MODERN DANCING PAGE

BERNIE'S MODERN (STANDARD) DANCING PAGE

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The five ballroom dances: Modern Waltz, Tango, Viennese Waltz, Slow Foxtrot, and Quickstep, are danced the world over both socially and in DanceSport competitions. The word 'ballroom' denotes a room where balls may be held: that is: formal social dances. Balls were important social events in the days before radio and television (as in 'having a ball'). The word 'ball' derives from the Latin 'balare' meaning 'to dance'. This is also the origin of the related words : ballet, ballerina, ballad, etc.

SOME HISTORY ...

VIENNESE WALTZ
The Waltz is a dance performed to music with three beats to the bar. 
This means that if a step is taken on each beat, then each bar starts with the opposite foot to that of the previous bar. 
This can be a source of great difficulty for the beginner, but when mastered gives the dance a delightful romantic lilt.

The first record of a dance to 3/4 rhythm is a peasant dance of the Provence area of France in 1559, as a piece of folk music called the Volta, 
The Volta has also been claimed to be an Italian folk dance at this time. The word "volta" means "the turn" in Italian. Thus, even in its earliest days, the dance appears to have involved the couple turning as they danced.

Currently, the Viennese Waltz is danced at a tempo of about 180 beats per minute, with a limited range of figures: Change Steps, Hesitations, Hovers, Passing Changes, Natural and Reverse Turns, (travelling or on the spot as Fleckerls), and the Contracheck.

MODERN WALTZ
In the early 19th Century, the "Waltzen" became popular through many parts of Germany and Austria, with the local variants being called by the name of the area in which they were danced. The form from "Landl ob der Enns" in upper Austria became very popular, and became known by the abbreviated name of the 'Landler' (Sadie, 1980, 10/435). 
The present form of the dance has been variously described as being derived around 1910 in England both from the Landler and from the Boston. 
Either way, the dancers began taking advantage of the slower tempo to add more figures, some with extra syncopated beats, some with slow "picture" steps. These give the dance light and shade, and make it more interesting to perform and to watch.

MODERN TANGO
Originally the Tango was (and still is) light spirited Flamenco dance from Spain. With the Spanish conquest of much of South America, this Tango together with other Spanish folk dances naturally emigrated with settlers from Spain, although its involvement in the formation of the Modern Tango is suspect. The Tangano, an African dance imported with the negro slaves, is a more likely precursor. 
Over the years one or both became merged with other dances in the New World. In particular, in Argentina in the slums of Buenos Aires in the late 19th Century, they became merged with the Habanera (a folk dance from Havana in Cuba). The resulting dance became known as the Milonga.

SLOW FOXTROT
This a dance performed by couples in ballroom hold to music with a 4/4 rhythm and about 120 beats/minute tempo.
A faster dance of this nature was variously called the One Step or Two Step in the Victorian era in Western Society. 
This had one step per beat or two steps per bar; hence the dual nomenclature. It was introduced as the Castle Walk into the nightclub performances of Vernon and Irene Castle, and popularised by Harry Fox in the stage show "Ziegfeld Follies" in New York in 1913.
Fox's involvement has been taken as the origin of the name "Foxtrot", although there other posibilities.

QUICKSTEP
As Ragtime music evolved into Swing through the 1920's, new dances such as the Charleston, the Shimmy, and the Black Bottom became popular.

The Charleston was said to have originated in the Cape Verde Islands. It evolved into a vigourous round dance done by Negro dock workers in the Port of Charleston (Rust, 1969, 89). It was first performed on stage in New York in 1922 in a black revue by George White. It became popular in white society after inclusion in the stage show "Running Wild" in 1923 by the Ziegfeld Follies, which toured U.S.A. (Rust, 1969, 89). It was popularised in Europe by Josephine Baker in Paris in the 1920's. It was danced with wild swinging arms and side kicks to music at 200 to 240 beats per minute. It subsequently became very popular worldwide, but the wild character of the dance induced many sedate ballrooms either to ban it altogether. 
These dances became absorbed into a faster version of Foxtrot after a visit by Paul Whiteman's band to the UK in 1923, becoming known as the Quickstep.

Currently it is danced at a tempo of approximately 200 beats per minute. It retains the walks, runs, chasses and turns, of the original Foxtrot, with some other fast figures such as locks, hops, and skips added.

LOCAL - MELBOURNE:

Throughout the late 19th and early 20th centuries, dances and balls were a popular way of expressing support for religious, sporting or charitable organisations and for celebrating significant community events, and the role dance has played in the development of Melbourne's cultural and social life has often been overlooked. Victoria's Separation from New South Wales, for instance, was marked by a Grand Separation Fancy Dress Ball at St Patrick's Hall in 1850.

More modest dances were held throughout this period in inner-city venues such as the Masonic Hall in Collins Street or in the numerous town halls springing up in the inner suburbs. Dance programs were informed by British fashion, with the Circular Waltz and set dances such as Lancers, Alberts and Quadrilles finding particular favour. American dances such as the One-Step, Foxtrot, Slow Waltz and later the Tango were introduced to dance programs following the upsurge of interest in American music precipitated by the 1908 visit of the Great White Fleet and the growing stream of American 'ragtimers' who were promoted by the Tivoli Circuit and other vaudeville entrepreneurs.

The rapidity of change which characterised this period in dance history resulted in a proliferation in the number of dance academies opening in the city and inner suburbs. One of the first, and most enduring, was founded in 1904 by Jennie Brenan and her sisters Eileen and Margaret at 163 Collins Street. The Brenans taught both social and theatrical dancing, becoming the chief supplier of dancers to the theatrical giant J.C. Williamson Ltd for over 30 years.

Returning servicemen newly acquainted with jazz and ragtime as a result of time spent overseas proved to be great advocates for the new styles of dancing. The excitement surrounding the introduction of jazz to the Melbourne dance scene was heightened by the concurrent construction of new purpose-built dance palaces.

During the 1920s Melburnians witnessed an unprecedented building program which was to revolutionise the way in which dances were staged and promoted. In the seaside suburb of St Kilda, Carlyon's Ballroom at the Esplanade Hotel (c. 1920) initiated the concept of dividing the week into Popular Nights (evening dress optional) and Party Night (evening dress compulsory). Other dance palais built during this period include the new and lavishly appointed Palais de Danse (the original building had been built in 1913 but was re-erected on an adjoining site in 1920), Leggett's Ballroom, Prahran (1920), the Wattle Path Palais, St Kilda (1923), the Palais Royale at the Royal Exhibition Building (1923) and the Green Mill on the current site of the Arts Centre (1926).

Many of those involved in the local music and dance scene saw the opportunity for turning a passionate pastime into a profitable business. Highly publicised competitions, fancy dress nights and theme nights which featured give-away prizes became ways of enticing dancers to a particular venue. Leggett's in Prahran was one of the most successful in this respect, offering a brand new Buick as the prize for best couple as early as 1924, before initiating the Australasian Dance Championships during the 1930s. Dancers were offered many opportunities to win prizes either through talent or luck at all the major venues. As a result, the marathon dancing craze, which had swept depression-ridden America during the 1930s, failed to take hold in Melbourne.

During the 1930s, dance venues and teaching academies continued to grow in number. The Leggetts extended their ballroom in 1939 to accommodate up to 6000 dancers, while their 100 employees helped teach an estimated 50 000 people a year to dance. Dances were also on a grand scale at town halls in Heidelberg, Collingwood, Moonee Ponds and St Kilda. This well-established network of venues was heavily utilised during World War II for entertaining tens of thousands of American and Australian troops stationed in Melbourne. The jitterbug as practised by the Americans is seen by many as the defining dance of this period. In reality, however, most venues maintained a more sedate dance program featuring a mixture of Modern and Old Time dancing and allowed jitterbugging only in restricted areas of the dance floor.

By the end of World War II, attitudes towards social dancing had changed. For decades, dancers had moved in time to various jazz styles from dixie to swing. By the late 1940s, however, young jazz musicians were following another path and returning to the concert stages and clubs. Dance managements began to look for new ways to entice people back into the ballroom and struck upon square-dancing.

Melburnians were the first to embrace the dancing sensation which dominated the nation's dance-floors throughout the early 1950s. By 1952, over 100 square-dancing clubs were registered with the Square Dancing Society of Victoria. Venues such as Leggett's and Earl's Court on St Kilda's Esplanade became centres for large-scale dances, though by the late 1950s square-dancing had all but been swamped by a profoundly different style of dance music, rock 'n' roll.

In 1956 the first rock 'n' roll dances were held in Melbourne and Sydney following the controversial screening of the film The blackboard jungle, which featured Bill Haley singing 'Rock Around the Clock'. Town halls throughout the suburbs were soon filled with the music played at a regular 4/4 beat at a decibel range only made possible by amplification. Although the Jive, a less frenetic version of the jitterbug, featured heavily on 50/50 dance programs, there was a noticeable drift away from 'couple dancing' towards the more 'on the spot' style of dancing epitomised by the introduction of the Twist in the early 1960s.

This new style of dancing was practised most widely at concerts in large venues such as the Stadium in West Melbourne and in the smaller club and town hall venues which became popular during the late 1960s and early 1970s. City venues such as Bertie's, Sebastian's and the Thumpin' Tum catered for both those who wanted to dance to live music and those who just wanted to listen. By the late 1970s, however, these clubs were beginning to lose their live music acts to the burgeoning pub-rock scene and their dancers to King Street discotheques such as Inflation and the Underground. In the early 21st century these trends continue in nightclubs and at dance parties, although renewed interest in couples dancing has also led to the creation of lively Latin American and Swing Dance scenes across the city.

Carolyn Laffan