3. NOVELTIES, MARCHES, ETC.

In selecting the dances, marches, and novelties used in this books I have chosen those combinations that are the most practical and if followed with the descriptions, figures, and diagrams will mean, as we know from a commercial standpoint, the saving of time and much money.

The lessons in marching, etc., are comprehensive and best of all they are in vogue to-day. In conclusion the author does not profess to know everything. Even after thirty-two years' experience as a teacher and having in that time taught thousands upon thousands of people, from the age of three to three-score, feels that there never has been, never will be a time when he could not learn something about dancing.

I have endeavored to make my diagrams and lessons as clear as possible. How far I have succeeded remains with you — will be determined both by the quality and quantity of knowledge I have imparted to you. Yet I realize that a description I have written and easily decipherable to me may prove difficult of solution to another. If you, for instance, would devote a short while describing some simple movement, you may be surprised to find how difficult it is and how manypeople find the description, so intelligible to you, complex and involved to them.

In this book I have considered the novice in the A. B. C.'s of dancing and have endeavored to take him to post-graduate honors and I do feel that if conscientious treatment and patience be accorded the lessons, he has achieved the purpose of writing — given himself the gratifying feeling of having made a new friend, and, even without personal contact, has taught him to enjoy the dance.

While in the days of old the dance was for the few, the modern dance is no longer the concern of the individual alone but the concern of every one and the old as well as the young. It is our popular ritual for self- expressing our joy and exultation — the one great form of pleasure that keeps us attuned with life as it is sensed about us.

And the modern dances are the most easily achieved — some absurdly simple. It was not so in Mother's time — for the steps she watched were many and varied. With her usual quiet fortitude she prevailed over a most difficult and intricate order of things — and with an application that might, in these days, be considered a mental strain.

She danced a "square dance" and a "round dance" and each was composed of a bewildering number of movements and combinations.

A glance at her programme. The highly ornamental pencil has checked off:

Waltz. Plain Quadrille. Polka. Lanciers. Schottische. Polka Quadrille. Redowa. Schottische. Mazurka. Waltz. Medley Quadrille. Varsovienne. Parisian Varieties Quadrille. Racket. Lincoln Heel and Toe Polka. Tally Ho Quadrille. Waltz, Finale.

And on the alluring strains of Strauss she would win through this fantasy of mathematics with a triumph radiant and assured. To be Belle of the Ball was to be sovereign; and she judged and was judged by her knowledge of the dance.

Of course her sedate day met changes too. First came the two-step. Musicians, at first at a loss for its tempo, or time, decided to play it very fast. It was new and different and lively, was accepted, and with the waltz was in popular favor for thirty years.

Then, as dances will, they started to run down at the heel. To the younger generation they seemed out of step with the times and to have no special intention. Indeed dancing had become mechanical, stagnated.

Ragtime music brought the reaction. The Apache, the Texas Tommy, the Argentine, the Maxixe, the Tango, — the good with the bad is the story of these days, for the Maxixe was a beautiful dance and asserted Its stateliness through the tumult of the others.

The Tango and the Maxixe, while they brought a yes, an epidemic, have in turn succumbed to the antidote of dances that are more sensible and easily learned. Supreme of these is the Fox Trot — a stately and fascinating dance and one that will endure for a long time.

Are You Ready To Move Onto The Next Lesson? Click Here...