The dance contest became the main attraction drawing block buster crowds, encircling the entire block and engaging the police to hold back riots. Had it been played out on a Broadway stage the theatre audiences would have been served the same frenzy of excitement as it did for the audiences at the Palladium. No choreographer or dance professional designed the scenario of the dance contest that simply evolved by some strange accident. It was more than just luck, it was an unexpected phenomenon, almost as if the muse of dance, Terpsichore herself, appeared and waved her magic wand to create an electrical dance storm. To observe it was to witness a scene of dirty dancing in mambo jazz tempo. With in its combination of street style hip-moving mambo and rumba dancing, the mood was overwhelmingly provocative, sensual and always mesmerizing.

Michael Terrace at present

Occasionally, some dancers exhibited comic gestures that would break up the audience with delight and stemming from the response of the crowd’s enthusiasm these contestants often rendered so ostentatious a performance that actually brought out the hidden talent of their dancing skills.

Following the screams of laughter, the more serious accomplished dancers, Michael & Elita Terrace, Augie & Margo, Carmen Cruz & Gene Ortiz, Tybee & Brascia, Millie Donay & Cuban Pete, held the audience spellbound with their stylish trained movements to Machito’s Tanga and Tito Puente’s Mambo Inn, these were the pulsating mambo themes played for the contest. (“Tanga” the “wild and savage woman)

The setting consisted of a fifteen-piece orchestra and two vocalists alternately led by Machito, Tito Puente or Tito Rodriguez on a stage several feet above the dance floor.
The audience was divided into three sections around the bandstand: the left side a mixture of celebrities, rich socialites, gangsters; ladies of the night, dance teachers, show people and well-to-do businessmen and the only section with tables and chairs.
At the front closest to the club entrance, stood the passersby and the tourists who could not resist the scene. The right side held solely the Spanish element of every kind: whites black and latino’s of all hues and tints. These were the pawns of Spanish Harlem, dressed in updated suits while the young girls wore short-cut dresses or tight skirts cut almost to the thigh all in an array of colorful splendor.

The judges of the dance contest were chosen for their celebrity or even infamy, very few for their dance knowledge. Their numbers included Cesar Romero, Arthur and Kathryn Murray, mobsters Joe Costello and the Palumbo Brothers, Carol Channing, Harry Belafonte and Marlon Brando and Sammy Davis Jr. The contest was emceed by Killer Joe, once described by New York Times, as “the world’s greatest Lindy-hopper”. Taking his place on the dance floor before the panel of judges, `Joe’s great personality with his farcical smile that of a Phil Silvers and his dancing style resembling Ray Bolger, carried his opening greeting delivered in the vocal style of a prizefight announcer, which was his famous favorite line, “Via means, go-go-go!”. This would start the dancing and the wild burst of clapping out the sound of the claves by the audience.

Americans would use the phrase “shave and a haircut; shampoo!” to simulate the beat until it became synonymous with “Via, means go-go-go!” Trumpets blared one way while the sax section blew another. Meanwhile, everyone would be stomping wildly to Machito’s musical theme “Tanga”, sparking the stage with eight amateur dances acts who would ascend on to the dance floor to the cheers and cries of “Via, go-go-go” from the entire audience. The contestants filled the dance floor with the excitement of vibrating flashing rods, and the more the audience yelled and screamed, the less inhibited and wilder the contestants became.

Each of the male dancers would be given a number placed on the back of their jackets.
The winners received fifteen dollars for the first prize, ten for the second and five for third place. Each winning couple split these prizes. If this seems like a little to little it should be remembered that this was fifty years ago.

Barbara Craddock, Cuban Pete and Michael Terrace at present

One by one, each dance team went out solo to exhibit their particular talent. In their own inimitable style, each couple performed for approximately three minutes, all the while captivating the observing audience. While simultaneously the musicians were also on a maddening spree, blasting harmonic mambo sounds that touched everyone like magic.. Adding to these acts the Palladium had a lovable nutty photographer a heavy set man who literally lived the mambo danced beautifully and always wore a comical grin.

His name was Harry Fine and he would break up the audience by doing a knee slide (surprisingly agile for his weight) up to the female dancer with his camera and would always manage to catch a shoot of some female in sexy move often with her panties showing, and break up the spectators or he would knee slide up to the male dancer perhaps in the middle of a comic dancing gesture or wearing an odd look that was indefinable.

The scene of a heavy man sliding up to a couple snapping their images at the precise moment was always hilarious as each team finished their routines. The judges scored each couple on the basis of one to ten, not knowing that the owner collected the cards and change the numbers in order to give every team a chance to be declared a winner. He realized that his teams were mostly repeaters and while one was usually the best he wanted every one to feel they were the King and Queen of the mambo for that night. The owner of the Palladium Maxwell Hyman was a very noble and generous man and wanted all his dancers to be proud of their dancing.

Every once in a while as the dance and the celebrities were in focus, a fight would break out among five to six young latinos and it was like a cannon going off. The reasons were always different sometimes it was because one person bumped into another to many times or someone was being teased for not dancing on two. In those days if you didn’t dance on the clave you were called gringo a and latinos considered that an insult worse than dancing off the clave or two. The fight always startled every one creating a new focus and scaring the chit chat out of more than half of the audience and exciting many others. Amid the turmoil the bouncers would come into play and then the real action started they would grab the perpetrators drag them through the crowds punching away.

This was their moment of glory their vicarious thrill and they always made the most of it. Scaring the audience as they passed by and the ultimately reaching the stairwell and teaching them a lesson never to brawl at the Palladium again and then the climax, they finish them off by throwing them down the stairs. There was never a worry about the police, because the police were on the payroll. Between being frighten and some being thrill it was almost like Terpsichore waved her magic wand again and designed a choregraphic fight scene.

It was always a surprise to the judges that their choice didn’t win, but the bouncers always rushed back to their seats so quickly, they had no time to think or ask questions and in the tumult were busy accepting congratulations from their friends, and after seeing the bouncers throw people down the stairs they certainly were not going to question the bouncers. The climax of the contest ended with Killer Joe dancing a solo using his salsa style of Mambo steps, Joe always danced on the count of one that was very unorthodox in the genuine world of mambo, but went over with great applause. It could be said that Killer Joe invented the Salsa and was way a head of his time, since he was first one to exhibit dancing on one and teaching it on one which is today called the salsa.

Not only did Killer Joe move his legs in a rubbery fashion, he also moved his head in a primitive forward and backward movement that created an added excitement. Just before concluding his routine, he would make a sign to eight couples who had previously danced in the contest to join him on the dance floor. In a wave of a moment, all eight teams and Killer Joe were dancing up a storm exciting the audience to a climatic pitch.

As soon as the applause started ringing out the dance teams would break a way from their partners and rush out to the audience and randomly bring them out to the dance floor. In a moment the entire arena was turned into a massive crowd of dancing amateurs and professionals good or bad all danced without stopping to the magical fantasy called the mambo.

End part 3
Copyright © Michael Terrace & Peter Settimelli
Friday, 21-Nov-2008