Ballet Zoom

Friday, August 17, 2012
Image via fotolog
Ballet Zoom was a Spanish disco dance troupe that was formed in 1973. From there, the history gets a little sketchy because most online sources found on them are in Spanish and don't translate smoothly through Google. From what I could tell, they appeared regularly on a popular Spanish variety TV show called Ladies and Gentlemen, although they also released a single in 1977 and split up a year later. Several of its members then formed another group called Zoom.

Their vintage performances that I've found are everything that you would expect from a 70s dance troupe: colorful, cheesy, bizarre and downright entertaining, and of course the male dancers dress and act just as goofy as their female counterparts. The music from the first clip sounds like Doctor Who on a bad acid trip:






Terrible audio, but my personal favorite. C'mon, they're dancing with kittens. What's not to love? Somehow I think Julie Newmar would be proud. 



Make fun of this one if you want, but this here is a workout...a pre-cursor to bosu balance trainers:



I realize that Halloween is 10 weeks away, but who can resist a performance called "Soul Dracula"? Watch out, George Hamilton--you've got competition.

12 comments:

  1. Haha! I'll take Soul Dracula over "Twilight" anytime--omigod Pam, where do you find this stuff?

    Thanks for the free lunchtime entertainment! :)

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  2. Doug -- I'm with you on that!

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  3. Incredibly enough I had never heard of Ballet Zoom so thanks for the post. I do speak Spanish so I was able to dig up some more background info.
    The group had its origins in an English dance group called New Generation Ballet and as such made their debut on a Spanish variety show. They were such a hit that the producer of said show renamed them Ballet Zoom because of the use of "zooming in" with the lens in order to make things more exciting.
    Even though they became famous in Spain there was only one Spaniard in the group and the rest were either English or from other European countries. Two of the members of Ballet Zoom were brother and sister and two others were a married couple. There were of course several lineup changes with new member being added.
    They even made an appearance on the big screen in a musical comedy.

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  4. Awesome -- thank you for the background info, Luis! I didn't want to post incorrect facts based on what Google Translator was telling me. Sounds like they were a big splash.

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  5. Wow, I had never heard of this troupe, and now in less than 24 hours I've seen them mentioned in 2 completely different posts! Thanks for expanding my brain- and giving me some fun stuff to share - this stuff is too groovy to keep to myself!

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  6. It's really hard for me to imagine this being taken seriously, even in the 70s. This is horrible. Cats? That's for the laugh!

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  7. Mod Betty -- I'll admit, I saw the cats one posted on MSN and delved into YouTube from there!

    Desiree -- Yeah, perhaps the women batting at the ball of yarn really puts it over the top, but I still find them fun to watch. Like Doug says, I'd take "Soul Dracula" over Twilight anyday!

    Correction: I probably should have mentioned that this group did not start out as a disco troupe per say, since they were formed in 1973 and it took disco a few more years to come into vogue.

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  8. I might just have to watch the crazy dr who first video over and over again! I wonder what they were thinking...

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  9. I just found these dancers thanks to a very bizarre Osmonds video... I gotta say, these videos you posted are even weirder than their turn with the Osmonds.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wa8mLH_BQF0

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  10. I find this to be both insanely entertaining...and insanely frightening! haha I used some of your info on my blog, The Littlest Winslow, and linked back! What a troupe!

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  11. We moved to Spain in 1977 so it seems we missed this! Though I do recall Soul Dracula for some reason - just the song, not dance!

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