Ogden Standard-Examiner | 1920-07-26 | Page 5 | On with the Dance

ON WITH THE DANCE Maurice Protests Against Tendency To Artistic Bolshevism in Ballroom 'DANCER SAYS JAZZ MUSIC HAS NO PLACE IN DECENT BALLROOMS BALL-ROOMS BY MAURICE (World's Most Famous Ballroom Dancer) LONDON. I have protested In Lon don and I want tc protest In America against what I call ballroom bolsho-v)6m. bolsho-v)6m. You knov In the political ond Industrial world the struggle for liberty lib-erty sometimes goes to extremes There Is a destruction of values. There is arson and murder. There Is a breakdown of the laws So in the ballroom there Is and has been for some time an unfortunate tendenc to artistic bolsbcvlsm. There are dancers who seem to resent the recognized laws of the dance, the layvs that pay attention to form, to grace, to rhtm, to art. They shake off whnt they call the despotism of the old dance, forgetting that, In the main, those dance laws are eternal and unchangeable. un-changeable. REBELS EXPERIMENT So these rebels experiment But they have no Bound technique by which to steer their course. Thev in troduco Into the dance not beaut but grotesqueness, ugliness, freakinc-js I have protested in London and I want to protest in America agalnnt jazz steps and dubloun steps. They havo no place In decent ballrooms They originated in low negro haunts and had an unhealthy and unpleasant sig-1 niflcance. I think I am within the facts when ; I say that true Jazz muuic Is almost wholly confined to third and fourth i rate places. Much of the bad dancing In our dancing places Is due to the bad music and the bad music is due to i he pieces of negro and Bowery origin. HARMONY IN DANCING I take exception to all outside stuff Introduced in the fox trot, the one-j sh'p and the waltz I me an by the dips, the lift-tips, the lifting of feet, the side kicks, the wiggles and all j other movements unsulted to ballrooms ball-rooms If you don't believe this Is' bolshevlsm go into some dancing ! place, whether it be in London, Fun -. New York oi Honu- City. If law and i order, so to speak, prevailed, you would see all the couples dancing about the Same steps In the same way. In other words, there would not only be harmony between each couple and the music, but between the couples themselves. Thev would be dancing In time and tune Just as a company of soldiers drill and march In time and tune One other thing in connection with this bolshevism of the dance. Thero are many men who do not hold their partners in the right way. A man oh viously cannot have full control 01 1 r his partner If he extends his left hand with hers and places the other on the hip, as I have so often seen it done. The correct place for a man's hand is between his partner's shoulder blade It is the proper, the courteous, the respectful way to guide one's partner V 1 , 'ffi .9IPr Maurice and his partner, Leonora Hughes, in dancing position People. Miss Mary Watklns allways sleep In pldjammers, being the safest In case of fire. Cartweelfl and hand springs tawt cheep. Management not responsible, for axsldenti. See Redely Merfy