Throwback Tuesdays: Videos of Detroit Dance Show 'The Scene'

By Jonathan Cunningham

Jan 18, 2011 at 10:23 pm

Audio By Carbonatix

[
          {
            "name": "GPT - Leaderboard - Inline - Content",
            "component": "35519556",
            "insertPoint": "5th",
            "startingPoint": "3",
            "requiredCountToDisplay": "3",
            "maxInsertions": 100,
            
            "adList": [
              {
                "adPreset": "LeaderboardInline"
              }
            ]
          }
          
        ]

Here are a couple of videos that I recently stumbled across from the often forgotten about Detroit dance show called The Scene from 1982. Most people of a certain age automatically think of the New Dance Show in terms of a classic Detroit television show to feature local dancers, but a lot of people aren't readily aware of the fact that the New Dance Show had a local predecessor. And when you consider that they called it the "New" dance show, that should make it even more obvious.

The Scene, which aired on WGPR-TV 62, is in fact the New Dance Show's predecessor and ran from the late '70s to early '80s. It was essentially designed to be a local version of Soul Train, but what's cool is that The Scene featured a lot of local music of that era, some of which immediately sounds like the music the Belleville 3 (Juan Atkins, Derrick May, and Kevin Saunderson) were beginning to make around the same time. There's a website out there that was created several years ago to preserve the history of the show. Check it out. Then take a look at several of the vids below.