Context\n\nDance music culture is ubiquitous in Europe, North America and South East Asian cities, yet historians have yet to account for the scene that unfolded in New York between 1980-85. The exclusion is understandable. Emerging out of the counter-cultural movement of the late 1960s, disco became the dominant dance sound of the 1970s before its production was dramatically halted following the backlash against the genre in 1979, after which Chicago house (the dominant electronic paradigm in global dance during the 1990s and 2000s) was popularised in cities such as New York, Manchester and London around the middle of the 1980s. Lacking a singular sonic identity, the New York dance scene of the first half of the 1980s was always going to be easy to overlook, yet its chaotic status also made it one of the most invigorating and innovative periods in the history of western dance. Life and Death On the New York Dance Floor will provide an original and groundbreaking account of this neglected era.\n\n\nAims and objectives\n\nDrawing on interviews conducted with one hundred protagonists as well as a wide range of documentary sources, the book will provide a detailed history of New York dance during the first half of the 1980s. Its first task will be to map the way in which DJs, dancers, remixers, producers, musicians, club owners and record label employees drew on a range of sound system and studio technologies to forge a complex network that cut across race, gender, and sexuality while pulling together a post-genre mix of disco, dub, hip hop, electro, new wave and even orchestral music. The manner in which the 1980-85 period formed a crucial bridge between disco and house will be established by highlighting the way New York influenced dance scenes in Chicago, Manchester, London, Rimini, Paris, Berlin and Tokyo and other cities. The book will also argue that the New York scene amounted to a uniquely hybrid and decentred formation that was defined by its interaction, openness and community.\n\nIn addition to this archaeological work (work that becomes ever more urgent as protagonists continue to pass away, many of them from AIDS-related complications) Life and Death will also analyse the New York dance network 1980-85 within a range of broader contexts. Particular attention will be paid to the way the scene negotiated the early years of neoliberalism and its associated mix of welfare cuts, arts funding cuts and property price rises. And the book will also describe the development of the AIDS epidemic from within the most popular (yet least historicised) gay male pastime. The systematic omission of New York's queer-driven dance culture from the recent flurry of studies that have charted New York's prolifically creative downtown movement of 1975-84 will constitute another important reference point.\n\n\nPotential applications and benefits\n\nShifting between these perspectives, Life and Death will plug a significant gap in the history of twentieth century popular music while generating archival material and theoretical perspectives around race, gender, sexuality and class that will be of relevance to American Studies, Cultural Studies, Gay and Lesbian Studies, and History. In addition, the book's nocturnal outlook will contribute to a fuller understanding of the history of Manhattan, as well as the city's dynamic contribution to the crisscrossing flows of transatlantic culture. Thanks to its focus on New York's gay male population, Life and Death will also double up as an original case history of the early years of AIDS. And through its examination of the relationship between the dancing body, amplified sound and pre-recorded music, the book will illuminate the state of affect in the twilight years of the 'analogue era'. The book's unrivalled fieldwork and collection of rare artwork and DJ playlists will establish it as the definitive account of an influential yet under-appreciated cultural moment.