Lipsi (dance)

The Lipsi is a dance created in East Germany as a communist alternative to Western rock and roll-influenced dancing. Specifically, the group dancing was seen as more sexual than partner dance, where the female follows the male's lead.

The Lipsi was created in 1959.[1] It was poorly received by youth, with protests beginning in summer 1959 that mocked Walter Ulbricht and supported Elvis Presley.[2]

David Byrne described Lipsi as "a weird sexless popular dance ... that the government attempted to insert into popular culture as a kind of immunization against Elvis’s rock-and-roll gyrations."[3]

See also
  • Rock and roll and the fall of communism

References
  1. Taubert, Klaus (13 December 2013). "Der Lipsi: Modetanz, made by SED". Spiegel Online (in German). Retrieved 5 August 2015.
  2. Wiener, Jon. How We Forgot the Cold War. University of California Press. p. 172. ISBN 9780520271418.
  3. Byrne, David (2009-09-17). Bicycle Diaries. ISBN 9780670021147.
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