Discotheque

Definition

Currently the word is not so commonly used, and the abbreviation disco or the term club is preferred to refer to the same kind of physical place.

The word was first coined in France and it is connected to a historical era: During the Nazi occupation of Paris in World War II, the live performance of jazz (“degenerate” music) was banned from all clubs. Parisian youth were able to get around the prohibition by setting up illegal dancing places in cellars on the left bank of the river Seine, where people danced to music from record players. People began referring to this kind of place as discothèque.

From this short semantic and historical introduction to the term, it is possible to underline certain features of the discotheque:

• Urban
• Based on the storage and use of a certain kind of music support (record) and on the performance of a certain kind of practice (dancing to recorded music)
• Located in a closed, secluded physical space, usually apt to contain a certain number of people and limiting the emission of noise to the surroundings
• Connected to the expression of a political dissent, alternative, or resistance

The discotheque as a physical space reproduces some of the traits of city life: anonymity and density, social distance, and spatial closeness are all urban features that are brought to the excess on a dance floor. Simultaneously, the discotheque offers also a subversion of these same urban traits, first of all through an “excess of sociability” (e.g., dancing, touching, hugging), which contests the notion of urban Blasiertheit and indifference described by Georg Simmel, and celebrates unity, love, and community. Second, the discotheque challenges the people's daytime identity based on their professional, economic, social, and cultural status and destroys social boundaries, typical of the regulated and controlled daytime urban life. It allows the creation of a temporary alternative nighttime identity, which can be later maintained or not, in a manner similar to the carnivalesque as described by Mikhail Bakhtin.

The discotheque also redefines the way a city functions, shifting centers and peripheries, modifying social and spatial boundaries, and turning the emphasis on production to an emphasis on consumption.

Sometimes illegalities, ranging from squatting to drug dealing, may concentrate in and around discotheques, in connection to the habits of certain scenes and subcultures. This has brought up issues of social control involving door selection, bouncers, the use of security cameras, and even dedicated legislation (concerning, for instance, age limits, opening hours, licensing, and freedom of assembly).

Dance Music

Music played in discotheques is determined on one side by the music industry and on the other by the choices and practices of local subcultures and scenes. In this regard, it shares with many other urban cultural expressions an intrinsic tension between a mainstream and an underground.

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