Taxi dance hall

A taxi dance hall is a type of dance hall where dancers, usually young women, called taxi dancers are paid to dance with usually male patrons. The owners of a taxi dance hall provide music and a dance floor for their patrons and taxi dancers.^[1] In the United States during the 1920s and 1930s, when taxi dancing was at its peak, patrons of taxi dance halls would typically buy dance tickets for ten cents each.^[2][3] When they presented a ticket to a taxi dancer, she would dance with them for the length of a single song.^[4] Taxi dancers earned a commission on every dance ticket that they collected.^[5] The ticket-a-dance system was the centerpiece of the taxi dance halls. Taxi dance halls are vividly represented on the ouverture of Henry Miller novel Sexus, where the narrator falls in love with a taxi dancer after meeting her on a Thursday night, circa 1928.