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The Hustle

The Lindy style partner dancing is never that far away in American popular dance and periodically returns. The Hustle was a major return to a severely modified form Jitterbug partner style dancing, but with a skip beat that made it eminently suitable to be danced to the disco beat. Emerging in the early 1970's among Latino communities, it developed rapidly, acquiring a musical expression in the 1975 hit 'The Hustle' by Van McCoy (which features on just about every disco music compilation album). It was soon followed by John Travolta's 1978 movie, 'Saturday Night Fever', in which he actually dances the Hustle (although there are some who confuse this partner dance with the line dance, The Bus Stop, that Travolta also dances in the film). As the Disco mania died down, The Hustle faded, although in the UK it never significantly caught on.