Historically, some of these gatherings were domestic – a shebeen (essentially a house party organised by Caribbean immigrants unable to rent commercial spaces) was firebombed in the late 1950s in 1981, speaking in the Commons, Conservative MP Jill Knight described them as “a seething mass of people, 99% of whom were of the Rastafarian type, who can look a little frightening”. Party Lines treats dance as resistance, as ritual, an unruly energy Gillett is less interested in summer of love nostalgia or having-it-large anecdotes from superstar DJs than he is on the cycles of social panic generated by Notting Hill carnival-goers, free party travellers, even drill fans in the present day. A way to affirm life and to stick two fingers up to the world. It treats dance as resistance, as ritual, an unruly energy. Party Lines is about the politics of dancing. Plenty of lawmakers, before and after him, have thought so too, seeing the dancefloor as a battleground, a potentially countercultural space that, according to Ed Gillett, they have sought to “constrain or commodify”. They believe in very different things to you and I.”Īnderton, subject of a Happy Mondays song called God’s Cop, was chief constable of Greater Manchester Police from 1976 to 1991, and believed dancing (or those kinds of it of which he disapproved) was deviant, contagious even. “They dance like there is no tomorrow, and they spread the virus of drug abuse wherever they go. Too many young people “prefer the dark night to daylight”, complained James Anderton in the 1980s. This appalls puritans and fundamentalists. Dancing gives us, however fleeting, a glimpse of freedom. Dancing to music: what could be more joyful? Rhythm and sweat, release and abandon, feeling rather than thinking, being yourself and becoming someone – or something – other.
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