Dance Floor Democracy: The Social Geography of Memory at the Hollywood Canteen (Book)
Title: Dance Floor Democracy: The Social Geography of Memory at the Hollywood Canteen
Author: Sherrie Tucker
Abstract: Open from 1942 until 1945, the Hollywood Canteen was the most famous of the patriotic home front nightclubs where civilian hostesses jitterbugged with enlisted men of the Allied Nations. Since the opening night, when the crowds were so thick that Bette Davis had to enter through the bathroom window to give her welcome speech, the storied dance floor where movie stars danced with soldiers has been the subject of much U.S. nostalgia about the "Greatest Generation." Drawing from oral histories with civilian volunteers and military guests who danced at the wartime nightclub, Sherrie Tucker explores how jitterbugging swing culture has come to represent the war in U.S. national memory. Yet her interviewees' varied experiences and recollections belie the possibility of any singular historical narrative. Some recall racism, sexism, and inequality on the nightclub's dance floor and in Los Angeles neighborhoods, dynamics at odds with the U.S. democratic, egalitarian ideals associated with the Hollywood Canteen and the "Good War" in popular culture narratives. For Tucker, swing dancing's torque—bodies sharing weight, velocity, and turning power without guaranteed outcomes—is an apt metaphor for the jostling narratives, different perspectives, unsteady memories, and quotidian acts that comprise social history.
Year: 2014
Primary URL: https://www.dukeupress.edu/Dance-Floor-Democracy/
Primary URL Description: Duke University Press
Secondary URL: https://www.scribd.com/document/238639309/Dance-Floor-Democracy-by-Sherrie-Tucker
Secondary URL Description: Excerpt on Scribd
Publisher: Duke University Press
Type: Single author monograph
ISBN: 9780822376200
Copy sent to NEH?: No

Swing: from Time to Torque (Dance Floor Democracy at the Hollywood Canteen) (Article)
Title: Swing: from Time to Torque (Dance Floor Democracy at the Hollywood Canteen)
Author: Sherrie Tucker
Abstract: The Hollywood Canteen (1942–1945) was the most famous of the USO and USO-like patriotic nightclubs where civilian hostesses jitterbugged with enlisted men of the Allied Nations during World War II. It is also the subject of much U.S. national nostalgia about the “Good War” and “Greatest Generation.” Drawing from oral histories with civilian volunteers and military guests who danced at the Hollywood Canteen, this article focuses on the ways that interviewees navigated the forceful narrative terrain of national nostalgia, sometimes supporting it, sometimes pulling away from or pushing it in critical ways, and usually a little of each. This article posits a new interpretative method for analyzing struggles over “democracy” for jazz and swing studies through a focus on “torque” that brings together oral history, improvisation studies, and dance studies to bear on engaging interviewees' embodied narratives on ideologically loaded ground, improvising on the past in the present.
Year: 2013
Primary URL: http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/abs/10.1162/DAED_a_00243#.U6m2QSj5dj4
Primary URL Description: MIT Press
Format: Journal
Periodical Title: Daedalus
Publisher: American Academy of Arts & Sciences

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