Dance Chronicle
Until fairly recent times in history, people did not separate social dances from theater dances. The same styles of movement worked both as everyday social activity and as staged entertainment.
Most of these early dances were round dances. Couples dancing together with contact did not appear in Europe until the reign of Elizabeth I in the 16th century. One of her favorite dances, La Volta, is often seen as the first true couple dance in the ballroom sense.
By the middle of the 17th century, formal ballet technique began to take shape. Turned-out foot positions became the accepted base of all serious dance training. For a long time, this shaped every kind of dance, including social dance.
These turnout positions stayed central to dance right up until the years around the First World War. When large numbers of American soldiers arrived in Europe, they brought new dances that had grown from jazz music. In these styles, turned-out feet were no longer seen as necessary.
To bring some order to these new ballroom dances, the Dancing Times began hosting informal conferences starting in May 1920. At these meetings, teachers agreed on basic details for several dances, including the foxtrot, waltz, and tango. In 1922, M. Camille de Rhynal organized World’s Championships in London in these four dances.
Victor Silvester and Phyllis Clarke won the title. They danced a version of the waltz using parallel feet instead of turnout. Many performers struggled to complete a full rotation on both natural and reverse turns. Some teachers, especially Frank Ford, suggested turning only three quarters on each basic turn. This change made the figures travel across the floor on a diagonal path.
From this idea, our modern diagonal-style waltz was born.
Most dance historians agree that the foxtrot takes its name from Harry Fox, an American comedian. He used a special walking step in his vaudeville shows that people started calling “Fox’s Trot.” In its early days, the dance could be played at many speeds, from 32 to 50 bars per minute. Mr. G. R. Anderson (an American) and Josephine Bradley won several contests with what many regard as the first form of the modern foxtrot. Their version used a fast tempo of about 48 beats per minute.
Over time, dancers and teachers saw that it helped to separate the foxtrot into two styles, one quick and one slow. By 1927, the Star Championship included both a Foxtrot and a dance called “Quick-time Foxtrot and Charleston.” Frank Ford and Molly Spain won this event. Their routine used mostly quarter turns, chasses, zigzags, cortes, open reverse turns, and a small amount of flat Charleston.
Soon the Charleston content faded away, leaving the basic structure of today’s quickstep.
Tango reached Europe from Argentina in 1910 by way of France. Early versions danced in Britain owed a lot to Camille de Rhynal, who helped shape and promote the style, and to Maurice and Florence Walton. Their public performances played a big part in bringing tango to a wider audience.
