Most of our colonial nation got over the horrors of touching to the sound of fiddles and pianos and took up the waltz and other barn dancing. In recent history alone, our grandparents around the nation danced to the radio broadcasts of big band sounds. But even then, the couples were drifting apart, across the dance floor from each other and across the boundaries of marriage and directly into divorce court. The beginning of our generation marked the beginning of the modern feminist movement, the beginning of no-fault divorce and the dawn of the contemporary dysfunctional family. Dance trends are more than just issues of fashion.
Dance continues to mirror the sexual barometer of the times.
During most of our formative years, gender roles were in upheaval. Women were deciding what roles they did not want for themselves and their daughters, but no one had decided exactly what they did want. Men were often left in the dark, not knowing what role to play since they had little say in changes in the first place. No wonder the early 1980s inspired sterile breakdancing. That, which was once a shared, sensuous experience, turned chaste and mechanical.