DANCING, ANCIENT & MODERN.

Dominion, Volume 6, Issue 1806, 19 July 1913, Page 4

DANCING, ANCIENT & MODERN.

"Dancing always reflects the manners of the age." So says the writer of a letter to the London Times, in which an animated correspondence has been proceeding with reference to the ethics of the ballroom, in connection with the Bunny Hug, the Turkey Trot, the Tango, and other negroid dances. The letters and the comments thereon throw a lot of interesting light upon the history of dancing, ancient and modern. In its earliest forms dancing was resorted to as a means of giving expression to strong emotions —religious, patriotic, or warlike; and it probably arose out of what appears to be a universal instinct for rhythmical movement. Many national dances still survive, and anyone who has witnessed a real Maori war dance will easily understandits effect in working up the fighting instincts of a savage race. Dancing had its place in the religious ceremonial of the ancient Jews, and we are told that David "danced before the Lord with all his might." The whirling dervishes arc well-known in Mohammedan countries, and Ceylon can boast of its devil dancers. The Morris dance, probably of Moorish origin, was introduced into England in the time of Edward 111, and Sir Roger de Coverley, another old English dance, still survives. The Waltz and the Polka bring us down to our own times, and last of all we come to the latest American innovations which are being so much discussed in the London papers. Severe things have been said about the Bunny Hug and the Turkey Trot, and with some reason; but they also have their defenders, who claim that other dances which arc now taken as a matter of course were just as Htrongly condemned in dayn gone by, Take the Polkvior instance. Ifc in

nowadays simply looked upon as a harmless romp. You should see mo dance tho Polka. You should see me coyer tho ground, You should see my coat-tails flying As 1 whirl my partner round. A far different view was taken of the Polka a hundred years ago, as the following extract from The Letter-Bap of Lady Elizabeth Spcnccr Stanhope will show: "Lady Elizabeth Rave a very successful ball, where for the first timo in London tho Polka. was danced in public, and people stood upon the chairs and routseats to watch it. . . . Mr. Theodore Hook declared that 'tho obnoxious donee was calculated to lead to tho most licentious consequence?.' . . . Subsequently tho 'Sporting Magazine' . . . denounced the danco which, 'to the disgrace of sense and taste, has obtruded itself into the whole circle of the fashionable world . . . a will-corrupting dance ... a compound of immodest gesture and infectious poison.'" Another interesting insight into the ballroom etiquette of "the good old days" is provided by a letter which appeared in The Spectator of May 17, 1710. A tradesman, who had acquired sufficient wealtn to give his children a liberal education, which included dancing tuition by Monsieur Rigadoon, was persuaded by his wife to go to a ball and sec things for himself. He rather liked the French dancing, and he thought "Hunt the Squirrel" had a moral which, recommended "modesty and discretion to the female sex"; but he also discovered that "the best institutions are liable to corruptions." His impressions must be given in his own words: "I was amazed to see my girl handed by and handing young fellows with so much familiarity; and I could not have thought it had been in tho child. They very often mado_ use of a most impudent step called setting, which I know not liow to describo to you, but by telling you that it is tile very reverse of back to back. At last an impudent young dog bid tho fiddlers play a dance called 'Moll Patoly,' and, after having made two or three capers, ran to his partner, locked his arms in hers, and whisked her round cleverly above ground in such a manner that I, who sat upon ono of the lowest benches, saw farther above her shoe than I' can think fit to acquaint you with. I could no longer enduro those enormities; wherefore, just as my girl was goine to bo made a whirligig, I ran in, seized on tho child, and carried her home. Sir, I am not yet old enough to be a fool. I suppose this diversion might be at first invented to keep up a good understanding between young men and women, and so far I am not against it, but I shall never allow of those things. I know not what you will say to this case at present, but I am sure that had you been with me you would havo seen matter of great speculation." The editor of The Spectator thought his correspondent had reason to be out of humour at the treatment of his daughter. The-Times, in its comments on tho correspondence, takes lip the attitudo that the art of dancing is in a stato of torpor, and needs some violent stimulus to awake it. The negro dances are providing this stimulus, and the barbaric is overcoming the civilised, "because civilisation has grown afraid to express itself, and yet is weary of its own impotence. . . . Since civilisation will not teach us how to express ourselves in art we arc beginning to learn from barbarism." Those who are shocked at recent innovations ought to find more artistic substitutes to satisfy the instincts of the people. The Spectator, which also devotes an article to the subject, states that these new dances with zoological names answer, rightly or wrongly, to some social tendency which cannot be disposed of by _ a curt prohibition. Most people will be inclined to agree with the correspondent to The Times who reriiarkecl that "dancing always reflects the manners of the age." They are for the most part very bad manners in the present age.