CORNER TALK REPORT: annees folles/Crazy Years 1920s

On the eve of the lavish movie The Great Gatsby! Gatsby fever has hit
New York with parties set in the style of the 1920s.

Those fabulous roaring twenties a term use to characterize the 1920s

A decade of distinctive cultural edge in New York City, Paris, Berlin, London o include many other cities who sustained a period of economic prosperity and stability.

French speakers called it the "annees folles ("Crazy Years"This emphasizing the era's social setting in artistic and cultural dynamism.

Economically the era saw a rise in the use of the Automobile, Telephone, motion pictures and with significant changes in lifestyle and culture.

The sprit of The Roaring Twenties had a unique since of feeling to it with new technologies

particularly automobiles, motion pictures and radio proliferated modernity to a large part of the population you could see practicality in both daily life and architecture.

At the same time jazz and dancing rose in popularity in opposition to the mood
and specter of World War 1. This period was also known as the jazz age.

Dance clubs became notoriously popularly during the 1920s. Their popularity peaked in the late 1920 and reached into the early 1930s.

Dance music came to dominate all forms of popular music by the late 1920s.

The most popular dances at this time were foxtrot and waltz and American Tango.

From the early 1920s, however, a variety of eccentric novelty dances were developed.

The first of these were the Breakaway and Charleston. both of these dances were based on African-American musical styles and beats. This was also to include the blues.

It was after two 1922 Broadway shows that the Charleston exploded as a dance entity.

Then there was a brief Black Bottom Dance craze which originated at the Apollo Theatre Harlem New York City which swept dance halls from 1926 to 1927, replacing the Charleston in popularity.

By 1927, the Lindy Hop, a dance based on Breakaway and Charleston and integrating elements of tap became the dominant social dance,

Developed in the Savoy Ballroom, it was set to stride piano ragtime jazz. later The Lindy Hop would develop into swing jazz.

During this period several entertainment venues attracted people from all races.

The Cotton Club featured black performers and catered to a white clientele, while the Savoy Ballroom catered to a mostly black clientele.

Fashion was a noted highlight in the 1920s for all races weather pour or rich most men and women wore elegant dresses and suits.

Immortalized in movies and magazine covers, young women's fashion of the1920s was both a trend and social statement. These middle class women rebellious in nature were labeled flappers by the older generation did away with the corset of the Victorian age and donned slinky length dresses which exposed their legs and arms.