I’m in
Nashville this week, Music City USA (although Austin, TX may also put in a
claim for that title), and where there’s music, there’s bound to be dancing.
I don’t
expect to see any foxtrot or waltzes here, which like Nashville’s original
speakeasies, belong to another era. For me, witnessing a waltz has always felt
like a step back in time. What can be more refined and more romantic?
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| Illustration of the nine waltz positions. Correct Method of German and French Waltzing (1816). |
But it
wasn’t always that way. Waltzing, when it first inveigled its way into British
ballrooms by way of Austria during the Regency era, was met with shock and
outrage. Matrons disapproved of it, the patronesses of Almack’s banned it, and
no less a libertine than Lord Byron derided it.
What was so
bad about the waltz?
First, unlike
other popular of the dances of the period, couples danced with each other rather than as a group.
Secondly,
the waltz involved the man touching the lady. For an extended period of time.
In public. Scandal! In his poem satirizing the waltz, Byron wrote, “Waltz – waltz alone – both arms and legs
demands, Liberal of feet and lavish of hands; Hands which may freely range in
public sight.”
Attitudes
gradually relaxed, and even the formidable clique of Almack’s patronesses began
to permit waltzing, under certain conditions, by 1815. But the dance itself
would continue to be considered “riotous and indecent” in certain circles for
another decade.
If the waltz
created such a stir, I cannot imagine what the response would be to what
happens in today’s clubs!
Sources:
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