Madison (dance)

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The Madison is a novelty dance that was popular in the late 1950s to mid 1960s. The Madison was created and first danced in Columbus, Ohio in 1957. ^[1]

The Madison is a line dance that features a regular back-and-forth pattern interspersed with called steps. Its popularity inspired dance teams and competitions, as well as various recordings, and today it is still sometimes performed as a nostalgic dance. The Madison is featured in the John Waters movie Hairspray; and it continues to be performed in the Broadway musical Hairspray. Both the film and the musical feature one of many songs released during the Madison "craze" in the US.

An example of a 1960 song and album featuring music for the Madison is "The Tunetoppers at The Madison dance Party" with calls by Al Brown.^[2]

The Madison took on international flavor when Count Basie visited Columbus, Ohio in 1959 and adopted the dance as a feature of his entertainment when he played London and the continent, creating press notices in London. ^[3]

The Madison basic danced in the film Hairspray is as follows:

Step left forward
Place right beside left (no weight)and clap
Step back on right
Move left foot back and across the right
Move left foot to the left
Move left foot back and acoss the right

Called steps included the Double Cross, the Cleveland Box, The Basketball (with Wilt Chamberlain), the Big "M", the "T"” Time, the Jackie Gleason, the Birdland, and The Rifleman.

[edit] Bande à part

A frame from the "Madison" scene of Bande à part. From left to right: Arthur (Claude Brasseur), Odile (Anna Karina), and Franz (Sami Frey)

In a famous sequence in Jean-Luc Godard's 1964 film Bande à part (Band of Outsiders), the main characters engage in a dance, which is not named in the film, but which the actors called the 'Madison dance'.^[4] The music and choreography are, however, unrelated to the Madison.