Go-go dancing

Go-go dancers are dancers who are employed to entertain crowds at nightclubs or other clubs where music is played. Go-go dancing originated in the early 1960s, by some accounts when women at the Peppermint Lounge in New York City began to get up on tables and dance the twist. It is also claimed that go-go dancing originated at, and was named for, the very popular L.A. rock club Whiskey A Go Go which opened in January 1964. Many 1960s-era clubgoers wore miniskirts and knee-high, high-heeled boots, which eventually came to be called go-go boots. Night club promoters in the mid‑1960s then conceived the idea of hiring women dressed in these outfits to entertain patrons.

Etymology

The term go-go derives from the phrase "go-go-go" for a high-energy person, and was influenced by the French expression à gogo, meaning "in abundance, galore", which is in turn derived from the ancient French word la gogue for "joy, happiness".

In the 1960s

On Friday, 19 June 1964, Carol Doda began go-go dancing topless (after having had her breasts implanted with silicone to enlarge them) at the Condor Club on Broadway and Columbus in the North Beach neighborhood of San Francisco. She became the world's most famous go-go dancer, dancing at the Condor for 22 years.