WHEN THE WALTZ WAS PROSCRIBED

Dominion, Volume 21, Issue 84, 7 January 1928, Page 22

WHEN THE WALTZ WAS PROSCRIBED

I Now that-we take our dances from America in spite of the strong disapproval some of them win for themselves on first exhibition, it is amusing to turn back to the day when Europe imported the graces of the waltz into a suspicious New World. A correspondent of the “Glasgow Herald” who has been going over old volumes in the search for something rather more significant came across a description of the first appearance of the French ballet in New York. It is quoted in Murat’s “North America,” from the “Morning Chronicle” of 1833. Here it is:—

Some years ago the waltz was entirely proscribed from society; people only danced quadrilles and Scotch reels. The waltz was considered at the time of its introduction as a dance of unheard of indecency. The pulpit held forth against the abomination of permitting a man who was neither your lover nor vour husband to encircle you with his arms and slightly press the contour of

your waist. What, then, was the effect when a corps de ballet from Paris arrived at New York ? I was at the first representation; the appearance of the dancers in short dresses created an astonishment I know not how to describe; but at the first pirouette it was quite another matter. The women screamed aloud, and the greater part left the theatre; the men remained, for the most part, roaring and sobbing with ecstasy, the sole idea which struck them being that of the ridiculous. To judge by the comparatively placid reception of the more extravagant of the new dances, one might say that the sense of the ridiculous is not what it was.