FOX-TROT'S NEW RIVAL

Hokitika Guardian, 29 April 1926, Page 4

FOX-TROT'S NEW RIVAL

(By Patrick Chalmers in a London paper.) A rival to the fox-trot has at Jast appeared. It is the Charleston, a staccato, tricky, intricate, amusing, smallstep dance done to a fox-trot piece with an accented rhythm different from that of the ordinary fox-trot. The relations between the fox-trot and the Charleston are peculiar. Hie Charleston is not eliminating the foxtrot; it is influencing and changing it. so that soon we may all be dancing what is best described as a Chariest-oil-

ed fox-trot. Many dancers now introduce Charleston steps into their fox-trot, and drop from the fox-trot into the Charleston lliythm. This is easily done, since the last-time fox-trot music in vogue now suits the Charleston better than it suits the orthodox fox-trot dance. The now combination dance that results is voted more interesting and amusing than the fox-trot proper, which has become little more than a straight gliding walk to music. The Charleston itself is too tricky and difficult ever to become more popular than the fox-trot. 1 lie secret of its allure is that it is livelier and can be done to fox-trot music.

There are three steps to it. A pecur foot-twist is its basis. This is hard acquire. A professional dancer told

me that it took him six weeks to get it perfectly. But a much modified step—“tricky” footwork is still bad form in English ballrooms —is easy and most dancers prefer this.

Opinions differ as to t’-he origin of the Charleston, but most authorities agree that it comes from the Negroes of Carolina, ami was popularised in a nigger show, “Running "Wild,” which toured the States two years ago.

In its extreme form it is a wild and frenzied affair, done at terrific speed, with shoulder “shimmies.” head shakes, arms waving, legs and feet flying in all directions.

It first came to the ballrooms with its one special p-icec ot music called “Charleston.” But now bands introduce tike Charleston beat into a few bars of the ordinary fox-trot. The technical basis of the step is this; it a beat be divided into two halves, olio takes the step on the first half and pauses on the second. This makes it admirably suited to crowded rooms.