Opened August 29, 1979 at 430 Broad Street, Newark, and documented by the Newark Public Library and multiple house-music histories. See Sources & References below.

Catalog local rooms, owners, promoters, dance contests, sound systems, and regular dancers.

Document how national broadcasts and local gathering places existed side by side.

Identify who introduced records, shaped rooms, and connected regional audiences.

Document partner dancers, freestyle innovators, contest dancers, and the people others watched and copied.

Integrate women as dancers, DJs, promoters, teachers, organizers, journalists, and cultural leaders.

Television as a national window into social movement, fashion, records, and community.

The project source notes its role in popularizing solo dancing; the final exhibit should distinguish film influence from preexisting club practice.

Collect station schedules, advertisements, reviews, programs, photographs, and regional press.

Opened in 1977 at 206 S. Jefferson St. under owner Robert Williams and resident DJ Frankie Knuckles; credited as the birthplace of house music and named a Chicago Landmark on June 21, 2023. See Sources & References below.

Opened in 1979; Tony Humphries began his residency in 1982, helping shape the gospel-inflected Jersey sound. See Sources & References below.

Build a verified venue profile using flyers, listings, oral histories, resident DJ records, and witness accounts.

The Paradise Garage (84 King St., 1977-1987) with Larry Levan, and David Mancuso’s Loft (from 1970), are documented anchors of New York dance culture. Keep their separate histories distinct. See Sources & References below.

Research their programming, rooms, recordings, communities, and influence on dancers.

Zanzibar resident from 1982 and a WRKS 98.7 KISS-FM mixshow DJ; connect his radio work, remixes, and selections to the developing Jersey sound.

Explain how each DJ changed the room rather than presenting a name-only list.

Present retrospective recollections as oral history and corroborate claims with contemporary evidence where possible.

Track how television expanded access to music, dance, fashion, artists, and choreography.

Use contemporary advertisements to establish dates, nights, artists, promoters, and venue activity.

Preserve programming evidence and the relationship between DJs, records, and dancers.

Show how improvisation remained active while commercial choreography expanded.

Catalog the spaces where social dancers became commercial performers and educators.

Trace the early movement of club and street forms into formal instruction.

Research members, projects, collaborations, videos, tours, and influence with exact credits.

Build relationship maps rather than isolated biographies.

Marjory Smarth (b. November 1969, Haiti; d. 2015) was a pioneering house and hip-hop dancer who performed with Diana Ross, Heavy D, and CeCe Peniston and taught worldwide. Document her mentorship and international impact. See Sources & References below.

Document the people who converted social knowledge into repeatable instruction and production practice.

Research videos, tours, choreographers, assistants, dancers, and historical influence.

Create verified production and dance-credit records.

Connect performance media to social-dance learning and later teaching careers.

Launched July 2007 in New York (Sullivan Room, Alvin Ailey Studios, and Club Shelter), with judges including Archie Burnett and Marjory Smarth and Ejoe Wilson as host. See Sources & References below.

Research instructors, class schedules, workshops, and long-term educational impact.

Document Juste Debout, Summer Dance Forever, House Dance Forever, and other exchange platforms with verified dates and credits.

Around 1999-2002, DJ Tameil and the Brick Bandits reworked Baltimore club into a Newark sound first called Brick City club — the dance-floor lineage Dance Mogul Magazine traces from Zanzibar-era nightlife through the ’90s house-party circuit. See Sources & References below.

Connect Newark club culture, international teaching, studios, festivals, competitions, and students.

Build full teaching, performance, and influence records.

Document the infrastructure builders who made international exchange possible.

Newark's ENVY dance group (established 2003) and the earlier Brick City Dancers carried the Jersey Club dance style; dancer Anthony 'Solo' Harris documents this lineage firsthand for Dance Mogul Magazine.

Track how clips, forums, DVDs, and websites expanded access while sometimes removing context.

Preserve event programs, judges, competitors, workshops, and full video records.

Collect syllabi, faculty biographies, course listings, and teaching materials.

Document courses, workshops, faculty, judges, and visiting artists.

Archive interviews, event pages, social posts, videos, and metadata before links disappear.

Track recognition, preservation efforts, exhibitions, and public history initiatives.

Through the 2010s, producers such as DJ Sliink, Nadus, and UNIIQU3 (the “Jersey Club Queen”) carried the Newark sound worldwide, and the Brick Bandits signed to Mad Decent. The FADER published an oral history in 2014. See Sources & References below.

Document where they taught, whom they mentored, and how their ideas traveled.

Evaluate how later narratives were assembled and whose testimony was included or omitted.

Recognize the people digitizing flyers, VHS tapes, photographs, programs, and personal collections.

The Billie Prest source discussion demonstrates why later interviews are valuable but must be identified as retrospective testimony.

Preserve original upload dates, captions, credits, edits, and platform context.

Compare contemporary evidence, oral history, social recollection, and later summaries without forcing a premature verdict.

Continue documenting clubs, parties, festivals, studios, competitions, and community gatherings.

Capture instructors, platforms, dates, curricula, credits, and access conditions.

Use the decade-first museum model as the public entrance to a growing encyclopedia and research library.

Newark's Jersey Club is now a global social dance. Lil Uzi Vert's “Just Wanna Rock” (October 2022), produced by Newark teenager MCVertt, drove the “Rock ya hips” dance across TikTok. See Sources & References below.

Record oral histories while participants can describe events, relationships, and context firsthand.

Map who taught them, where they learned, and how they adapt inherited knowledge.

Provide pathways to submit artifacts, corrections, identifications, and permissions.

Preserve context, original creators, music, locations, dates, and complete credits.

Connect decades to people, clubs, cities, music, interviews, photographs, and primary documents.

Make uncertainty visible and allow the historical record to improve over time.

Preserve the creators, choreographers, dates, and music behind viral Jersey Club dances so the platform record credits Newark's originators. Beyoncé, Drake, and Nicki Minaj have all drawn on the sound.