Page:Modern Dancing (1914) Castle.djvu/44

Rh strongly in the direction of the slow and graceful dances of which the Minuet was the first.

The Waltz, the Polka, the Two Step, and finally the Turkey Trot, ran the scale of dancing in a swift crescendo, from the solemn measures of the Quadrille or the Minuet to the shrill staccato of the rag. We are now going back to the graceful measures that tend not so much to show athletic prowess as to display the lithe grace of a well-poised body and a sense of rhythm.

It is a bit of the irony of fate that the Tango and other modern dances are the subjects of so much adverse criticism, when in reality they are the pathfinders, the pioneer dances of a new era of charming steps. The Tango as we dance it now is much modified from the first Argentine; the Hesitation Waltz has been evolved into a graceful dance seldom equaled; while the Innovation is really almost a Minuet, since the partners step the measures quite apart from each other. It, too, marks the changing ideas and ideals of the dancers of to-day. Here in America we are just beginning to wake up to the possibilities of dancing. We are flinging off our lethargy, our feeling of having time for nothing outside of business, and are beginning to take our place among the nations who enjoy life.

To be truly graceful in dancing presupposes a