After over almost 16 years of hosting discos, there aren't many areas of the industry I haven't ventured into so when I was asked by a local conservative club to host their Wednesday afternoon Tea Dance, I must admit I did feel like this could be a bit of a venture into unknown territory but I love a challenge!
I guess a point of solace for me was them adding the words "to bring some life back into the place" which instantly threw me into a mindset of wanting to take what I've already honed and work it into a revamp of the idea which stemmed back to Victorian times.
Back in the early days, afternoon tea refreshments were followed by live orchestras or bands performing a mixture of waltzes, tangos, progressing in the 1920s heyday of tea dances to include the Charleston and tango etc... During world war 2, churches and red cross held events to keep the morale of servicemen up between battle campaigns.
These fell out of favour for a number of years as post-war popular culture was rife with more "modern" alternatives. In Paris 1953, the "Whiskey A Gogo" laid down a dancefloor, suspended some coloured lights from the ceiling and replaced the jukebox with two turntables...the discotheque was born! Taking the lead from their European friends, a number of coffee bars in London's Soho area took this premise using it for afternoon dancing. On top of this, record shops were popping up all over the place so that people could hold their own get togethers in their own home.
Music itself was evolving at a fast pace with the following few decades introducing a huge amount of new genres and sub-genres causing the more traditional styles to fall out of favour. Some new types of music were becoming all-in-one packages for dancers and fashionistas alike, one of the most notable movements being Northern Soul. The arrival of this fusion of the US's Motown and soul into the UK's mod scene proved a big gamechanger in "sequenced" dancing.
By the mid-60's pop music explosion, ballroom dancing's popularity waned majorly with afternoon dancing being replaced by bingo in a lot of halls formally filled by feet.
Fast forward a few decades and enter the "Strictly era". Yes, ballroom and sequence dancing has returned! But wait, what is that music they're dancing to? It's not so much Englebert, Glenn Miller or various names "and their band" anymore. They're doing the dances to Beyonce, Whitney, Prince and modern chart artists such as Burna Boy and Sigma. There's even classic 90s EDM songs thrown in!
So, back to the job in hand... hosting a Tea Dance in 2023!
Taking my research into account, I went about preparing for how I was going to do this gig retaining elements of the traditional and bringing it into the kind of thing which would fit into the now.
Having parents who are in their 70s helps as they grew up in the era when tea dances had died off, yet music and dance styles were evolving at a rapid pace. That also made me feel slightly jealous that they got to witness such an exciting time for entertainment and parties.
The venue I was lined up to start this new venture briefed me on the average age group likely to turn up being of similar age to my elders so I thought of taking the many genres of the fab era of pop from the 50s onwards and working in into the similar structure of a traditional tea dance in the same way Strictly has done musically for ballroom.
I started preparing a loose playlist based on the idea of starting with a few mid paced songs building it up over the next few then throwing in a couple of slow ones, repeating that process however many times possible within a 2 or so hours timeframe.
Armed with these ideas, I went to the venue for the first time on 14th June this year slightly apprehensive as it was new ground for both me and for the attendees. I think, the fact that there were a few familiar faces from a nearby venue I also gig at along with recommendations to the committee of my services helped.
I walked in an hour before kickoff and they're sat happily eating, a few heads rose up to nod me saying hello so it was already a warm welcome.
With a clear signal of intent, I opened with Jackson 5 "I Want You Back", a few ladies came straight to the dancefloor. I followed it with The Tams "Be Young, Be Foolish..." a couple of gentlemen joined in. Sticking with Motown/Northern Soul for a few numbers, I then moved into more commercial 60s pop territory with early Beatles and Monkees then back in time with a little Swing then Rock & Roll. Realising I had done over half an hour by that point of mostly upbeat songs with them dancing away non-stop, it was time to slow it down a pace so The Temptations "My Girl" handled that just right and it was nice to see the couples dancing close to each other.
In order the gradually bring the pace back up, I threw on the 80's solo re-recording of "Proud Mary" by Tina Turner which hyped them all up again! Following that with a couple of rockier numbers, then came some classic mid-paced Disco tunes and more recent songs by Olly Murs and the recent chart topper "Flowers" by Miley Cyrus.
A return to Northern Soul for a short while towards the end followed by a wind-down salsa to "Havana" by Camila Cabello was capped off by a request for a rocking "Sweet Child O' Mine" as the final song.
The "Tea Dance" was a massive success, I was very humbled to look around the room at 530 in the afternoon to find myself staring out to a standing ovation! Chatting with people afterwards, they were saying how much they enjoyed having some life brought into the place whilst revisiting the music they loved when they were teens, etc.. I was also having a conversation with an 83 year old Post Malone fan who had been to see him in concert recently!!!
In the weeks that have followed, these afternoons have got busier with people travelling from further away to come along for their "workout" as some put it. Friends have been made, memories have been too which have included a few birthdays and even a wedding proposal!
To sum it up...mission accomplished! With this whole idea of taking a vintage idea and moving it with the times paying off. Hopefully it can spread it's wings to further afternoon venues after seeing how well it works in the one at present...