Dancing at Disneyland : At the Magic Kingdom’s Videopolis Disco, Teens Find Cameras, Lights and High-Tech Action

AN AMPLIFIED RUMBLE shakes the night air and is pierced by the audience’s shrill whistles and screams. The bleachers at Videopolis, Disneyland’s outdoor high-tech disco for teens, are packed with 400 youngsters, most eyeing the banks of monitors that line the stage and dance floor. Music-video sequences, snippets of old black-and-white films, cartoons and time-lapse shorts alternate on screens of varying dimensions, including two 12x15-footers. Green, blue and lavender beams flash like shotgun blasts from overhead trusses. Then, the bleacher lights dim, the chains that cordon off the dance floor are lifted and the crowd surges down the ramps and onto the floor. Inside the control booth at the top of the bleachers, audio engineer Stillman Kelly looks up at the stage manager and the two light technicians. “Ah, guys,” he says. “Here we go again.”

About half of those on the floor are dancing. The others are standing around in small groups, talking and laughing. This warm-up period is the only time during the evening that stationary conversation groups are allowed. When you’re on the Videopolis dance floor, you dance. It’s one of the rules.

Midway through the first video, most of the teens have started to move. In the booth above, Mandy Worley, the stage manager, adjusts her headset. “Cameras just getting into position,” she announces into the mouthpiece, alerting the video engineer and video director located in a room 30 feet behind the stage. Worley is responsible for coordinating the audio, video, camera and light crews (all on headsets) and for cuing the disc jockey, who announces the occasional video, interviews dancers, hands out contest prizes and introduces any live entertainment.

The 40 overhead rotating lights kick in with the second video, sweeping arcs of green and pink diamonds past the dancers. Two heavyset teen-age boys with mohawks and quantities of gel dance together somewhat self-consciously. A young girl directly in front of the bleachers smiles and performs for a camera that pans the crowd; from his perch on an overhead dolly, the cameraman zeroes in. The girl’s image immediately appears on half a dozen screens around the dance floor. A 2-year-old wearing a yellow sweat shirt and Minnie Mouse pin sits piggyback on her mother and rolls her shoulders to the music. Several slick 15- or 16-year-olds show off their latest steps and respond to their friends’ vocal approval with self-satisfied grins.

At a corner just past a stack of five speakers that stands 40 feet high, Marc West, a dapper 18-year-old college freshman, and Wes King, a 17-year-old high school senior in white pegged pants, rendezvous with their friends. They met at Videopolis, where they come to dance and hang out. Instead of paying the $20 Disneyland entry fee, most have purchased a $135 annual pass that allows them unlimited access to the park. How did they get the money? “Birthday present,” West says. “My parents gave it to me,” says another friend, David Hellinger, 14. “It keeps me out of trouble.”

One of the three cameras that film the crowd has locked in on 17-year-old Shani Levine, a tall teen-ager in a form-fitting white T-shirt dress. Suddenly, her upper half is splayed across the two 12x15-foot screens. It keeps the crew entertained, one of the engineers says with a chuckle.

Next is the Bangles’ “Walk Like an Egyptian” video. The crowd roars its approval. Six people start an Egyptian bunny hop, and soon the line is snaking across the floor. It breaks up before security guards, who look like FBI agents in trench coats, move in. Line dancing, as the regulars know, is forbidden.

Sixty-one-year-old Suzanne DiMuccio, better known as Dancin’ Mama, is definitely the oldest and possibly the most consistent regular. A vision of red velour with almost-matching fringed boots and fedora, Dancin’ Mama is living up to her reputation. Arms in the air, she

grinds her hips, shimmies her shoulders and hoots. A crowd begins to gather around her. She spins, drops to a deep knee bend, then adjusts her hat. “The kids love me,” she says. “I come every week and dance all night long. It keeps me young.”

Just beyond her, youngsters swarm around assistant stage manager Mike Williams, who is taking requests. What happens when a video or record that the park management has deemed unacceptable is requested? “When we explain we can’t play it, some will give you an argument,” stage manager Morley says. “But others will say, ‘Oh. Right. This is Disneyland.’ ”