WHEN THE WALTZ WAS PROSCRIBED.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 20283, 16 December 1927, Page 7

WHEN THE WALTZ WAS PROSCRIBED.

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 bid 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 ia: ; — Some years ago the waltz was entirely proscribed from society; people danced only 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 your 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 ecstacy, the solo 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.