When did formal social dance fall out of favor in the US?

Question

Up until about the 1950s, one can see instances of social dance (especially ballroom) dominating the social scene. This includes instances such as the tennis court scene with Humphrey Bogart and Audrey Hepburn in Sabrina, several Astaire/Rogers films, and even Peggy and Steve speak of going dancing in Captain America: The First Avenger. Formal social dancing dates back to the Medieval and Renaissance periods, and have included everything from country reels to formal line dancing (as seen in film adaptations of Regency-era novels, such as those of Jane Austen) and ballroom dances such as the waltz or the more modern Charleston and Latin American pair dances.

These dances remain popular to this day in Central and South America, where parties and large social gatherings will include everyone dancing salsa, merengue, and (more recently) bachata. Yet in the United States, this style of dancing (read: "ballroom," which encompasses what were then casual or country dances) has largely fallen out of favor.

My question is this: When did such activities fall out of mode in the United States? And, furthermore, why did they largely disappear from the mainstream?

NB: I am aware of specific instances -- weddings, prom, quinceañera, cotillion, bar mitzvahs, etc. -- where such dances are still performed as part of the social norm. However, these events are rare. The average US dinner party, for example, is unlikely to include pairs dancing at any point in the evening, where at one point the living room would have been cleared of furniture and swing or jazz music played.

Answer 1

Swing music and swing dancing peaked in popularity around World War II. The war made it difficult to assemble a big band, and there were musicians' strikes in 1942 and 1948. A lot of jazz also started to become less danceable; this started with bebop and continued with Coltrane and West Coast Jazz.

Starting around 1955, rock and roll started to be heard on the radio and attract white listeners. On this 1956 TV clip, you can see Bill Haley performing his big hit "Rock Around the Clock," with an interracial (?) group of dancers doing what mostly looks like swing dancing. The dance craze of 1958 was the stroll, which you can see self-conscious white teenagers doing here. Here is a clip from American Bandstand, also from 1958, of young white people in suits and skirts dancing to "At the Hop." Up until this point, everything looks like a pretty recognizable evolution of European-American pair and line dances, but being done to African-American music.

It seems like the big change happened in 1960-62 with the twist, which was a dance craze started by a Chubby Checker song. It's the first thing I see in these old films that looks like a distinctively African-American dance that's broken free of the conventions of European ballroom dancing. Dwight Eisenhower evidently agreed that this was a radical change:

I have no objection to the Twist as such. But it does represent some kind of change in our standards. What has happened to our concepts of beauty and decency and morality?

People are no longer necessarily dancing in pairs, and there are no defined "steps" -- the dancers are moving their hips without necessarily taking their feet off the ground at all.

Answer 2

I'm not sure I agree with your premise at all. Dance has never 'gone out of style'. Sure ballroom dancing has. What were discos of the 70's and 80's if not group synchronized dancing? Now we still have raves and clubs. Even in the age of indie rock, there was still mosh pit's and club dancing. Dancing in the big band era was different than that in the 1800's and 1700's. It is still changing. But music, and dance, is still very popular with the young people, with each new generation developing their own 'brand' of dance.

Ben Crowell asked about whether I answered the question asked in a comment I made.

The title asks about the demise of "formal social dance". The first paragraph talks about "instances of social dance". The question is "when did formal social dance fall out of favor in the US." It's my contention that formal social dances never fell out of favor, they simply changed with the time. The dance occasion as shown in the movie "Sabrina" occuring in the 50's, would be replace with a disco in the 70's/80's, a line dance in the 80's/90's, and a rave today. There are formal, planned, raves. Do people dress in ball gowns? no. Is that what was asked? no.

Now answering the OP more directly

Within your own clarification, you talk about 'clearing the living room' for some swing dance. That, right there, is not an example of a Formal Social Dance. That is an informal gathering of (young) adults practicing the particular style, or fad, of dancing popular AT THAT TIME. Two kids, 10 years ago, might have done the same thing, to practice break dancing, before heading down to a group of friends where they would all gather to dance in the style of dance (fad) of the time.

Taking it a step further, that group of break dancing friends WOULD be wearing the formal outfits, as required of their peers and audience, of the time in question. If you meant to write the question as to be only about Swing dancing, then my proposition is: it ended when the fad of swing was replaced with whatever came next.... perhaps the sockhop? I don't know, as I was not alive then. My first personal history is with disco. Those were VERY MUCH formal social gatherings.

Yet, only a couple decades after swing was popular, we had the fads of Disco and Country and Western line dancing. Line dancing is still popular in certain European areas. Those dance styles require precise steps, AND for all intents and purposes, both special and fairly specific outfits/clothes and a formal social gathering, in order to occur.

Take a ballroom gathering of the 1700's, perhaps the Court of France. I could imagine that there would be outrage at someone introducing what is now known as a C&W Line dance, but depending on who it was, I could also see the formalized steps required fitting right in at that time. Maybe if Mozart had a banjo?

Answer 3

According to William Strauss and Neil Howe's book, Generations, U.S. cultural norms are set by generations born immediately after a major war, into a "new age."

Social or ballroom dancing was a staple of the so-called "Missionary" generation, born during and after the Civil War (1860-1882). It was adopted by the two following generations, basically people born up to the mid or late 1920s.

The Baby Boom generation, born during and after World War II, popularized "rock" music (with a new style of dance), thereby putting the social or ballroom dancing on the "back burner." This phenomenon started with the Boomers' coming of age in the 1960s, and continued thereafter, as older generations that preferred the social dancing (born during or before the 1920s) died out. Nowadays, ballroom dancing is the preferred genre only among people over eighty years old in the United States.

Latin American countries adopted (and discarded) U.S. practices with a time lag of several decades, which is why ballroom (or similar) dancing is still popular there.

Answer 4

The real breakdown of formal social dancing happened during the cultural revolution in the late 1960s when everything that had been associated with previous generations was rejected. At the same time, dressing and behavioural standards also went down the drain. Yes, I guess, the baby boomers are to blame as they were the generation setting new trends back then. The previous generation, those born during the 1920s and earlier, were still taught how to waltz, foxtrot, etc. However, the baby boomers rejected those traditions, and as a result, they were not passed on to the next generation as you cannot teach what you have not been taught yourself.

It might interest you that ballroom dancing is still very popular in many central European cultures with Austria, and its capital Vienna, being a world leader in that area. Austrian teens spend many months attending dance classes and acquiring the skills necessary to succeed (or at least pass muster) on the dance floor. Of course, this is a country whose capital hosts more than 400 formal balls every single year. I dare say that you'd be hard pressed to find that many in the entire US!

Answer 5

Social Dancing did indeed go out of style. The disco and C&W fads were, after all, nearly 30 years ago. Sure you can still find places to host raves, as well as ballroom, swing, salsa, or whatever you want, but these cater to a specialized clientle. (and raves are as much about drinking as dancing) It is not like pre-1960s America, where going out dancing was as common as going to the movies, where every dinner date ended with dancing, where high schools hosted dances on a weekly basis, where people rolled back their carpets and hosted dance parties in their homes.

Anyone and everyone can come up with a theory, but I will offer this one. Social Dancing fell out of style because it just wasn't very much fun. The easing of social mores meant that women had greater freedom to choose their partners, but they also had greater freedom to reject them, and men learned that constant rejection was rather unpleasant. Music became so loud that you couldn't talk over it, and thus you couldn't get to know the other person, so dancing was no longer an icebreaker or a means of introduction. High schools became too enamored of their precious gym floors to let anyone dance on them, homes installed wall-to-wall carpeting, and the drinking age everywhere was raised to 21, so this generation never got a chance to develop their skills, or learned to view dancing as a social grace.

Answer 6

The book Going to the Palais, James Nott, is about how important social dance (varying in style by generation) was right up to 1960 and how fast it collapsed. It's specifically about England, but mentions US and some European trends, and they line up pretty well.

Summarizing an entire scholarly book a lot, good-enough recorded music got cheaper and everyone got richer right when the post-WWII adolescents wanted to be different. Post-WWI adolescents were Rebel Youth to the same degree, but in 1920 you needed a live band (expensive) and city floorspace was relatively more expensive, so to have a dance you needed to share costs, and sharing is social. Once you've agreed to pay for a band and listen to the same music, you might as well do social dancing (as you note, this comes in a lot of styles, not just Laurence Welk).

Answer 7

Kate's answer is very similar to my own, but I have a different take on it.

Yes, the breakdown of social dancing happened during the cultural revolution in the late 1960's when everything that had been associated with previous generations was rejected. Yes, dress and behavior standards also changed.

The baby-boomers rejected the traditions of their elders, but I think there is more to be said about the atmosphere of a dance than the music played. The music may have been different, but that was nothing new. Social dancing had been around for centuries regardless of the kind of music played.

What was different? A search on dance etiquette will readily bring up several pages which indicate anything but what we tend to practice in America today. Why? That is the heart of what the baby-boomers rejected.

Social dancing as it existed before World War II was compared by Emily Post to a cocktail party. It was the intent for people attending a social dance to dance with as many different partners as possible. One was discouraged from dancing with their escort more than one or two times (the first and last dances). I recall reading, "If a husband and wife want to dance with each other, they should go somewhere else more accommodating."

Many people are under the impression that the gentleman always asked the lady to dance and a "Sadie Hawkins" dance was the only exception. This is not so. The gender in the majority always asked, though gentlemen took precedence if the two were fairly equally represented. The host or hostess was charged with trying to make the numbers as even as possible, though it was more common for gentlemen to outnumber the women.

The etiquette of a social dance makes it clear that it was intended to be a social event. It wasn't an event intended for you to spend time with your loved one. This is what was rejected by the baby-boomers. They rejected the socialization of the social dance and started turning it into what it is today. Even when you play the music of the period, whether a Viennese Waltz or a Big Band Swing, the mentality of the "social" dance is not what it was 100 years ago.

Answer 8

I am not at all sure it was that long ago that interest in social dancing waned. I am curious why singles dances weren't even mentioned here as I was very active in that scene for many years. I eventually stopped going to them because more of the women who attended were the type who felt that if you weren't Prince Charming you weren't worth a few minutes on the dance floor. Then in the mid-1980s the society became super obsessed with making money, which left less time for social life; the opposite of what many pundits expected with the Advent of modern technology. Also stricter DUI laws began keeping people at home more.