Dancing in the English style explores the development, experience, and cultural representation of popular dance in Britain from the end of the First World War to the early 1950s. It describes the rise of modern ballroom dancing as Britain's predominant popular style, as well as the opening of hundreds of affordable dancing schools and purpose-built dance halls. It focuses in particular on the relationship between the dance profession and dance hall industry and the consumers who formed the dancing public. Together these groups negotiated the creation of a 'national' dancing style, which constructed, circulated, and commodified ideas about national identity. At the same time, the book emphasizes the global, exploring the impact of international cultural products on national identity construction, the complexities of Americanisation, and Britain's place in a transnational system of production and consumption that forged the dances of the Jazz Age.

This title illuminates the history of popular dance, one of the most influential and widespread leisure practices in early twentieth-century Britain. It focuses in particular on the relationship between dancing and national identity construction, in a period when Britain participated in increasingly global markets of popular cultural production, consumption, and exchange.

This book explores dancing from the 1960s to the 1980s; though this period covers only twenty years, the changes during it were seismic. Nevertheless continuities can be found, and those are what this book examines. In dancing, it answers how we moved from the self-control that formed the basis for ballroom dancing, to ecstatic rave dancing. In terms of music, it answers how we moved from the beat groups to electronic dance music. In terms of youth, it answers how we moved from youth culture to club culture.

In the wake of the blockbuster television success of "Dancing with the Stars," competitive ballroom dance has become a subject of new fascination—and renewed scrutiny. Known by its practitioners as DanceSport, ballroom is a significant dance form and a fascinating cultural phenomenon. In this first in-depth study of the sport, dancer and dance historian Juliet McMains explores the "Glamour Machine" that drives the thriving industry, delving into both the pleasures and perils of its seductions. She further explores the broader social issues invoked in American DanceSport: representation of "Latin," economics that often foster inequality, and issues of identity, including gender, race, class, and sexuality. Putting ballroom dance in the larger contexts of culture and history, Glamour Addiction makes an important contribution to dance studies, while giving new and veteran enthusiasts a unique and unprecedented glimpse behind the scenes.