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Disco and punk were popular dance genres in the 1970s. Punk dances included the Mosh and Pogo, while disco had the Hustle and was popularized by Donna Summer. John Travolta’s moves in Saturday Night Fever also inspired dances.
The most common dances of the 1970s are in the disco and punk genres, and dances from both gained tremendous popularity in the mid-decade. The two genres are very different, with the disco style being vibrantly sexy with flashing colored lights on the dance floor and tight ballroom dresses, and the punk style being darker, more aggressive and rebellious.
Punk started with British bands like The Clash. The most common dances of the 1970s punk scene are the Mosh and the Pogo. Moshing, done in a mosh pit, includes “head banging”, “body banging” and other aggressive contact with other dancers as they move to the beat of the music. While the purpose of the dance is not to harm others, some people at punk and metal concerts have gotten hurt from physical contact from so many people in one place.
Songs like “Pogo Dancing” by the Vibrators in 1976 helped pogo become one of the most common dances of the decade. Pogo involves jumping into a position off the floor at the first beat of the music and landing back to where you started during the second beat of the music. The hand movements of the Pogo are typically punk with lots of freestyle thrusting and thrusting motions.
Although the world’s first nightclub, The Peppermint Lounge in Paris, France, opened in the 1950s, disco dancing didn’t catch on in the United States until much later. The Cuban influence in Florida in 1968 helped transform “disco swing” salsa dances into other common dances of the 1970s. A strong pulsating beat establishes the rhythm it defines.
Donna Summer became a major name in disco and helped popularize disco dancing in the 1970s. He had had many hits in Europe before releasing “Love to Love You, Baby” to an overwhelming response in the US in 1975. Other big disco hits of the summer like “Hot Stuff”, “MacArthur Park” and “She Works” Hard for the Money” soon followed.
Van McCoy’s hit song “The Hustle”, which explains how to do the disco dance mentioned in the title, premiered in 1975. The Hustle is definitely one of the most common dances of the 1970s. The New York Hustle is slower than the Los Angeles version and has more footwork.
Speaking of footwork, John Travolta’s moves to Bee Gees songs like “Staying Alive” and “Night Fever” in the 1977 film Saturday Night Fever inspired many dances in the 1970s. Interestingly, another Travolta film, Urban Cowboy released in 1980, helped establish the hottest dance trend of the 1980s called Texas Two Step.
