The Sydney Trocadero was a large

art deco Art Deco, short for the French ''Arts Décoratifs'', and sometimes just called Deco, is a style of visual arts, architecture, and product design, that first appeared in France in the 1910s (just before World War I), and flourished in the Unit ...

dance and concert hall that operated between 1936 and 1971 in Sydney, Australia. It was the main venue of

Big Band A big band or jazz orchestra is a type of musical ensemble of jazz music that usually consists of ten or more musicians with four sections: saxophones, trumpets, trombones, and a rhythm section. Big bands originated during the early 1910s ...

jazz orchestras, with the resident Trocadero Orchestra under the baton of

Frank Coughlan Frank James Coughlan (7 June 1904 – 6 April 1979) was an Australian jazz musician and band leader. He is described in the ''Australian Dictionary of Biography'' as "One of the most influential musicians in the development of jazz in Australia. ...

, and the All Girl Trocadero Band. Often referred to as "The Troc", it was once regarded as the "most glamorous dance palace in Sydney and accommodated up to 2,000 people". It was the favored venue for university and school 'formals', and hosted many important local rock and pop concerts during the 1960s.

Location

The Trocadero was located on the western side of George Street, south of Bathurst Street, next door to the now demolished Hoyts Regent Theatre.Dictionary of Sydney - Trocadero
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History

The venue opened with a full-dress gala on 3 April 1936. It was one of a number of venues in Sydney for balls. Others included the Palais Royale, the David Jones Auditorium and the Blaxland Galleries. Art Students' Balls and Artists' Balls continued to be held at the Trocadero through the 1950s and up till the early 1960s over a period when dance music encompassed a wide range of styles including

swing Swing or swinging may refer to: Apparatus * Swing (seat), a hanging seat that swings back and forth * Pendulum, an object that swings * Russian swing, a swing-like circus apparatus * Sex swing, a type of harness for sexual intercourse * Swing rid ...

and Australian jazz in the early years, to

foxtrot The foxtrot is a smooth, progressive dance characterized by long, continuous flowing movements across the dance floor. It is danced to big band (usually vocal) music. The dance is similar in its look to waltz, although the rhythm is in a ti ...

waltz The waltz ( ), meaning "to roll or revolve") is a ballroom and folk dance, normally in triple ( time), performed primarily in closed position. History There are many references to a sliding or gliding dance that would evolve into the w ...

and

tango Tango is a partner dance and social dance that originated in the 1880s along the Río de la Plata, the natural border between Argentina and Uruguay. The tango was born in the impoverished port areas of these countries as the result of a combina ...

in the later ones. The Sydney Trocadero was closed on 5 February 1971; the building was demolished and replaced by a modernist cinema complex owned by the

Hoyts The Hoyts Group of companies in Australia and New Zealand includes Hoyts Cinemas and Val Morgan. Hoyts operates more than 450 cinema screens and 55,000 seats, making it Australia's second largest movie exhibitor after Event Hospita ...

group.

Cultural references

The closure of the venue is commemorated in the song "Deep Water" by Australian singer-songwriter

Richard Clapton Richard Clapton (born 18 May 1948) is an Australian singer-songwriter-guitarist and producer. His solo top 20 hits on the Kent Music Report Singles Chart are " Girls on the Avenue" (1975) and "I Am an Island" (1982). He reached the top&nb ...

References

Bibliography

Ford, Joan (1995) ''Meet me at the Trocadero'' Cowra, NSW.

External links