Dance Crazes By Decade Trivia Quiz

The Charleston was the latest craze in the Roaring '20s. It got its first attention when it appeared in the 1923 Broadway musical "Running Wild". Women known as flappers wore shorter dresses to showcase their dance moves in this decade.

The Lindy Hop is appropriately placed in the 1930s as it was named for pilot Charles Lindbergh. He "hopped" the Atlantic Ocean in his plane and the Lindy Hop picked up on that referece. The Lindy Hop originated in the late 1920s but became an iconic dance of the 1930s and 1940s swing dancing era.

If you saw the musical "Grease", you'll remember the 1950s setting and a famous dance-off where they were doing the Hand Jive. The dance had people slapping their thighs, choreographed claps, hand gestures, and resembled the patty-cake moves done by infants.

Chubby Checker took his cover of "The Twist" to the top of the Billboard Hot 100 Singles chart twice in the 1960s, first in 1960 and later in 1962. The dance had people shaking their hips and torsos. Chubby Checker performed the song and introduced the dance to large audiences on Dick Clark's television show "American Bandstand".

The 1970s was the Disco Era. Van McCoy recorded the song "The Hustle" in 1975 and it went to number one on the Billboard Hot 100. Van was at a nightclub called Adam's Apple and saw the patrons doing "The Hustle". It inspired him to write the song. The dance was made even more popular when included in the decade's film "Saturday Night Fever".

In the 1980s, we saw the birth of rap and hip hop culture. The New York scene had street dancers who created a new style called breakdancing or b-boying. DJs started to create songs with funky beats, drum breaks, and incorporating rap and soul to push the dance craze. In the 2024 Summer Olympics, breakdancing was added as a competition.

In the late 1980s, artists like Janet Jackson and Bobby Brown added a new dance style called the Running Man into their music videos. The dance had people essentially moving in the same space but had the appearance of running because their legs and arms were moving in unison. MC Hammer busted out in the early 1990s with this signature dance in his baggy Hammer pants.

Southern rap brought us a new dance craze in the early 2000s when Atlanta rapper DJ Unk released the song "Walk It Out". In the dance, you saw a smooth hip hop dance where there was a lot of foot movement and rhythmic arm movements. It was inspired by an earlier dance called the "Poole Palace".

If you've ever played the video game "Fortnight", you've seen the dance called "The Floss". In 2013, a viral video by "Backpack Kid" showed a teen doing a new move where he was alternating swinging his arms back to front while moving his hips in the opposite direction. The dance got its name as it was as if you were being pulled side to side by an invisible large string of dental floss.

The Savage Challenge was introduced on the social media site, TikTok, in response to a hit song by rapper Megan Thee Stallion. The song and dance craze hit during the COVID outbreak in 2020. A nineteen year old dancer named Keke Wilson put her moves online and soon millions were copying the dance and singing along to lyrics about being "classy, sassy, and bougie".