing is this whole new generation of dancers were taught by the original generations. So we kept very true to-- So you've got first generation and second generation people-- Right. --teaching. And that's awesome, because it's not so far from the original truth. Right. Right. Which is great. And they made such a big impact. There's now dancings all over the world, from Korea to Canada. We have tons of scenes here in the US, big ones in LA and Denver, Seattle, New York, of course. And then even France has a really big dance scene. And most of these were started back when the Whitey's Lindy Hoppers would travel the world to perform and make money. But they also all got a revival in the 90s. So if you guys are interested in learning how to Swing dance, like I said, I began this program here at UNLV about two years ago. And you can visit UNLVLINDYHOP.com for more information. And they will give you information on Swing dances, the lessons, as well as links to other Swing dance venues in the city. And I really encourage you guys to check it out. It's a lot of fun, and it's also-- Is there a cost? No. No. The lessons here are free. Right. That's really incentive. Yeah. I mean we-- And you get to hold hands with a girl. And-- Exactly. It's a lot of girls. Not so many boys. Exactly. Yeah, and the great thing is, is that people-- I don't think guys realize today just how attractive it is for a guy to know how to Swing dance, or dance in general. Yeah, dance period. I mean, you see a guy on the dance floor, and he can move it's like oh baby. Yeah. But you see somebody who's kind of a nerd and geeking around you're like OK. Yeah. Right. Well and oftentimes, a lot of the girls in the scene will sit and talk about-- we'll look at the guys and the dancing. And it's like, oh you know what, I never would have found him attractive if I had just met him in a bar somewhere. But because of the fact that he's a dancer, it makes him, I mean-- But I think that's the same with musicians. And you go to a band or something, Some kind of talent. And you see-- Yeah. It's like, wow, look at him, and he's singing those sensitive words or something. Yeah. OK. Hilary, thank you so much. And now you guys kind of know what the PowerPoint's supposed to look like. Of course, hers was, maybe, a little bit more comprehensive than what you need to do, but it gives you an idea. So thanks Hillary. No problem. Thank you guys. Good luck.

Timeline of Dance

Prehistoric Carol Fertility Dances Line Dances Medicine dances Round Dances War Dances Classical Antiquity Bacchic Dances/Dionysia Hora Kalamatianos Morris Dance Sousta Middle Ages (12th to 14th Century) Basse Dance Branie Estampie Danse Macabre European Folk Dances Furlana May Dances Saint Vitus' Dance Sword Dances 15th Century Canaries Hey Hornpipe Moresque Sellenger's Round 16th Century Allemade Bergamasca Bourree Chaconne Cing Pas Country Dance Courante Galliard Measure Pavane Saraband Sir Roger Coverley Trescone La Volta 17th Century Contredanse Flamenco Gavotte Jig Passacaglia Rigaudon 18th Century Appalachian Mountain Dance Contras (American Country Dance) Carmagnole Cotillion Minuet Passsepied 1800 - 1850 Bolero Erassaise Galop Lancers Maxurka Polka Polonaise Quadrille Schottische Tsamikos Waltz 1850 - 1900 Barn Dance Batuque Cakewalk Cancan Habanera Milonga Redowa Round Dancers Square Dance Two-Step Varsarienne 1900 - 1910 Boston Bunny Hug Buzzard Lope Camel Walk Crab Eagle Rock Fanny Bump Fish Tail Grind Grizzly Bear Horse Trot Itch Kangroo Dip Maxina Maxixe Mooche One-Step Slow Drag Squat Tango Turkey Trot Veleta 1910 - 1920 Fox Trot Lindy Hop 1920 - 1930 Black Bottom Charleston Quickstep Rumba Shimmy Varisty Drag 1930 - 1940 Beguine Big Apple Boomps-a-Daisy Conga Danzon Guajira Hokey - Pokey Jitterbug Knees Up Lambeth Walk Palais Glide Paso Doble Samba 1940 - 1950 Jitterbug 1950 - 1960 Blue Beat Bop Cha-Cha Chicken Clam Fish Fly Jive Madison Mambo Mashed Potato Merengue Stroll Twist 1960 - 1970 Boogaloo Bossa Nova Bug Filly Dog Frug Funky Broadway Hitchhike Hully-Gully Jerk Monkey Pachanga Pony Shake Skate Slop Swim Watusi 1970 - 1980 Hustle Ride-a-Bike

They Shoot Horses, Don't They?

They Shoot Horses, Don't They? is a 1969 American depression-era melodrama film based on Horace McCoy's 1935 novel of the same name and directed by Sydney Pollack. The screenplay was written by James Poe and Robert E. Thompson. The film focuses on a disparate group of characters desperate to win a Depression-era dance marathon and the opportunistic emcee (MC) who urges them on to victory. It stars Jane Fonda, Michael Sarrazin, Susannah York, Red Buttons, Bruce Dern, Bonnie Bedelia and Gig Young.

Whitney's Lindy Hoppers

Watch Whitey's Lindy hop: This is a very fast dance including chugging or jumping movement, mostly done with a partner. The partner would throw you over his head or between his legs. It is very athletic.