Discotheque Culture and the Role of the DJ 1
As background, the practice of dancing to prerecorded music in the United States can be traced to the spread of jukebox technology in the 1930s and record hop culture 
SIDE NOTERecord hop culture is an event where teens would dance popular dances at some location. It stems from the event called 'sock hop' where teens danced in the school's gymnasium. The word 'sock' implies teens needed to take off their shoes, with only wearing socks, so as to not damage the varnished gymnasium floor. in the 1950s. Parallel practices unfolded in Germany, where "swing kids" set up gramophones in order to dance to jazz, and also in France, where the venues that played prerecorded music became known as "discothèques." After operating as places where resistance fighters would socialize and dance, French discothèque culture acquired an elitist, bourgeois status during the postwar era, and this was the version of the culture that traveled to New York when Oliver Coquelin opened Le Club SIDE NOTELe Club was a members-only restaurant and nightclub located at 416 East 55th Street in Manhattan. French expatriate Olivier Coquelin founded Le Club in 1960. It was a playground for New York's elites, including the Vanderbilts and Kennedys. at the beginning of the 1960s. Later in the decade, New York's discotheques entered a period of commercial decline. When Arthur closed in 1969, the media reported that the novelty of the discotheque had worn off.
David Mancuso and his DJ turntables
However, David Mancuso, a resident of the SoHo district of New York, put on the first of a series of highly influential private parties that soon became known as The Loft, an invitation-only, noncommercial underground club that inspired many others. The first party, called "Love Saves the Day," was in 1970. At the same time, two gay entrepreneurs called Seymour and Shelley took over a failing discotheque called The Sanctuary and marketed the venue to the gay clientele who frequented their bars in New York's West Village. Here is an excellent article with audio that writes about the fiftieth anniversary of the loft: Still Saving The Day: The Most Influential Dance Party In History Turns 50
Marked by the spirit of the countercultural era, the loft and the sanctuary attracted crowds of mixed races, gender, and sexuality. The marginalized social status of many dancers, combined with the popularization of stimulants such as LSD, contributed to the emergence of a new dynamic on the dance floor and a non-normative way of experiencing the body. Instead of dancing in couples, participants moved in a freeform style to dance with the wider crowd. Responding to the increase in energy, Mancuso and Sanctuary DJ Francis Grasso developed a dialogue with their dancers. They not only "led" but also attempted to "follow" the dancers in their selections.
In " Remembering David Mancuso and The Loft,," Tim Lawrence writes: "Facilitating a sonic trail that was generated by everyone in the room, David would pick out long, twisting tracks such as Eddie Kendricks's " Girl, You Need A Change of Mind " and War's " City, Country, City," gutsy, political songs like The Equals's " Black Skinned Blue Eyed Boys" and Willie Hutch's " Brother's Gonna Work It Out " uplifting, joyful anthems such as Dorothy Morrison's " Fire and Rain" and MSFB's " Love Is the Message ," and earthy, funky recordings that included James Brown's " Give It Up or Turnit a Loose" and Manu Dibango's " Soul Makossa♫ ." Positive, emotional, and transcendental, these and other songs touched the soul and helped forge a community" (Lawrence 2016, n.p.). Mancuso died at his home in New York at the age of 72.