Features
New Dance Show
By Amy Hubbarth
Apr 18, 2007, 13:46

Takin' It to the Old School:
Detroit's New Dance Show

Flashback to a time when big hair and outrageous outfits were fashion standard. A time when sweatsuits and boomboxes were banned from the mall. The end of disco to the era of old school; it was a good time in Detroit — if you were a dancing machine. Detroit’s WGPR was the first black-owned television station in the United States, broadcasting locally to an audience of loyal urban and suburban viewers. The most popular show ever on the station was The Scene, Detroit’s version of Soul Train. With all ordinary Detroiters as the show’s recurring cast of dancers, moves born in Detroit were brought to viewers through funk, hip-hop, electro and early Detroit techno.

Brendan M. Gillen of the electrobass duo Ectomorph recalls fond memories of The Scene. “The energy of the dancers, the frenetic music, it was mind blowing … I’d watch every day. The ultimate highlight for me was seeing them mix early House music with Miami Bass; it was the first place I heard Chip E’s ‘Like This’ or ‘House Nation’ and the first Transmat record,” Gillen said. “But, the dances they would do to [2 Live Crew’s] ‘Throw That D,’ … phew. It was a life-changing moment — the urgency, the directness, the rudeness — that has never left me or my music.”

The Scene ran for 12 years, from 1975 to 1987, until new owners bought WGPR. Its successor, The New Dance Show, aired on WGPR’s sign-on WWJ from the late-'80s into the early-'90s with its own all-local cast of dancers. The most memorable character was The Count, a fully-cloaked vampire who strutted his stuff down the line with everyone else. Even though the Nielsen ratings didn’t pay much attention to the local broadcasts, the producers and cast knew they had something big. Virtually unknown Detroiters were made stars overnight, recognizable to avid viewers from their spotlight moments on the show.

Most of the dances on The New Dance Show and The Scene came straight from the streets of Detroit, and are still seen in the clubs today. The Jit, the Schoolcraft, the Prep, the Errol Flynn and the Funkateer all stem from an original Detroit dance from the first half of the century, when the community of the poor neighborhoods gathered at the end of a long work day to dance out their stressors. The “Black Bottom” was Detroit’s version of the “Jitterbug,” a dance taking hold of the country during the Jazz Age. The “Black Bottom” moniker came from the neighborhoods on the city’s East side, a thriving yet economically stricken community of black-owned businesses. Clubgoers enjoyed performances from the jazz greats like Ella Fitzgerald and Billie Holiday, and Jelly Roll Morton. The dance has morphed and changed over the years according to the time’s popular dance music, but the recognizable footwork has remained the same.

This Saturday, two fellow producers and DJs who share a love for these classic Detroit dance shows and body moves celebrate their birthdays by taking you back … back to the dance line. Brian Gillespie and Todd Osborn (Ghettotech production team Starski and Clutch) have invited The New Dance Show’s DJ Tooshay to rock the Fi-Nite Gallery, along with other special guests from the show.

“The music, the DJing, the dancing ... everything was out of control, even down to the crazy commercials!” Osborn said. “I’d always felt we’d embellished too much and maybe we had been making it out to be bigger or better than it really was,” he continued. “But after I had dug an old VHS tape out of my closet and put it on, I immediately could tell that we had downplayed the show, if anything!”  | RDW

The New Dance Show Party 2 • April 21 • Fi-Nite Gallery


© Copyright by RealDetroitWeekly.com