Abstract
From ‘folk devils’ to ballroom dancers, Waltzing Through Europe explores the changing reception of fashionable couple dances in Europe from the eighteenth century onwards. A refreshing intervention in dance studies, this book brings together elements of historiography, cultural memory, folklore, and dance across comparatively narrow but markedly heterogeneous localities. Rooted in investigations of often newly discovered primary sources, the essays afford many opportunities to compare sociocultural and political reactions to the arrival and practice of popular rotating couple dances, such as the Waltz and the Polka. Leading contributors provide a transnational and affective lens onto strikingly diverse topics, ranging from the evolution of romantic couple dances in Croatia, and Strauss’s visits to Hamburg and Altona in the 1830s, to dance as a tool of cultural preservation and expression in twentieth-century Finland. Waltzing Through Europe creates openings for fresh collaborations in dance historiography and cultural history across fields and genres. It is essential reading for researchers of dance in central and northern Europe, while also appealing to the general reader who wants to learn more about the vibrant histories of these familiar dance forms.
Highlights
The aim of this chapter is to give an account of the appearance and reception of round dances1 — known as nineteenth-century couple dances — in Hungary.2 Since these dances did not stand out as a paradigm with a separate name in Hungary, we first need to identify them within the broader Hungarian dance repertoire
The name comes from the French word trembler (‘to shake’, or třásti in Czech) and it was used in Paris in the late 1840s for the Polka Tremblante, but the notation contains an obkročák dance motif50 with a shake or even a jump whenever the dancers are ready to step forward, as it helps the couple turn round: Fig. 5.5 ‘The Double-Polka’ in the collection of folk dances from Josef Vycpálek, České tance
Having presented the career of Csárdás throughout the nineteenth century, we summarise those features which make it both similar to, and different from, other nineteenth-century round dances: 1. They both originated from traditional dance forms, which expressed a mixture of democratic and Romantic dedication to the lower social classes, who preserved ‘ancient’ cultural elements
Summary
This book explores the European phenomenon of rotating couple dances, such as the Waltz and the Polka, which, for much of the nineteenth century, were collectively known as round dances. In 1806, the Baltic dancing master Ivensenn had already published a manual with a long discussion and description of the Waltz: Dietrich Alexander Valentin Ivensenn, Terpsichore: ein Taschenbuch für Freunde und Freundinnen des Tanzes in Liv-Cur-und Ehstland (Riga: [n.p.], 1806) These descriptions, made by people who were trained dancers, show that the Dreher and the Walzer are at the core of two clearly different dance techniques, even if both have the characteristics of the round dance paradigm.. 31 Wilson, A Description of the Correct Method of Waltzing; Eduard Friedrich David Helmke and Kurt Petermann, Neue Tanz- und Bildungsschule This means that a significant part of the round dance paradigm was more or less absent from the dancing masters’ repertoires, as reflected in their manuals and their teaching repertoires.
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