‘Dancing Times’: jazz and social dance in the UK between the Wars
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Room V/N/045, Vanbrugh College, Campus West, University of York (Map)
Event details
Swing Dance Society talk
Catherine will discuss how jazz arrived in Britain in the aftermath of the First World War and the impact that it had on musicians and the public alike. She will focus on the influence of the rhythms and colours of jazz on social dance, which expanded massively as a leisure activity in the first half of the twentieth century. She'll show that while the new music and dance styles were attractive for an emerging youth culture, it led others to question the moral basis of contemporary popular culture. In particular, she'll explain the restrictions placed on swing music and dance and how these were abandoned at the outbreak of the Second World War.
This talk is supported by the Public Lectures Fund.
About the speaker
Catherine Tackley is a musicologist with a specialisation in Jazz and it’s evolution in the UK. She is currently a visiting professor at the Open University having been a Director of Research for Music. Before that she was Head of the Centre for Jazz Studies UK. She is highly acclaimed having held a Major Research Fellowship from the Leverhulme trust for the project ‘The British Dance Band: Music and Musicians in the Mainstream’ in 2022-2024. She also won Inspirational Leader of the Year at the University of Liverpool Staff Awards in 2022.
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Venue details
Wheelchair accessible
Hearing loop