Disco: A Decade of Saturday Nights, organized by Experience Music Project in Seattle, Washington, [1] was the first major museum exhibition to explore the rich, complex world of disco. [2] Pulsating with light and sound, the exhibit followed disco from its beginnings in New York club culture to the fad created by Saturday Night Fever , the ensuing backlash, and disco's influential afterlife. [3]
The show included the drum kit used by Earl Young, the inventor of the disco beat; the Plexiglas guitar played by Nile Rodgers of Chic; one of Saturday Night Fever's famous white suits; a selection of photographs taken by Andy Warhol at Studio 54; video clips of Disco Step-by-Step Television Show, and rare artifacts from legendary nightspots ranging from The Loft to the Paradise Garage. Artists represented Donna Summer, Grace Jones, the Bee Gees, Sylvester James, A Taste of Honey, and many more. [4] [5] With help from a group of expert consultants (Marty Angelo, Nicky Siano, etc.) led by Vince Aletti, the first journalist to write nationally about disco in 1973, the exhibit helped to change people's thinking about a musical genre that has been hugely important and hugely misunderstood. [6]
The exhibit made stops at the Henry Ford Museum [7] in Dearborn, Michigan in 2004 and the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts in New York City in 2005. [3] The exhibit is currently retired.
Disco is a genre of dance music and a subculture that emerged in the 1970s from the United States' urban nightlife scene. Its sound is typified by four-on-the-floor beats, syncopated basslines, string sections, brass and horns, electric piano, synthesizers, and electric rhythm guitars.
The Century 21 Exposition was a world's fair held April 21, 1962, to October 21, 1962, in Seattle, Washington, United States. Nearly 10 million people attended the fair during its six-month run.
Saturday Night Fever is a 1977 American dance drama film directed by John Badham and produced by Robert Stigwood. It stars John Travolta as Tony Manero, a young Italian-American man who spends his weekends dancing and drinking at a local discothèque while dealing with social tensions and disillusionment in his working-class ethnic neighborhood in Brooklyn. The story is based on "Tribal Rites of the New Saturday Night", a mostly fictional 1976 article by music writer Nik Cohn.
The Museum of Pop Culture or MoPOP is a nonprofit museum in Seattle, Washington, United States, dedicated to contemporary popular culture. It was founded by Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen in 2000 as the Experience Music Project. Since then MoPOP has organized dozens of exhibits, 17 of which have toured across the U.S. and internationally.
Saturday Night Fever is the soundtrack album from the 1977 film Saturday Night Fever starring John Travolta. The soundtrack was released on November 15, 1977 by RSO Records. Prior to the release of Thriller by Michael Jackson, Saturday Night Fever was the best-selling album in music history, and still ranks among the best-selling soundtrack albums worldwide, with sales figures of over 40 million copies.
Richard Jay Potash was an American stage magician, actor and writer. In a 1993 profile for The New Yorker, Mark Singer called Jay "perhaps the most gifted sleight of hand artist alive". In addition to sleight of hand, he was known for his card tricks, card throwing, memory feats, and stage patter. He also wrote extensively on magic and its history. His acting credits included the films The Prestige, The Spanish Prisoner, Mystery Men, Heist, Boogie Nights, Tomorrow Never Dies, Heartbreakers, State and Main, House of Games and Magnolia, and the HBO series Deadwood. In 2015 he was the subject of an episode of PBS's American Masters, the only magician ever profiled in the series.
The Grammy Award for Best Disco Recording was an award presented at the 22nd Grammy Awards in 1980. The Grammy Awards, an annual ceremony that was established in 1958 and originally called the Gramophone Awards, are presented by the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences of the United States to "honor artistic achievement, technical proficiency and overall excellence in the recording industry, without regard to album sales or chart position".
The Seattle Art Museum is an art museum located in Seattle, Washington, United States. The museum operates three major facilities: its main museum in downtown Seattle; the Seattle Asian Art Museum in Volunteer Park, Capitol Hill; and Olympic Sculpture Park on the central Seattle waterfront, which opened in 2007.
The Wing Luke Museum is a museum in Seattle, Washington, United States, which focuses on the culture, art and history of Asian Pacific Americans. It is located in the city's Chinatown-International District. Established in 1967, the museum is a Smithsonian Institution affiliate and the only pan-Asian Pacific American community-based museum in the country. It has relocated twice since its founding, most recently to the East Kong Yick Building in 2008. In February 2013 it was recognized as one of two dozen affiliated areas of the U.S. National Park Service.
Seattle is a significant center for the painting, sculpture, textile and studio glass, alternative, urban art, lowbrow and performing arts. The century-old Seattle Symphony Orchestra is among the world's most recorded orchestras. The Seattle Opera and Pacific Northwest Ballet, are comparably distinguished. On at least two occasions, Seattle's local popular music scene has burst into the national and even international consciousness, first with a major contribution to garage rock in the mid-1960s, and later as the home of grunge rock in the early 1990s. The city has about twenty live theater venues, and Pioneer Square is one of the country's most prominent art gallery districts.
Karen Lynn Gorney is an American actress who had roles in television shows and films including the soap opera All My Children and the movie Saturday Night Fever.
David Lee Shire is an American songwriter and composer of stage musicals, film and television scores. Among his best known works are the motion picture soundtracks to The Big Bus, The Taking of Pelham One Two Three, The Conversation, All the President's Men, and parts of the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack such as "Manhattan Skyline". His other work includes the score of the 1985 film Return to Oz, and the stage musical scores of Baby, Big, Closer Than Ever, and Starting Here, Starting Now. Shire is married to actress Didi Conn.
Panic! at the Disco was an American pop rock band from Las Vegas, Nevada, formed in 2004 by childhood friends Ryan Ross, Spencer Smith, Brent Wilson, and Brendon Urie. Following several lineup changes, Panic! at the Disco operated as the solo project of frontman Urie from 2015 until its discontinuation in 2023.
A silent disco or silent rave is an event where people dance to music listened to on wireless headphones. Rather than using a speaker system, music is broadcast via a radio transmitter with the signal being picked up by wireless headphone receivers worn by the participants. Those without the headphones hear no music, giving the effect of a room full of people dancing to nothing.
The Northwest African American Museum (NAAM) serves to present and preserve the connections between the Pacific Northwest and people of African descent and investigate and celebrate Black experiences in America through exhibitions, programs and events. The museum is located in Seattle, Washington's historically African-American Central District neighborhood in the former Colman School, with official status as a City of Seattle landmark. The building also contains 36 units of affordable housing.
James Ellis Ford is an English record producer and songwriter, known for being a member of Simian Mobile Disco and the Last Shadow Puppets as well as his production work with Arctic Monkeys, Blur, Depeche Mode, Foals, Florence and the Machine, Haim, Gorillaz, Klaxons, Jessie Ware, Kylie Minogue, the Last Dinner Party and the Pet Shop Boys.
Richard Elmer "Rick" Bartow was a Native American artist and a member of the Mad River band of the Wiyot Tribe, who are indigenous to Humboldt County, California. He primarily created pastel, graphite, and mixed media drawings, wood sculpture, acrylic paintings, drypoint etchings, monotypes, and a small number of ceramic works.
Antonio Lopez was a Puerto Rican fashion illustrator whose work appeared in such publications as Vogue, Harper's Bazaar, Elle, Interview and The New York Times. Several books collecting his illustrations have been published. In his obituary, the New York Times called him a "major fashion illustrator." He generally signed his works as "Antonio."
"Enigma (Give a Bit of Mmh to Me)" is a song by French singer Amanda Lear from her second album Sweet Revenge, released as a single in 1978. It was a chart success upon its original release and enjoyed a resurgence of popularity in 2004 after exposure in the Kinder Bueno TV advertisement.
Forever Fever is a 1998 Singaporean musical comedy film written and directed by Glen Goei. It stars Adrian Pang as a man who becomes interested in disco once he sees Saturday Night Fever. As he competes in a local disco contest, John Travolta's character enters the real world and gives him advice. The film was released internationally by Miramax and was the first Singaporean film to perform well internationally.
Henry Ford Museum Disco Exhibit
New York Public Library Disco Exhibit