Go-go dancers in Miami Beach, mid-1960s. Go-go dancers are dancers who are employed to entertain crowds at discotheques or other clubs where music is played. Go-go dancing originated in the early 1960s, by some accounts when women at the Peppermint Lounge in New York City began to get up on tables and dance the twist. It is also claimed that go-go dancing originated at, and was named for, the very popular L.A. rock club Whiskey A Go Go which opened in January of 1964. Many 1960s-era clubgoers wore miniskirts and knee-high, high-heeled boots, which eventually came to be called go-go boots. Night club promoters in the mid‑1960s then conceived the idea of hiring women dressed in these outfits to entertain patrons.