IS DANCING IMMORAL.

Hokitika Guardian, 18 January 1926, Page 1

IS DANCING IMMORAL.

N.Z. CHURCH CRITICISED

During the winter dancing season, one hears the usual criticisms and attacks on a form of recreation that has won every section ,of the community.

I see that a church of New Zealand has said definitely that dancing is ■‘immoral,” ’ and the dancers in cabarets on this side of the water have been subjected to much adverse comment. From all that is said of dancers generally, one would almost gather the impression that they arc indeed a decadent lot! (says Mrs Ethel Carroll, well-known English society hostess in the “N.Z. Times.”)

Nothing, of course, is further from the truth. Dancing is no more immoral than is stamp-collecting or beecatcliing. It depends upon one’s attitude towards things. There is immorality in most things if you have a mind that looks for it! THE TANGO. 1 imagine that this talk of immorality has arisen through the dancing methods of some misguided couples. There is, I know a tendency for some young people to cling closer together than dignity demands, and in the latest tango, always a little foreign to the British mind, has seen an increase of this.

Y,he tango demands a closer hold and a more sensuous rhythm than the ordinary fox-trot or waltz. It is a dance that comes from the warm countries, where passions are easily stirred, and might easily seem to English eyes to ho an importation from the devil. But T am positive that in the minds and the hearts of all the typists and shop girls and clerks who are now dancing it there is no thought of immorality at all. With its lazy music and slow motion it is a danco to soothe the mind, and to give perfect poise to the body. The foxtrot, on the other hand, is excellent exorcise for both sexes. CLEAN RECREATION. The kill-joys tell us that it is indecent for two young people—or two old people, for that matter—to move (too closely .together to the dreamy strains of the hand. They would know, if they ever danced at all, that the mind is so fully occupied when dancing that the? passions simply do not pome into play on<» little hit. A man lias to think of many tilings—his partner, his hold, his steps, the music his guiding. A woman has to l>o on the alert for each movement of the male. There is no time for “immorality.” And I have noticed, too, that the feelings aroused by dancing are frank comradeship, jollity, and laughter. It is a clean recreation—and a safe one. Tn sonic cities there is an increasing tendency to lower lights during dances other than waltzes, and this practice may have lent colour to the opinions of the people against dancing. Personally, T think the practice need not ho too seriously deplored. It seems to he forgotten that the dance hall is probably the meeting-place for many sweethearts, and that it is their one little spot for a few hours’ romance. MENTALLY BENEFICIAL.

Tf we can add to their mutual dreams, help them to escape from their everyday lives, I think we are doing a good tiling, and not a had thing. If they are not meeting openly on Die dance' floor, rest assured they will meet somewhere—and not in lull view of spectators! I have doctors’ testimony that dancing is phvsicnllv and mentally beneficial. I have 'a nerve specialist’s authority for saying that, in model ation. he knows of no finer recreation. A parson of my acquaintance declares that every church function at which he has had dancing lias gone ofT with joy and laughter and success. He knows of no case in which danc- ;„«■ lias , been the cause of anybody s downfall. and thinks that much of his colleagues’ dislike fn r the art may have been aroused by the silly and «\- a.'ocraled conceptions of dance clubs given on Hie screen in lurid American picture*.