WHEN THE POLKA WAS NEW

New Zealand Times, Volume LXXVI, Issue 5229, 19 March 1904, Page 12

WHEN THE POLKA WAS NEW

According to the “Memoirs of.Ann* Maria Pickering” (Hodder), the polka was a novelty in England in 1841. In that ■year Anna Maria came out, at a ball! given in Harley street, Loudon. “When the ball was at its height, about 3 o’clock in the morning, a deputation of ladles came up to my mother, representing to her that the polka had never "yet boon danced in Loudon, but that, there were, six ladies, in the room who knew how to dance it.' and that everybody was anxious to see it; would she obj eot to its being danced for the first time at her ball? She gave her consent ■ most readillv. and I never saw anything like the excitement the dance -caused. Lady Jersey, the Duchess cf Bedford, and afll the fine ladies, whoso names I have now forgotten, climbed up. and stood on the benches, so that thov might see better. The six ladies who danced were, curiously, enough, all in deep mourning; as someone observed to hie. it was like the dance of the chimney sweeps. “It is almost impossible, at tire present time, to give an idea of’the furore ooueed by the polka in London. In these days, if a new dance is started, in throe or four evenings the whole room will be jigging it. rant mail que hien! No one thinking of the dance, but all dancing something they call by its name. But it was very different then. QuadriKes were the chief dances; there were very few' , waltzes, and many people did not.walta at all.. Those who knew the nolka (and they were very few) were the only people who dared to dance it. while the other people looked on. and did not attempt to learn it. Gentlemen would only dance it with the partners whom they knew, and with whom they had practised it. "Everyone who had danced the polka at our ball became, from that moment, marked people cf fashion,' and remained so—their could do what others could not. Out polka 1 was the beginning of Lady Pollington’s career—‘Pretty Poll/ as sh« was called in London. She was Lady Bach el Walpole, and, just out of the schoolroom, she had recently married Lord Pollington, Lord Mexborough’s bop- , She danced beautifully, and at one para of the polka she used to call out ‘Spea and dance on tip-toes.”