The Paramount, known in Chinese as Bailemen, opened in 1933 on the corner of Yuyuan Road and Wanhangdu Road in the western part of the city, and for the following decade it was the most famous ballroom in Shanghai. It was built by Chinese investors at a time when the city's nightlife was dominated by foreign establishments, and it was designed to outdo them: a four-storey building with a glass dance floor suspended over the ground floor, a spring-mounted surface, a revolving bandstand and a large orchestra. Its reputation rested equally on the music, the dancing and the society that gathered there.
The ballroom era
The Paramount belonged to a particular moment in Shanghai's history. Through the 1920s and 1930s the city had an active dance-hall culture - dozens of ballrooms, Filipino and Russian house bands, jazz arrangements of Chinese popular songs, taxi dancers who were paid to dance with customers, and a recording industry that produced the songs the bands played. The dance halls declined after 1949, most of them closed, and the buildings were converted to other uses. The Paramount itself was used as a cinema and then fell into disrepair before a restoration that reopened it in 2017 on its original site and roughly its original form.
Visiting today
The building now runs as a dance and events venue, with ballroom dancing on the upper floor, live music, and occasional public sessions, alongside a bar and restaurant. It is not a museum, so what you get is the architecture and the atmosphere rather than a curated history: the corner tower, the glazed entrance, the ballroom itself with its balcony and sprung floor. Yuyuan Road outside is one of the city's more interesting old streets, with 1920s villas, small shops and cafes along it.
Practical notes
The Paramount is in the Jing'an district, a short walk from subway stations on several lines, and it is worth passing by whether or not you go inside; the exterior is best photographed at night. If you want to attend a dancing session or a performance, check the schedule in advance, since opening depends on the events booked. Combine it with a walk along Yuyuan Road and with Jing'an Temple, which is a few minutes away to the east, and consider the Shanghai Film Museum if the ballroom era interests you, since it covers the same period of popular culture.
