Did you dance “The Twist” in the 1960s, along with so many teenagers and young adults? Did anyone tell you that you would hurt yourself doing the dance?
Well, we can’t say that we weren’t warned of the dangers of twisting. An article in the Winston-Salem Journal, published on January 16th, 1962, touted the “Hazards of the Twist.” The first paragraph of the story says, “The Twist, a dance in which people try to look like washing-machine agitators, may become a first-class health menace.”
The staff reporter goes on to reference orthopedic surgeons, osteopaths, and chiropractors in the Winston-Salem area who say “that the Twist has brought them numerous patients.” One orthopedic surgeon at Baptist Hospital mentioned a teenager who had dislocated her kneecap when she danced the Twist. Apparently this was a common ailment attributed to the Twist and the side-to-side dance movements with the feet firmly planted.
Strained backs were also attributed to the Twist. A chiropractor commented that the Twist could be a good muscular exercise, but injuries were caused by doing the dance to the extreme. His patients ranged in age from 20 to 52. He said that the older patients were mostly parents of teenagers and were reluctant to say they were doing the dance.
The orthopedic surgeon reported that many of the dislocated kneecaps were suffered by mid-teenagers, a prime age for dancing the Twist. The Twist craze became popular after Chubby Checker sang Hank Ballard’s song, “The Twist,” and danced the Twist on the Dick Clark Show in August 1960.
In the foreground of the photo above, John Clyde Stoner and Virginia Gail Freeman, demonstrate their dance style. They were students at Wake Forest College in 1962. John was a senior and Gail was a junior.
John and Gail stoop low in this dance move. John and Gail graduated from Wake Forest College and were married in June 1963. The location of the dance is unknown. The room looks like the upstairs of a metal building. Does anyone have an idea of the location of the dance?
If your knees are hurting and your back is sore, it may be that you just had too much fun twisting and jerking and limboing and monkeying and mash potatoing, and all the other dances that teenagers and young adults do on the dance floor. So blame it on the bossa nova, or the Twist!
Photographs from the Forsyth County Public Library Photograph Collection.
The location is the top floor of the barn at Reynolda Village. Wake Forest operated an occasional student coffee house there in the 1960s. Boy Scout Troop 955 met in an adjacent room.
Thank you for information on the location of the dance.
I thought it looked like that too – we were going to parties there in 1977-1980 but was closed sometime along there