MODERN DANCE TECHNIQUE

Prior to the end of the sixteenth century, little was known about the specific technique used by  the dancing masters of the time, nor as to the ground rules governing steps and rhythm patterns of the various dances. 
       The first authoritative knowledge of the earliest social dances came from a priest, Jehan Tabourot, who published the Orchesographie in 1588 under the pen name of Thoinot-Arbeau. 
       Arbeau lived at  a transition period when the rather solemn base danse was gradually giving way to the much livelier branle. He specifically described the particular branle originating  from several French provinces such as Poitou and Provence, as well as other dances as the pavane and the galliarde. Shakespeare referred to the last dance as the cinq pace because it was composed of five steps. 
       At  that time, Arbeau also wrote that a technique was slowly formed by the dancing masters of the period. It was not however until the latter part of the seventeenth century that hard and fast rules were laid down. 
 
       The French king Louis XIV had founded his Academie Royale de Musique et de Danse, and its members systematically formulated the ‘five positions’ of the feet. 
       Victor Silvester described these: “The ballets presented in the days of Louis XIV of France consisted of a series of entrees such as the Minuet and other dances of the period.  These dances were therefore spectacular as well as personal and, being spectacular, they had to be based on a technique which was to some extent artificial. The legs, for instance, had to be turned out, so as to provide a more graceful line, and many purely decorative steps  such as entrechats and cabrioles were executed. 
       “The first definite cleavage between the ballet and the ballroom came when professional dancers appeared in the ballets, and the ballets left the Court and went to the stage. But the influence of the ballet technique lingered for over two centuries and at the close of the Victorian era, the dancing masters still based their tuition on the ‘turned out’ five positions  of the stage.” 

The MODERN TECHNIQUE 
       The first beginnings of modern dancing came in 1812, during which time the modern hold was first used for the Waltz. In a very conservative Victorian society, this  elicited tremendous opposition, for the modern hold called for the man to wrap his right arm around his partner’s back, so that their bodies almost touched each other. 
       The most prominent members of English society created a howl, and every ballroom became a scene of feud and contention. Such luminaries as Lord Byron and  Sir H. Engelfield provided additional fire against the new technique. 
       The protest however lasted  but a brief while, and society started to accept the new dance when the Emperor Alexander of  Russia was observed waltzing in the new style. 
       By the 1840s, the decorative steps were also dropped from the new dances that appeared then such as the Polka, the Mazurka, and the Schottische. 
       At the end of the century, new developments and techniques were introduced, particularly coming from more liberal dances in New York -- the Two-Step, the Barn Dance, a new way of dancing to waltz music known as the Boston, and the Rag -- all of which  appealed to the younger generation of the time. 
       Soon enough, the younger dancers rebelled against the artificial technique of the old-time teachers. Encouraged by the First World War, when old institutions were defied, the younger dancers, not the teachers, introduced a free and easy go-as-you-please style based on the natural movements used in walking. 
       The introduction of the Foxtrot on stage in 1914 further fanned the rebellion and finally extinguished any lasting vestiges of the old technique. 
       A few years later, the Informal Conference of Teachers in 1920 attempted to standardize the basic steps of the Foxtrot and One-Step. The Conference eventually lead to the rise of a new hierarchy of ballroom teachers, who formally recognized  the break from the old tradition, and moved for  the codification of a modern ballroom technique based on natural movement, with the feet in alignment. 
       The codified technique has  since been so  highly developed into the ‘English style’, and together with the ‘American style’, has influenced modern ballroom dancing and competitions throughout the world.