A24’s new book explores cinema’s most important dance moments

Ask anyone about their favorite dance floor scene in movie history and you’ll get any number of answers in return, from Napoleon Dynamitean awkward Alphaville prom Forever Youngto the terrifying undead disco that closes Carnival of soulsto the lavish New Year’s Eve party that sets off a controversy on The Paul Thomas Anderson Show A phantom thread. It’s a testament to the variety of dance scenes committed to the movie screen, and the way writers and directors often use these scenes as props for larger relationships and themes.

“Everyone has a connection to this subject,” he says Claire Marie Healywhose new book for A24, On the dance floor: Rotate the screen, waltzes through its long history through live footage from movies, excerpts from novels, and excerpts from screenplays. “You might not even be able to dance very well, but you’ll still have the feel of the dance floor and the memories of it.”

As a result, the book’s 400-plus pages are crammed with a vast array of names from cinema, literature, art and music, each sharing their personal experiences, inspirations and relationships with the dance floor. “There’s something special about the dance floor,” Cher says in a nostalgic foreword that takes us from her childhood living room to the dizzying heights of Hollywood via Studio 54. “It’s like a way to break away from this planet.”

Elsewhere, Honor Swinton Byrne reflects on the intimacy of her dance scenes with Tom Burke in The souvenir, and Charli XCX shares her favorite outfits for dancing the night away in one of several send-ups on the dance floor. “You get these different memories and perspectives on the dance floor that are very fun, very personal,” Healy says, noting the variety of voices. “There were so many unexpectedly exciting responses.”

On the dance floor is a unique cultural document because it embraces the intensely personal stories that circle the dance floor to explore what these spaces really mean to people and how that is reflected in the films we make about them. “How do you make a movie feel like a dance floor?” Healy asks. “Then comes this other question: why when we do going out dancing, how often do you feel like you’re in a movie? That was the push and pull of the book.”

In search of answers, On the dance floor also shines a light on some of our favorite dance scenes in movies – from the likes of Midsummer, The last days of discoand Climax – through interviews with directors Gaspar Noe and Whit Stillman, actor Kate Beckinsale, choreographer Anna Vnuk and others. We also get original essays from Rachel Tashjian, Marlowe Granados, and Brock Kolyar (who better than New York Magazineparty reporter to close a book on the evolution of the dance floor?).

Was it a coincidence that this all came together against the backdrop of a global pandemic that confined us to our homes for months and perhaps changed the face of partying forever? Of course not. “[The contributors’] reflecting on their favorite films that involve dancing inevitably connects to their experiences of not being able to dance during isolation,” says Healy. “But I wouldn’t say it’s purely nostalgic.” After all, she adds, the films, artwork and writing in the book can also act as a “blueprint” for the dance floor of the future, inspiring parties, proms and performances. that people will look back on with the same reverent nostalgia decades down the line.

On the dance floor: Rotate the screen is out now.