The Lipsi is a dance created in East Germany as a communist alternative to decadent Western rock and roll-influenced dancing. Specifically, the group dancing was seen as less sexual than partner dance, where the female follows the male's lead.
The Lipsi was created in 1959. It was poorly received by youth, with protests beginning in summer 1959 that mocked Walter Ulbricht and supported Elvis Presley.
David Byrne described Lipsi as "a weird sexless popular dance ... that the government attempted to insert into popular culture as a kind of immunization against Elvis’s rock-and-roll gyrations."
See also
References
- Taubert, Klaus (13 December 2013). "Der Lipsi: Modetanz, made by SED". Spiegel Online (in German). Retrieved 5 August 2015.
- Wiener, Jon (15 October 2012). How We Forgot the Cold War. University of California Press. p. 172. ISBN 9780520271418.
- Byrne, David (2009-09-17). Bicycle Diaries. ISBN 9780670021147.