How did hotel employees dance in 1963?

During the opening of the movie Dirty Dancing, the movie audience sees young adults dancing like this.

Right after the opening credits, the narration establishes that the story is taking place during the year 1963. A few scenes later, the main character Baby Houseman walks into an employee party, where couples are dancing like this:

Did young couples dance like that in 1963? Maybe a few couples sometimes danced like that in some places.

However, there was zero probability of seeing a room full of hotel employees dancing that "dirty dancing" in 1963. In fact, a room full of hotel workers dancing at a party in 1963 would very probably look much more like the following scene from the 1963 movie Muscle Beach Party.

In that 1963 movie scene, practically everyone is dancing the twist. Absolutely nobody is doing anything like "dirty dancing".

Also, everyone is Caucasian, and they are listening and dancing to a Caucasian band. They are not listening and dancing to Negro music.

(In 1963, the polite words were Caucasian and Negro, and so I use those words in this blog.)

======

During the three years 1960-1962, there was a big change in social dancing in the USA.

* Before 1960, the male-female partners practically always touched each other.

* After 1962, the partners usually did not touch each other.

Recently I posted two series of videos.

* One series showed dancing during the 1950s -- Part 1, Part 2, Part 3 and Part 4.

* The other series showed dancing in 1963 -- Part 1, Part 2, Part 3.

In the 1950s series, the male-female dance partners touch each other practically always, and in the 1963 series, they touch each other much less. The latter, non-touching dancing is seen also other movies that I have described at length -- such as the the 1963 movie Hootenanny Hoot, 1963 movie Palm Springs Weekend and the 1964 movie Young Lovers.

The change happened because the twist became the most popular dancing during the years 1960-1962. Many more people could join the dancing spontaneously, without lessons or practice, because the partners no longer had to coordinate their dance movements.

Here's a notional comparison. In a dance situation before 1960, perhaps only 25% of the people present would join the dancing. After 1962, perhaps 75% might join the dancing.

Music historian Jack McCarthy described the twist's social importance as follows:

... Released in the summer of 1960 by Philadelphia-based Cameo Parkway Records, “The Twist” reached number one on the pop music charts on two separate occasions, in 1960 and 1962, the only non-holiday song ever to do so. ...

Chubby Checker’s recording of “The Twist” was popularized by Dick Clark, who promoted the song on his popular television shows, American Bandstand and The Dick Clark Show. It was Clark who suggested ... a new version of the song, which led to [Chubby] Checker’s hit version. ...

Chubby Checker’s version of “The Twist,” recorded in June or July 1960 .... [and] it became a smash hit. ... Clark began playing Checker’s version of “The Twist” on American Bandstand in the summer of 1960 and then had Checker appear in person on The Dick Clark Show on August 6, 1960, to lip-synch and dance to it. The record went to number one on the pop charts that September and spawned a craze that forever changed the way people danced.

Prior to “The Twist,” most dancing was done by couples who executed their steps while holding one another as partners. “The Twist” fundamentally changed this, ushering in a new “open” type of dancing in which people danced apart, not touching. 

“The Twist” became a huge dance craze in the early 1960s, cutting across generational and class lines, practiced by teenagers and adults, from the working class to the social elite.

Other record companies cashed in by putting out their own twist records, and Chubby Checker had follow-up top ten hits for Cameo Parkway with “Let’s Twist Again” in 1961 and “Slow Twistin’” in 1962, the latter a duet with singer Dee Dee Sharp (real name Dione LaRue, b. 1945). In between these hits, his original 1960 recording of “The Twist” shot back up to number one in January 1962.

“The Twist” also launched Cameo Parkway’s period as a national trendsetter in teen dance music, with dance hits such as “Mashed Potato Time,” “The “Watsui,” “The Bristol Stomp,” and many others in the early 1960s. By this time “The Twist” had entered the mainstream, becoming part of American popular culture and a longtime staple at dances, weddings, and parties.

The following video shows middle-age people learning to dance the twist in 1961.

Because of the twist, many more people joined the fun in dancing situations.

======

The people who vacationed as guests at Kellerman's Mountain Home learned about dancing.

* They took dancing lessons.

* While they were dancing, they got tips from professional dancers.

* They watched performances of professional dancers.

Therefore, when all the guests got up to dance in the final scene, none of them danced the twist -- because they all knew how to dance better. Beginning at 4:50 in the following video, the hotel's guests are seen dancing.

The question I raise here in this article, however, is:

How did hotel employees dance in 1963?

Here I differentiate two employee groups

1) The employees who belonged to the Entertainment Staff -- dancers, musicians, counselors and entertainment technicians (e.g. Billy Kostecki)

2) The employees not involved in entertainment -- cooks, dishwashers, waiters, receptionists, maids, janitors, etc.

Most of the employees in the first group knew how to dance skillfully and creatively. It's plausible that a party comprising ONLY those particular employees might have looked somewhat like the "dirty dancing" parties depicted in the movie.

However, the large majority of the hotel's employees were in the second group. If a party was open to those employees too, then most of the people there would be dancing the twist.

Robbie Gould, the employee character who was not involved in entertainment, is not seen at the "dirty dancing" parties. Therefore it seems to me that the "dirty dancing" parties rather did not include the employees of the second group that I described above (cooks, dishwashers, etc.) That group was not prevented from attending such parties; rather, they simply were not invited.

The social mingling of the two groups of employees was limited. Most of the employees of the second group were local residents who went home to their families after work. In contrast, practically all of the entertainers lived far away and worked at the hotel only during the summers and holidays.

======

Quite a lot of people are seen at the "dirty dancing" parties in the movie. Did the hotel employ that many people in entertainment positions?

No. Many people at the "dirty dancing" parties were local girlfriends of the entertainers. For example, a musician touring in the band would hook up with a local girlfriend, and he would invite her to join the "dirty dancing" parties. The musician would know how to dance well, and his local girlfriend would learn from him how to dance well too.

======

The employees' "dirty dancing" in the movie is largely a fiction. A normal, large group of hotel employees never would be seen dancing like that in 1963. Rather, most of them would be dancing the twist. A few of the better dancers would be dancing in the manner that had been common in the recent 1950s.

If any employees really did "dirty dancing", then they would rare and remarkable. The entire party room would not be filled with hotel employees dancing like that.