Miscellany: Dancemasters

Dancemasters

Seven hundred limber-limbed men and women walked past a box in the rococo ballroom of Manhattan’s Hotel Commodore last fortnight and put into it small bits of paper. When all had filed by the box was removed, opened and the bits of paper sorted. Presently Thomas M. Sheehy of Chicago rose and in a hushed silence read a list of names and a list of dances. Thus were announced four dances and one novelty (from a field of 60) which the Dancing Masters of America have officially elected to sponsor and will endeavor to popularize throughout the land.

Fast fox-trot and tango were won by a red-cheeked Scot with a pronounced burr, Roger McEwan of Glasgow. With his sister Alice he jogged and pranced through the fast fox-trot (he calls it the Quick-step). Swifter than that of 1929, it has more jigs, zigzags, nickers, turns and quarter-turns. One turn, for its peculiar twist, he calls the Lock & Key. Music 54 bars to the minute supplies the rhythms.

Vastly different was the McEwans’ slow tango. Executed by Scots, it is a French adaptation from the Argentine and is, according to its creator, “a ver-r-r-a d-r-r-r-aggy dance.” Because of its polyglot source it was named The International Tango. Lazy in tempo—32 bars to the minute—its slowness is compensated by twists and spins.

For their University Drag, slow fox-trot honors went to a mother & son, Mrs. Anna L. Keenan and Walter Keenan of Philadelphia, who described it as “a sort of Rudy Vallee foxtrot. . . . And don’t call it the ‘Varsity Drag,’ please. It’s the University, and a very dignified dance.” Principal features are an erect body bent slightly forward and the slow drag of the feet from back to front after each step. Collegiate jiggers will dance it with a slight bend of the knee. Conservatives will do it with more dignity, legs straight.

Dream Waltz of a Newark matron (Mrs. Edna R. Passapae) and a Brooklyn dance-master (A. J. Weber) was adopted as the official waltz of the year, demonstrated by President Sheehy and his daughter Katherine. Tempo is slower than the famed Boston Waltz, the steps are long and combine waltz, hesitation and running movements. ”Long dresses,” declared Matron Passapae, “are bringing back the waltz because its gliding smooth steps are the ones that look best for young women in the new attire.”

In the novelty class, Oscar Duryea & wife of New York won with their Conversation, quickly nicknamed Speakeasy Promenade by onlookers. Male and female take an open position and dart and duck at one another in a burlesque of bussing.

Interested spectators during the week-long convention were dapper Bill Robinson, Negro, who at 52 wears rakishly the undisputed crown of king of all living tap-dancers; Ziegfeld’s Harriet Hoctor, S. L. (“Roxy”) Rothafel, famed Balletman Chester Hale, Dancers Patricia Bowman, Grace Dufay, Evelyn La Tour, Ramon & Rosita, Adelaide Hall.

Old in years, the Dancing Masters of America enjoyed their season of greatest prestige five years ago when the Charleston craze was at its zenith. Before that the Dancing Masters had been comparatively a small organization. But the impetus given dancing by the crazy Negro jazz-jig was felt by hordes of people who had never before trod a ballroom floor. Schools by the hundreds mushroomed all over the land. Applicants deluged Dancing Masters for membership. Today they are the largest professional group in the world.

Since the Charleston died, the Dancing Masters have waned in importance. Each year they have continued to give ex cathedra notice of what the U. S. shall dance, but more and more they follow and do not lead. For the Dancing Masters well know now that it is not their fiat that calls the turn in U. S. dancesteps, but such creations as Gilda Gray’s Shimmy, Bill Robinson’s tapping, George White’s Black Bottom, Schwab & Mandel’s Varsity Drag, such agencies as Tin-Pan Alley, the phono-graph—and most of all—the radio. With their ears (and legs) attuned to change, the Dancing Masters this year have noted that radio is plugging mostly languorous waltzes and slow exotic tango-tunes. Thus no one was surprised when President Sheehy manifestoed: “It is a return of grace and dignity to the ballroom that is on its way. . . . The popularity of soft, crooning melodies and the return to favor of the long skirt have paved the way for the waltz. Furthermore, the middle-aged and elderly are tired of being ignored as in the passing era of jerky jazz dancing and are insisting upon steps that do not try to make a jumping jack of the broker and high kicking gal out of the grandmother.”

About the Moochi which London’s Imperial (Dance) Society is preparing for release in October as a “sensation,” the Dancing Masters maintained a discreet silence. It was demonstrated at the Commodore, but mindful of the Imperial Society’s warning that it must not be pirated, they did nothing officially about it.