Texas Filmmaker Sets Out to Create Dance Hall Documentary

“We’ve been to…over 50 classic dance halls in the greater central Texas area.”

By Leah ScarpelliJanuary 4, 2017 3:50 pm,

Erik McCowan is a documentary filmmaker from Rosanky in Bastrop County. He says three years ago he found himself in a predicament.

“I was presented with an idea to follow a gentleman named Steve Dean on some dance hall adventures,” McCowan says. “He is what you would call the ‘All-Knowing Master of Dance Hall History in Texas’…And he wondered what it would take to get a dance hall documentary going.

So McCowan grabbed his camera, gear, and sense of adventure.

“We’ve been to…over 50 classic dance halls in the greater central Texas area from the hill country to out east, south Texas, up toward the Waco area,” he says.

Part of their travels include an event dubbed the “Dancehall Roadtrip.”

“We load up a bus full of folks that dance across Texas, we head out to some classic either hill country or east of Austin dance halls, we tour anywhere from five to eight halls.”

The final documentary will be called “Dancehall Days” – and with a little luck, it might turn into a television series.