Today in Weird Dance News

Did you know that, until last week, the town of Oakland, CA had a ban on “dance marathons”? Yup. The ban was put in place on November 18, 1930. Apparently it outlawed a craze that reached its peak after the 1929 stock market crash: Strapped for cash and hoping to win the prize money, people would take the marathons to a scary extreme, falling asleep on each other or having “squirrelly” fits after hours of dancing. Yipes.

Anyway, the town council recently voted to drop the law. As the SFGate article notes, in this day of marathons and other endurance sports, the controversy that initially prompted the ban seems a little quaint. (That said, here’s hoping no one suffers a dance marathon-induced “squirrelly” episode anytime soon…)

Now you know!

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