Page:Social Dancing of To-day (1914) Kinney.djvu/29

Rh less preliminary training on which he may depend to give him the qualities that make for graceful execution. No dancer can see his own work truly. All need at least the occasional oversight of a skilled eye; and a teacher's experience in detecting the causes of imperfections enables him to cure them in a minimum of time.

The figures (enchainements) composing the new dances have no set order of performance; their sequence is at caprice, usually suggested by the music. Nor is there yet any indication that their increasing number has reached its limit. Every one is at liberty to test his powers of invention and composition, to experiment with the adaptation of steps of one dance into another, and, in general, to give play to his individuality. But, to hasten the uniform acceptance of a certain set of figures as a standard basis of each dance, it would be best to postpone indulgence in fantasies until after the sub-joined figures have been learned. At present the progress of the Tango, in particular, is hampered by the fact that hardly two people in the same ballroom will be found in agreement as to what steps constitute that dance. And, as noted before, a preliminary learning of the fundamentals will enable him who dances to decide intelligently what new steps may be added to a dance appropriately, and what are out of harmony with that dance's character. (The relation of step to theme is considered in a chapter on ballet technique, in .)

Explicit verbal description of steps is possible only by use of the accepted designations of positions of the feet. If they do not impress themselves on the memory clearly, the reader should by all means copy the diagram