Go-Go dancer
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- This article is about dancers. For articles with alternate meanings, see: Go go (disambiguation).
Go-Go dancers are scantily-clad erotic dancers who dance on stages in an erotic revue, or on elevated platforms or in bird cages above the crowd in clubs, bars or discothèques to set the tone or increase the energy of a dance floor. They often wear Go-Go boots.
In Thailand and some other Asian countries, go-go bars in the form of erotic revues are popular, and the dancers there are often available to be bar fined by customers.
An example of a Go-Go dancer in the 1960s is Goldie Hawn on the popular TV series Laugh-In. The multi-talented singer-dancer-actor Timmy Everett (1939-1977), famed for a single film and stage role (Tommy in The Music Man), attempted a career comeback in 1967 by promoting himself as the first "go-go boy."
The Oxford English Dictionary lists as etymology of "Go-Go" the noun "go", one meaning of which is "power of going, energy, vigor". Another theory has it that the word stems from the name of the nightclub Whisky A Go-Go in West Hollywood, California; this was one of the first night clubs featuring dancers in elevated cages. It was fashioned after an earlier Paris discothèque of the same name; à gogo is a French phrase for "in abundance, galore".
Similiar dances on elevated platforms are also common in human party cultures. They are either performed by drunk people or by people who want to show their athletic and balance abilities whereas no strict transitions btween both groups is possible. Sometimes there are also aspects of erotics at this. Because these Gogo-like dance styles can often lead to accidents, especially when performed by drunks they are not allowed on many festivals.
External links
- Bhob Stewart's "Origins of 'Go-Go'" (http://www.amber-sky.com/prefuse/prefuse44.html)de:Gogo-Tänzer