The Sydney Trocadero was a large

Art Deco Art Deco, short for the French (), is a style of visual arts, architecture, and product design that first Art Deco in Paris, appeared in Paris in the 1910s just before World War I and flourished in the United States and Europe during the 1920 ...

dance and concert hall that operated between 1936 and 1971 in

Sydney Sydney is the capital city of the States and territories of Australia, state of New South Wales and the List of cities in Australia by population, most populous city in Australia. Located on Australia's east coast, the metropolis surrounds Syd ...

, 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 and ...

jazz orchestras, with the resident Trocadero Orchestra under the baton of Frank Coughlan, 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 and

Australian jazz Jazz music has a long history in Australia. Over the years jazz has held a high-profile at local clubs, festivals and other music venues and a vast number of recordings have been produced by Australian jazz musicians, many of whom have gone on ...

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 time ...

waltz The waltz ( , meaning "to roll or revolve") is a ballroom dance, ballroom and folk dance, in triple (3/4 time, time), performed primarily in closed position. Along with the ländler and allemande, the waltz was sometimes referred to by the ...

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 from a combination of Arge ...

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

Hoyts The HOYTS Group of companies in Australia and New Zealand includes HOYTS Cinemas, a cinema chain, and Val Morgan, which sells advertising on cinema screens and digital billboards. The company was established by dentist Arthur Russell in Melbo ...

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& ...

References

Bibliography

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

External links