DANCING TIME

Otago Witness, Issue 3764, 4 May 1926, Page 79

DANCING TIME

BALLROOM ETIQUETTE.

PROTECTING THE PASTIME FROM VULGARITY AND ABUSE.

DRESS AND DEPORTMENT.

By

ALEC. STANTON.

(Author of “Ballroom Dancing and How to Enjoy It.”)

(Copyright.—For the Witness.)

IT. All recreations are bound by what may be termed “ the rules of the game.” The enormous popularity of the ballroom has brought with it a code and etiquette of its own, with which it is essential that dancers should be familiar. There is a particular reason for this. All the Old World ceremony o r the Victorian dances haying disappeared, something had to be done to guard the informality of the modern dances from abuse. Most of the trouble which has disturbed the gay pastime, and made it a target for those who cannot see the fun of dancing, has been due to people setting up their own standards of what should and should not be done, in defiance of the accepted rule. This would have been impossible 20 years ago. Today, with different manners and different dances, it still constitutes the danger. DRESS—FORMAL AND INFORMAL. If you are ever-in doubt of what dress to wear for a dance it is always a safe rule to wear evening dress. The postwar habit has tended in the opposite direction, and certainly for all ordinary occasions normal morning wear is permissible. At private dances, of course, evening dress must be worn, preferably full evening dress, for this is still a completely formal affair. In London, when you come to dance there, the rule is equally simple, and may be stated thus: For the popular halls and restaurants, where dinner and supper dances, or the straightforward 8-to-12 dances, are in progress, wear whatever you like. At the hotels and clubs in the West End, however, formal dress is expected. Men who, careless of their dress, wear the wrong attire, are apt to feel much embarrassed on these occasions. Once again let it be said that full evening dress for men involves the wearing of a tail coat (as distinct from a dinner jacket), and white tie (instead of the black tie worn with the dinner jacket). In full dress a white waistcoat is desirable. A word must here be said on the subject of “stunting” in the ballroom. Stunts are banned. And the reason they are banned is because if everybody indulged in them our .ballrooms would look as if a free fight had taken place between Fascists and Communists. For a dancer to hold up the ballroom by a complicated “ Blue Step,” for example, straight from the drinking saloons of Arizona, may be amusing x (for him), but it is not amusing for the others, and it is very rightly banned as opposed to good taste. * BALLROOM NUISANCES. Dancers should realise that, in a crowded ballroom, stagey and conspicuous steps seriously interfere with the comfort of the remaining couples. Any manager of a dance hall will tell you that it is only by observing the ordinary rules of courtesy and deferring to recognised codes of conduct that he can hope to hold his dancers’ patronage—indeed, it is not an "exaggeration to say that if a ban had not been placed on sensational dancing, and some of the amazing contortions imported from abroad, the pastime as a whole w'ould have petered out long ago. So long as we still get couples in our ballrooms

who think themselves the last word in glancing brilliance, and then attempt to prove it by becoming a public nuisance, and flying round the room like bluebottles, these warnings will be necessary. This brings me to the question of deportment. Deportment does not merely involve getting the right attitude in relation to your partner, and thus dancing as comfortably as possible. It means getting the right.attitude in relation to the rest of the ballroom. “ Deportment ” is rather an old-fashioned word now, but it still means a good deal, and it is a mistake to associate it with stiff bows and “ May-I-have-the-pleasures.” THE TRAFFIC PROBLEM. Deportment means the dancer’s position or carriage before he takes the floor. Unless he or she adopts a perfectly natural pose a fox trot is* going to be nothing more than a laborious keeping in step to the music. Unless he or she is going to stick to the rules of the game by making the dance progressive —i.e., a continuous move round the room —dancing is going to be yet another tussle with the traffic problem. There are dancers who shoot across diagonally from the line of advance either because they want more space to move in, or because, having no faculty for steering, they are forced out of line by the demands of the rhythm. It is a sound practice to keep as far as possible to the outer rim of the ballroom. . Don’t allow yourself to be “ edged in,” even if it involves marking time. As for steering, with most dancers this becomes instinctive. In any event, it is the man’s business to lead. If lie is timid it is nearly always because lie doesn’t know what step he is going to do next, and between one and the otlier he “muffs” both. It is essential for a man to cultivate certainty and precision in his movements, otherwise, however good his partner, she will have difficulty in following him. PROFESSIONAL AND AMATEUR. Dancing has become so expert a pastime during the past few years that the border line between professional and amateur is not easily settled. But what the professional may do it is not always advisable for the amateur to copy. It turns dancing into a competition in elegance and “ swank.” I do not say that the professional dancer is over-conscious of his superiority. Dancing is his business, and his position in a ballroom is largely that of a demonstrator. It is always his privilege to lead off. Nevertheless the whole atmosphere of dancing will be changed for the worse if amateur dancers go in for professional methods. It is the amateur who keeps up the life and soul of a dance, and this can only be done by dancing for the joy of the thing and not for show purposes. Every year some kill-joy or other declares tliaff “ dancing is going out ” that it is losing its “ pep ” and interest. There are many reasons why dancing still retains its grip on the world as the great democratic pastime, but chief among them is the enthusiasm and zest of the amateur. It is up to him to see that it loses none of its freshness.