The Toppers Dance Club Has Been Dancing For !
Join the April 20th, 2012 At the Petroleum Club - Highlights Below
Perhaps A Little History?
Topper's in 1946
The Topper's Dance Club was formed in 1946 in Long Beach and has been in operation ever since,
We meet and dance nine times a year, usually on a Friday night at the Petroleum Club beginning in September and the last dance is in May. We take the summer off to rest, relax, and get ready for a new season of dancing.
The Long Beach Petroleum Club was founded in 1953 as Long Beach’s premier social club. Although its origins were in the region’s oil industry, today, its diverse membership encompasses a broad spectrum of business, professional, charitable, and community organizations, individuals, and families.
Great people just enjoying a delightful dinner, dancing, and company. We are a mix on young and older who enjoy the sounds of dance music provided by several local bands.
Please join us in pictures for some of the dances we have had recently (due to the magic of the Internet and digital cameras).
Visit Some Of Our Dances...
- Topper's Christmas 2007 Dance (Mistletoe Ball)
- Topper's Christmas 2008 Dance (Mistletoe Ball)
- Topper's Spring Formal Dance May 2008
- Topper's Dance Club March 2009
- Toppers Dance Club April 2009
- Toppers Spring Formal Dance May 2009
- Toppers September 2009
- October 2009 Topper's Dance
- November 2009 Topper's Dance
- Mistletoe Ball 2009
- January 22nd 2010 Celebrating The Rain!
- Toppers February 2010 Dance
- Toppers Dance April 16th 2010 and Comic Version
- Toppers September 2010 Dance
- October 2010 Dance
- November 2010
- Mistletoe Ball (December) 2010
- January 2011 Dance
- February 2011 Dance
The Toppers Phenakistoscope
Turning and turning...
Did you know? - The phenakistoscope (also spelled phenakistiscope) was an early animation device, the predecessor of the zoetrope. It was invented in 1832 simultaneously by the Belgian Joseph Plateau and the Austrian Simon von Stampfer.
One variant of the phenakistoscope was a spinning disc mounted vertically on a handle. Around the center of the disc a series of pictures was drawn corresponding to frames of the animation; around its circumference was a series of radial slits. The user would spin the disc and look through the moving slits at the disc's reflection in a mirror. The scanning of the slits across the reflected images kept them from simply blurring together, so that the user would see a rapid succession of images with the appearance of a motion picture (see also persistence of vision). Another variant had two discs, one with slits and one with pictures; this was slightly more unwieldy but needed no mirror. Unlike the zoetrope and its successors, the phenakistoscope could only practically be used by one person at a time. The phenakistoscope was only famous for about two years due to the changing of technology.
The first part of the term 'phenakistoscope' comes from the root Greek word φενακίζειν - phenakizein, meaning "to deceive" or "to cheat", as it deceives the eye by making the pictures look like an animation. As technology along with popularity increased in the early twentieth century, coin operation was utilized on machines, coining the term "Nickelodeon," which would be later be used somewhat freely to describe events charging five cents or a "nickel."