Many of the paired dances of the twentieth century—the foxtrot, the waltz, the Lindy Hop—reflected the binary gender dynamics of the day: men led and women followed, on the dance floor as at home. There were exceptions, such as in the underground drag balls that developed out of Black culture and grew in popularity during the nineteen-twenties. But they were still seen as a niche movement for “perverts,” according to a moral-reform committee investigation from 1916. What finally disrupted the binary was disco. In 1970, in the aftermath of the 1969 Stonewall rebellion, the d.j. David Mancuso began hosting invitation-only underground dance parties at a place that would come to be known as the Loft, at 647 Broadway. Around the same time, two gay entrepreneurs, Seymour and Shelley, purchased a

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