The Madison

This DVD includes:

It’s MADISON TIME and COUPLES MADISON!

  - History of the dance
  - Breakdown of 18 individual steps
  - Breakdown of the Couples Madison

According to Lance Benishek, dance historian and Madison mentor, “The Madison probably started in Chicago, although it may have been Detroit or Cleveland. The Baltimore Colts learned it in Cleveland and brought it to Baltimore in 1959.”

Based on a six count chorus step, The Madison contains several dance sequences which make playful reference to 1950’s and 1960’s TV shows (e.g. The Rifleman), sports stars (e.g. Wilt Chamberlain), and performers (e.g. Jackie Gleason).

It is danced to the Ray Bryant tune, THE MADISON TIME, with calls for the particular dance sequences provided by Eddie Morrison. Eddie was a Baltimore disc jockey who started calling the steps live on the air.  In Baltimore, the Madison was done to generic music with the DJ calling the figures.

The Madison moves on the DVD are described as originally learned at various camps and workshops in the late 90’s.  Since then, we have studied the Madison more closely and have realized that variations on the steps exist based on regional differences, instructor translations, etc. We have included all these variations on this DVD, as well as a COUPLES MADISON version we also learned from Lance Benishek.