Page:Social Dancing of To-day (1914) Kinney.djvu/27

Rh new names, both of steps and of dances. For their benefit, it is in order to make a digression at this point.

Let it be emphatically understood that the dances above enumerated are the only ones that have any present significance in French, English or American ballrooms. So-called "new" dances, bearing names of summer and winter resorts, heroines and what-not, are presented in endless succession; but analysis always shows their almost complete lack of individuality. Their claim to recognition regularly consists of a minor variation of a familiar bit of one of the Waltzes, the Tango, or the One-Step. Around this nucleus are gathered steps taken from the other dances directly; and the "composition" is supposed to contribute publicity to some progressive teacher or performer. At the present moment a "Spanish" something-or-other is claiming attention, on grounds which, examined closely, consist in a drawing of one foot up to the other, with a slight accompanying body movement. Spanish dancing does use this movement, it is true. So does the One-Step; the Turkey Trot had it on its birthday. Examples of such efforts might be multiplied, but one is sufficient to show the needlessness of concern over strange and unproved titles.

The steps and figures hereinafter described are standard. The list cannot be complete, since the Tango alone has figures to a number variously estimated at from about fifty to more than a hundred; nor is it desirable that it should be. Many of those figures are wholly alien to the true Tango character, contribute nothing of beauty or interest, and might well be allowed to perish. Others are of such slight variation from basic forms that they can be learned in a moment by any one familiar