What exactly goes down at a Soul Clap and Dance-Off?
Jonathan Toubin: It’s pretty simple. The Soul Clap is a dance party and the Dance-Off is the short contest in the middle. I throw killer soul 45s together to get people moving and somewhere in the middle of the party, numbers are pinned on audience members, five judges take the stage and I turn on exclusively deep James Brown jams while the audience—in groups of ten—duke it out for dancing supremacy. There is a dance-off between the winners of each group and a final dance-off between two contestants, which is of course the dramatic climax of the night. After that, everyone’s been waiting and watching for a half hour or so and are itchin’ to bust a move, so the records—which have been gradually escalating in speed and intensity for the entire night leading up to the contest—go up just one more notch and the party really gets going. At its best it can be like church, and at its worst, ‘The Gong Show.’ A lot of it depends on who turns up. And this time you’re bringing Ian Svenonius along.
