If you were at Friday Night Waltz on January 18, or have taken a class with Richard Powers on "Swing after the Swing Era", you may have heard him refer to dance scenes in movies. Here are a few film clips available online.

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1. The scene of dancing the Hully-Gully in the Jean-Luc Godard movie "Bande à Part" / "Band of Outsiders" (1964):

youtube.com/watch


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2. Dancing The Madison in the original John Waters movie "Hairspray" (1988):

youtube.com/watch

The way the girls swish their hands back and forth while doing the toe-taps in the basic step was sometimes called "drying the nails".


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3. The Night Fever / Electric Slide line dance in "Saturday Night Fever" (1977):

youtube.com/watch


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4. To those I will add one more film clip that I find well worthwhile. This movie is from an earlier generation: "Buck Privates" (1941). Here we have a scene that begins with a group dancing The Big Apple. This line dance (usually a circle) was one of the major dance crazes of the 20th century. The scene also has Dean Collins and Jewel McGowan doing Lindy Hop and the Andrews Sisters doing their pastiche of Irish Step-Dancing :D .

youtube.com/watch