Cha Cha in The Catskills: Black-and-white visions of the instructors who set the Catskills in motion. Hardcover – Large Print, March 9, 2026

Cha Cha in the Catskills is a photography book documenting the cultural and social significance of dance instruction during the height of the Borscht Belt resort era. Drawn from a private archive of over two thousand personal photographs and artifacts, the book offers an intimate view into the lives of two influential dance instructors whose work helped define Catskills resort culture from the 1940s through the 1960s.At the region’s most storied hotels—the Concord, Grossinger’s, Young’s Gap, and the Raleigh, ballroom and Latin dance shaped a glamorous cultural experience. By day, hotel guests took dance lessons for enjoyment; by night, Champagne Hours transformed the ballrooms into stages of elegance, spectacle, and participation.The archive traces careers that moved between New York City’s Latin clubs and the Catskills’ premier resorts, revealing how instruction and exhibition blurred into a singular form of entertainment.Interwoven throughout are candid encounters with comedians, musicians, athletes, and performers who circulated through the resorts weekly—including Buddy Hackett, Milton Berle, Bob Hope, Dean Martin, Robert Goulet, and Billy Eckstine—alongside ephemera like press clippings, brochures, pamphlets, business cards, and newspapers. All the while, Tony Mellusi and Lucille Pagliuca’s partnership on the dance floor evolves into a wedding at the Concord, highlighting how work, performance, and personal relationships were deeply intertwined.Presented almost entirely in black and white, Cha Cha in the Catskills captures a world of fun, style, and movement, preserving the joy and glamour of an era when dance was the heart of Catskills life. Read more