‘Saturday Night Fever’: An Ethnography of Disco Dancing

Abstract

Social dancing has always been a leisure pursuit in all societies but, in Western societies, as a result of the highly differentiated and complex structures which characterise them, it takes on a particular form of organisation through the way in which it is conducted in specially provided venues that are designed for dancing as a leisure activity. What at one time in Western society and still in other contemporary and more simple societies would have been a gathering organised on a relatively informal and amateur basis making use of local musicians living in the immediate community has now become a professionally organised activity that takes place in dance-halls that are specially equipped to provide a place and the music for dancing. Moreover, as a place for dancing, the dance hall has traditionally and predominantly acted as a centre of and focus for all the leisure-time activities of adolescents and young unmarried adults, providing them, through social dancing, with the opportunity to mix together and to date one another. In that sense, social dancing, youth leisure time and mating activity are all inextricably bound up with one another and the dance-hall is the social setting which provides the primary site in which they are brought together and interweave with one another.