For his part, Blondin, with his roots elsewhere, symbolises a utopian connection between Britain and Europe in the midst of Brexit. “This was an outward-looking reimagining of London, where the city was still a place of possibility and boundless creativity,” Warren writes, “where you could create culture if you applied enough resourceful energy. TRC was the cosmopolitan myth made real through the medium of space.” The book's cover features an iconic image taken by Georgina Cook, aka dubstep scene photographer Drumz Of The South, at an edition of FWD>> at London club Plastic People in 2006. This book is an intertwining of cultural and personal history. Brimming with memory alongside thorough research and thoughtful interviews, and examinations of how music informs dance and vice versa, the importance of dance as a political act – as a place for resistance and, simultaneously, something often clamped down upon by authority (be that over-policing by church or state) – is a throughline in the book. On some level, it is a consideration of who is valued by those who are in power. For example, questions about trying to understand where you fit into dance as you get older (‘There aren’t many places for middle-aged women to take up space […] and it’s good for middle-aged women to take up space,’ her friend Kate Ling tells her late into the book) sit alongside the closure of youth clubs and spaces for young people to congregate. Tacitly, Warren asks us: which bodies get access to the dance? She weaves together the possibilities of intergenerational dance, of cross-cultural dance (at one point, she shows a couple at the English folk music and dance centre Cecil Sharp House videos of Chicago footwork dancers), asks questions about class, and seeks to imagine something more unified and accessible than the current situation in this country allows for. Goodreads Librarians are volunteers who help ensure the accuracy of information about books and authors in the Goodreads' catalog. The Goodreads Libra Goodreads Librarians are volunteers who help ensure the accuracy of information about books and authors in the Goodreads' catalog. The Goodreads Librarians Group is the official group for requesting additions or updates to the catalog, including:

Emma Warren’s ‘Dance your Way Home: A Journey Through the Dancefloor’ — our Book of the Month for March — is an ode to the power and necessity of movement, writes Tara Joshi. Through the book, she is careful not to overstep beyond her own experience and knowledge. Indeed, instead, Warren’s own experiences are central to this book. She tells the story of herself and her family within their wider context – be that dancing to Top of the Pops as a child in the front room, or the specifics of Ireland’s contentious dance halls around the time her maternal grandmother, Máire, left the country for England. She asks questions about what dancing means through the lens of Britishness, Englishness and, in turn, what those terms even mean. Looking at dances from different regions, she suggests, lends us some insight into identities. Publisher Faber's blurb about 'Dance Your Way Home' reads: "This book is about the kind of ordinary dancing you and I might do in our kitchens when a favourite tune comes on. It's more than a social history: it's a set of interconnected histories of the overlooked places where dancing happens... Why do we dance? What does dancing tells us about ourselves, individually and collectively? And what can it do for us?Warren learns how, in pre-industrial times, dance was more common and spontaneous than it is now. Modernity has alienated us from ourselves This book is about the kind of ordinary dancing you and I might do in our kitchens when a favourite tune comes on. It’s more than a social history: it’s a set of interconnected histories of the overlooked places where dancing happens . . . At a conference on folk dance, Warren learns how, in pre-industrial times, dance was more common and spontaneous than it is now. Modernity has alienated us from ourselves. Men weren’t always coy about throwing shapes in public; it’s a culturally determined hang-up that can, of course, magically dissolve after a few drinks. Why do we dance together? What does dancing tells us about ourselves, individually and collectively? And what can it do for us? Whether it be at home, '80s club nights, Irish dancehalls or reggae dances, jungle raves or volunteer-run spaces and youth centres, Emma Warren has sought the answers to these questions her entire life.

She talks to dance historian Toni Basil (whose CV includes choreographing the video for Talking Heads’ Once in a Lifetime) and hip-hop dancer Henry Link. She meets Dr Peter Michael Nielsen, whose office has “a bass chair which he helped invent because he believes applied bass can improve the symptoms of a number of ailments”. She cites scholars like Edwin Denby, who discusses ballet’s origins in the classical world, and Egil Bakka, a professor emeritus of dance studies who says that, at the evolutionary level, interaction is dance’s “core value”. Among young’uns “simple dance moves such as swinging arms or stepping from side to side drew children together emotionally, with participants reporting that afterwards they felt closer to the groups they’d danced with”, But as in many other areas, our creative impulse in dance is stymied by the adult mania for competition. “Dance classes for tots often involve examination, as if learning to dance, even for fun, and even if you’re only five years old, requires the imposition of quality control,” Warren says. Still, Warren makes a strong argument for the preservation of cultural spaces that foster “genuine connections” in a city where individualism and isolation are on the increase. “If you can create space do it,” she writes. In this way, Make Some Space fulfils its own remit – creating an enduring legacy for the TRC and encouraging other creators to live out their own dream. The wiry, animated figure of Blondin, who arrived in Paris from London in 2005, is central to Warren’s analysis of the creation of the club and the ensuing fame of the musicians who used it, among them saxophonists Nubya Garcia and Shabaka Hutchings (leader of the Mercury prize-shortlisted jazz act Sons of Kemet) and drummer Yussef Dayes.

Subscribe to our Newsletter

Why do we dance together? What does dancing tells us about ourselves, individually and collectively? And what can it do for us? Whether it be at home, ’80s club nights, Irish dancehalls or reggae dances, jungle raves or volunteer-run spaces and youth centres, Emma Warren has sought the answers to these questions her entire life. The dancefloor can be aplace in which people who have different life experiences, who walk through the world in away that brings different responses from the state, can have acommunal experience,” Warren says. When it comes to the dancefloor, its greatest strength is bringing people together. It’s something we missed during the pandemic, when there was genuine fear that clubs would never open again, or that gigs were arelic of the past. It’s arelease from the 9 – 5, aplace where lovers meet for the first time, where sartorial styles are invented, where new friendships are formed and where youth take their first steps into adulthood. Emma Warren’s Dance Your Way Home is a beautiful and timely defence of dancing. Whether it’s at home or with friends, professionally or for fun, dance is one of our most natural outlets for creativity and connection. Warren’s book focuses on dance in community and culture.