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About The Oregon daily journal. (Portland, Or.) 1902-1972 | View Entire Issue (Sept. 20, 1908)
"v.- i 5 Kit ?5K AH tne Dancing Masters Combine fo Saye the Sensuous Measure r. riTlHERE had been an intermission i during one of the hops" at the leading hotel of A tlantlc ". City, that famous eastern summer resort. ' . As the crowd drifted back the or- chestra began to play -with a luring lilt and a rhythm so slow that to the younger ears it seemed funereal the swaying ' numbers "of the old, aid "Beautiful Blue 'Danube." ' The younger set, gymnasts with their expectations set upon the reeking ex ercise of the barn ' dance and the breath less dashes 'of the two-step, smiled at one another in surprise. But not for, long. k; ji little space, and one delighted cou ple after another, among the older men and women, rose, and swept out upon the floor in the inimitably graceful, facile cir- ; cles of the old, true waltz, dancing it with an enjoyment , that indicated tlije ery '.poetry of delicate,, unaffected grace. A little longer, and the younger set were exclaiming: "I fs something new; lefs try it" . That was the .way-y-just once, like some lovely, lost joy that the queenly waltz returned, for a1 brief, graceful mo- jncrih, tu in vwn, uuriuugn nuriurtui u 'dancing masters, assembled in Berlin, - were binding themselves, with solemn eminence. HI U, hi lo; hi II. h! lo- Bel una greht's Immtr fohlimmer und Rcblimmer. Hi li. hi lo! hi II. hi lo- Bel un freht' Immtr o-o-o-ol Y ES; that's it the ancient German pivot waltz music, which has become the melody properly appertaining to the latest impudent interloper in the truise of the waltz the newest fashionable forgery among the countless frauds on human feet per petrated since the valtz proved itself the sweet est measure humanity can tread in the joyous dance. It is now the Boston Drop Step,, the only new thing in. dancing within the last couple of Tears. It is going to be under the ban, like all the rest. For dancing masters,' in choreographic coun cil assembled, trith seventeen countries repre sented at Berlin, arrived recently, at a firm re- iolve. They would combine to save the waltr THE waltz, which means the waltz as it was originally waltzed, and not as it has been paro died, garbled, mangled, distorted, gargoyled and raiiroaoea into au tne neianous muiupucies of glides, slides, hops, drop, dips and ratch-as-catch -ran strugglen-for-life. Delegates from a dozen lands addnced evi drnce before the Dancing Masters' Congress to prove, b7tnd the last despairing doubt, that the waltz is doomed, unless all loyal devotees of Terpichre and rftrausi arise in patent leathers and .eir miht to save it. Tl-y imagined thy were saving it, chiefly, frra America; and th7 are both right and wrocg fttcb. is tomewhat confusing, yet THE OREGON SUNDAY, v '0' -V v i ! ' " V, 9 kit phatically true. "Show me any dance program," remarked Walter II. Wroe, a Philadelphia instructor who divides his time between teaching the society maids and matrons in the East and training fancy dancers for the stage, "and I will point out what is the most obvious fact about dancing in the United States todar. The waltz appears in more frequent repetition than any other dance number the program specifies. "Truth is, there is far too much of waltz and two-step so much that the three-quarter time measure has suffered harsh transfprmations. which carry it out of its real sphere as a grace ful, enjoyable waltz, and leave it masquerading under the ancient and honorable name, but with its nature changed as greatly well, as greatly as the honest flour that goes into bread can be changed into indigestible pie and cake. "It is still a waltz, for it is still in the three step measure. But we have made it into various " things which are far more gymnastics than they are waltzing. "As for the dancing masters restoring the waltz to popular favor, I wish we could we all wish we could. But it doesn't lie with us. The fate of the waltz, the fat of all dance sow popular or ever popular, lies in the hands of the leaders of society. Tot every dancing master of the world to work exhorting," in a single hall,' for the renais sance of the waltz, and let Mr. Stuyrrsant Fish casually remark that she's going to have a galop in imitation of Texas cowpunchera, or A kimono -saraband a la geisha, or a Salome caracol with a dancing master's head as the piece de resist anceand 111 promise yon the dancing mW will furnish the bead, and on a silver platter. V teach what the fashions demand;. the fashion- JOURNAL, PORTLAND, SUNDAY . HORNING SEPTEMBER . 20. ; I90S , lit -V A s is 4S 55c 4;0 Waltz. ables lead, the dancing masters follow." Tet there has arisen,' during the last few months, a worldide demand world-wide so far as dancing goes for the preservation of the old- time waltz; for its return unto. ita own. " , Ten years ago the set dances vanished into the limbo that hides still .'the oldest and most stately of their type, the courtly. minuet Plain quadrille, , polka quadrille, waltz quadrille, ele gant polaeca one, with ano ter they fled, with the real, delightful waltz dancing hurriedly to its doom in the gasping glide, and the nimble polka and sociable schottiscbe already in the class that our mothers talk about. t . TWO-STEP A WHIRLWIND ' The two-step came in like whirlwind. For an interval even" thealtz-time - was despised and rejected . as- something' altogether, out '.of fashion. But three-quarter time in music and in the dance is something thst is basically; hu man; and,humsnity.cn'never free it feet from that fundamental measure. It is, pre-eminently,-' tha dance t one. - ' The waltz returned,, but flanged fronvita default of anything better. It adopted the new delicioos dreaminesa to a sort of lightaibr-ex- kick for its very own, modifying its elephantine press whirligig, to be used as a"stajle to 11 the - muscularity to'the smooth grace demanded in already "breathless interval between tbe'grotsque the current reaction against the spinal curva horvors of the Cakewalk z(d the hopping agilities tores of tbe recently defunct Cakewalk. . cf the barn dance. . A studious count ef the relative degree 7 5 if , 'On S Any "progjessive" dancing master can teach the-barn dance but -one" of them will tell you the story of .its origin or trace its 'disreputable ancestry. On the second . beat of ' the three quarter measure the dancers 'throw up the foot it calls for inn sort of 'discreet 'outward kick with a sweeping curve to it. A girl, on that kick, looks as though she'd just been tempted to join the merry chorus and had begun to practice high kicking, but changed'her mind in the middle of the kick. - . . - - . "There's the waltz for youH American danc ing masters have said, with one eyeron the three quarter measure of the music and the other on the sweeping turn the dancers describe at the step after the kick. t " " "Donnerwetter nochemtJ I" ' Tocif erates the Berlin congress. "Abernitl" Signifying, that the newly fashionable, Bos ton Drop of savage America is merely ' another horror spiled upon the heaped mound' of1 our crimes.' -; - - - Society ' gazed surreptitiously .upon tbe ' brawny freedom of the rew waltz as kicked at Coney Island, and thought that it was good in ft 7 V 4? 4i of popularity, attaching to the few dances that , furnish our present meager variety would place ' them in this order: First, the various forgeries) on the waltz chiefly whirlwind gyrations with the Boston Drop gradually'5 infiltrating down ward from the social stratum to which it was so suddenlyruplifted from' its original low level at i .Coney; second,, the aboriginal two-step, yn changed in any of its primal savagery,' except ; that it -is somewhat more ferocious; third, the! barn dance, always a children's dance until their j older sisters and brothers stole it from them be- cause the other playthings of the grown-ups j seemed for the time made of sawdust; fourth, the ' landers,' danced as a quadrille with a two-step , round dance -relieving what little monotony re mains after everybody has introduced every fig- " tire anybody ever .'heard of; and fifth,' the Paul Jones figure from the german, where you two- step until a signal bids all play ring-around-a-. rosy up to the "next signal, which makes them change partners along a chain until each secures another;partner whose .step is the worst ever, with more two-step,, more ring-around-a-rosy, ' and .more chain changes until yon get some one 'worse than the worst. . : That is alL. Gone is the polka; gone the schottiscbe; gone the swahlike elegance of the original waltz. ' " - The dancing master is rushing to tbe rescue. Society is also-taking note. There is a general movement to revive and make permanent the de lightful old waltz of "Beautiful Blue Danube .
