Page:Modern Dancing (1914) Castle.djvu/29

Rh darkness of a sensational moving-picture show or in following with feverish interest the suggestive sex-problem dramas. Nor from my point of view is there as much harm in dancing as in sitting home in some dreary little hall bedroom, beneath the flaring gas, reading with avidity the latest erotic novel or the story which paints vice in alluring colors under the guise of describing life as it really is.

The Maxixe and the Tango are only two of the so-called modern dances. The Innovation, introduced at a ball recently given by Mrs. Stuyvesant Fish, is in my opinion more graceful, as it is a dance where the partners need not even touch hands in certain of its steps. In the One Step the man must hold his partner loosely if he does the pretty measure where he steps to one side of her as they dip; and in the Hesitation Waltz the steps require that the man and the woman be slightly apart. The Turkey Trot was a dance which deserved much of the abuse it received; but it died a natural death, because more attractive dances were offered in its place. So will the objectionable features of all modern dances be thrust aside as the statelier and more graceful steps are danced.

I believe dancing to be a useful as well as a beautiful art, and I think that the women of every city