Friday, July 24, 2009
Old School Detroit TV: The Scene
It's Friday afternoon and I just got back from lunch with two friends. One of them is Peter Cook, an architect from D.C. whom I've known for years. He praised The Soul Closet (as is customary, of course), but mentioned a tv show from his youth in Detroit called "The Scene."
"It was kind of a, well, low-budget 'Soul Train'," he said. Indeed it is. And it is fun to watch. There were dozens of these local dance shows across the country in the 1970s and 1980s. Anyway, here's more of "The Scene."
(I'm likin' the dance in white spandex and red cowboy hat in this one:)
My buddy, the esteemed Professor Lester Spence of Johns Hopkins University--a native Detroiter--puts a little perspective on this when I put a link to this post on my Facebook Page: "There was a moment there, when folks are straight banging to house and electro."
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2 comments:
If you grew up in or around Detroit between 1975-85 or so you HAD to have watched and been influenced by The Scene (later The New Dance Show). Soul Train had better production values...but the Scene Dancers routinely put Cornelius' folks to shame.
Looking at these clips, Lester, I would have to agree the quality of dancing is much better than in Soul Train. Particularly 1980s pre-New Jack Swing "Soul Train" espisodes where people seemed to be striking poses more than actually dancing.
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