The Chronicle. PUBLISHED DAILY LEVIN. TUESDAY, JULY 22, 1913. THE "BUNNY-HUG" AND ITS FELLOWS.

Horowhenua Chronicle, 22 July 1913, Page 2

The Chronicle. PUBLISHED DAILY LEVIN. TUESDAY, J ULY 22, 1913. THE "BUNNY-HUG" AND ITS FELLOWS.

It seems there is an arguable case i\i favour of the bunny-hug and the Jan go. For ourselves, we are content to be guided by our aversion inspired by the authentic accounts of the dancing madness of the .Middle Ages, which drew thousands of saltatory madmen on terpsichorean progresses all through Europe and to nowhere in particular. .Nevertheless it is but fair to give both sides of a case. Tin , apologist for the turkey-trot and the bunny-hug and its fellows solemnly asserts that buniiyhugs, grizzly bears, turkeytrots, tangos, two-steps, and suchlike are not dances. They are the kindergarten lessons of the art. Students who cannot see beyond this idea of dancing have no intelligent knowledge of what (Ik; art of dancing means. These dances with American names are mere grotesqueries, but they are capable of development along right 'lines, into the highest form of the art. The inclusion of such dances in a ball-room programme is like placing a piece of quarried marble in a sculpture gallery crude material without developed form m , shape. All art in the beginning is grotesque it remains mere unless the, mind has acquired the artistic I sense or the rhythmic fe<!ing. Until the student singer strikes the rhythmic form his efforts are ludicrous. So it is in all beginnings of musical art, inslruniental as well as vocal. The fiddler taking his first lessons is a horrible example of discord, and one beginner on a cornet can blast the peace of mind and harmony of a whoia neighbourhood. Dancing-— thai is, the present-day dancing of the ballroom is mere gyration under artificial conditions, it is so far removed, from rhythmical movement as prose is from poetry. We have persuaded ourselves., for a long time that it is rhythmical; but (hen that, is because custom hangs upon us heavily, and we are mostly too tired to argue about the absurd and indecent corroborees which our great-grandfathers left us as a heritage, and which have for too long held a place in our esteem.