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ll, muscular, self-confident, young Johnny, dressed in his neat sailor suit, enters through the red door of the Apollo Dance to give his all on the dance floor and, who knows, maybe dance with the prettiest girl in the place. Other comrades have told him that there are some taxi-girls who dance devilishly well. Johnny has been given permission to attend the party that, for two days, is held at the Apollo Dancing Saloon in Barcelona, and which is attended by hundreds of marines from the American VI Fleet, whose ships have been docked for two summers now in the port of Barcelona.
Today, September 8, 1953, they celebrate the end of the war between the United States and Korea. There will be dinner, whisky will flow, and the possessed rhythm of a young and almost unknown singer, named Elvis Presley, will take over the hips of these boys who are willing to forget for a few hours why they are so far from their homes and families. From the Apollo Dance floor, a thunderous rhythm descends to the entrance, electrifying Johnny's senses, who is now accompanied by two friends he met in the hall bar. They have told him that the popular Apollo Orchestra is performing, along with the two bands that entertain the troops with the hottest jazz and rock & roll, two musical genres that are barely heard in post-war Spain. The young marine rides the wooden steps illuminated by a chandelier that guides him to hell itself, a dance floor that seems to burn with the intensity of the dance…
This could be the story of those hundreds of young American marines who used to frequent the popular Baile Apolo dance hall. "The hall will fill up, to the point of not being able to take a step, with adorned sailors and dozens of young women eager to find a man with possibilities, who will ask them to dance and perhaps, in the near future, give them a better life, in Spain or across the ocean, anything to escape the horror of the post-war period. A band of sailors plays music that makes the girls willing to follow —followers— the 'leaders' who carry them acrobatically across the dance floor. The rhythm is frantic and the atmosphere heats up; some take the opportunity to seduce their girl in the darkest corners of the upper gallery. The yankees' open bar helps to disinhibit bodies...", this is how one of the stories that have made the myth of Barcelona's most iconic dance floor, Sala Apolo, great is recounted.
Before opening its doors as a dance hall in 1943, it was one of Europe's most unique amusement parks: bordering on 1935. A dragon's mouth with sharp teeth swallows the wagons with passengers who, between hysterical and terrified, are literally engulfed into an underworld of demons, skulls, naked mermaids, and terrifying mummies.Apolo, 75 years without stopping dancingit is the book edited by Comanegra with which the 75th anniversary of the venue is commemorated and which uncovers the never-before-told story of Sala Apolo, narrated by its protagonists, from the venue's workers to artists, DJs, producers and the clients themselves, who have lived nights in which much of what was experienced was forgotten after a hangover or blurred by the sicalyptic ghosts of time. "Everything changes. Nothing changes," so reads the anniversary motto, because the night is equally dark for all brown cats, whatever era they have had to live through, where the hottest rhythms and the most rogue parties have worn down the herringbone parquet floor and its henchmen have taken shelter in the warmth of a vermilion luminescence and the carriage-red tones of its walls, which have sweated and trembled under the beats of the night. The Bots parties, the gypsy weddings, the hot Dominican rhythms of the 80s that today would make reggaeton 'perreos' pale, Nitsa's electronic music, Nasty Mondays, trap, dances with a lotswing, the nights of burlesque or the popping of Churros con Chocolate, the concerts…
The pages of this book speak of the night, of leisure, of a city that does not sleep, that has fun, and pay tribute to this mythical venue that was also —before opening its doors as a dance hall in 1943— one of the most unique amusement parks in Europe. Let's travel to the past, to the border of 1935. A dragon's mouth with sharp teeth swallows the wagons with passengers who, between hysterical and terrified, are literally engulfed into an underworld of demons, skulls, naked mermaids, and terrifying mummies. "The most original attractions in the city became the leisure benchmark of an avenue of circuses, theaters, and cabarets," the Apolo book tells us. It was all thanks to a visionary of that era, José Vallés, who imagined a world of unparalleled leisure on the city's most vibrant avenue, Paralelo.
Apolo is a ship full of surprises and, in the 50s, in a glorious era of attractions and dancing, the Apolo Patín Club is also famous, where Division de Honor roller hockey matches are played on the terrace that houses a regulation rink with a grandstand for five hundred people and which today is the open-to-the-sky roof of Sala 3. A decade later, a boxing ring enlivens gray post-war Sundays with its morning boxing matches and, why not, Apolo also dares to open its doors to the fashionable game of the 70s, Bingo, one of the first in the city. In the 90s, another visionary, Alberto Guijarro, would arrive, who would turn the track around, recovering its aesthetic essence, to turn Apolo into a club of clubs where today any sound whim is possible on a stage that always surprises. While the city sleeps, Apolo continues the night without stopping dancing. Long live Apolo!
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