Life and Death on the New York Dance Floor, 1980-1983

ISBN: 0822362023

Author: Lawrence, Tim

Condition: New

As the 1970s gave way to the 80s, New York's party scene entered a ferociously inventive period characterized by its creativity, intensity, and hybridity. Life and Death on the New York Dance Floor chronicles this tumultuous time, charting the sonic and social eruptions that took place in the citys subterranean party venues as well as the way they cultivated breakthrough movements in art, performance, video, and film. Interviewing DJs, party hosts, producers, musicians, artists, and dancers, Tim Lawrence illustrates how the relatively discrete post-disco, post-punk, and hip hop scenes became marked by their level of plurality, interaction, and convergence. He also explains how the shifting urban landscape of New York supported the cultural renaissance before gentrification, Reaganomics, corporate intrusion, and the spread of AIDS brought this gritty and protean time and place in American culture to a troubled denouement.

• interviews w/ DJs, party hosts, producers, musicians, and more | covers 1980 - 1983 | definitive guide to early '80s NY dance culture | from the author of "Love Saves The Day" | 600-plus pages