20 AUGUST 23, 2018 RIDGEWOOD TIMES WWW.QNS.COM
Trotting into history
Our 32nd Year of Fun-Filled Classes
The Exciting 2018 Fall Season
Begins September 10th
Aug. 28th & 29th 4:30pm-7:30pm
Sept. 2nd thru 6th 2:00pm-6:00pm
Sept. 8th 10:00am-2:00pm
BY TRESA ERICKSON
The year is 1910 and ragtime music
is in full swing. During this
period, a new phase of ballroom
dancing develops. Partners dance close
together, ad-lib to the music and have a
good time. Dances, like the Bunny Hug,
Turkey Trot and Castle Walk, are all
the rage. Out of this period comes a
vaudeville actor named Harry Fox and
a dance called the Fox Trot.
Although stories vary regarding
its origins, most dance historians
agree that the Fox Trot originated
in New York City in 1914. While
appearing in several vaudeville
shows in New York City, Harry Fox
met Yansci Dolly, one-half of the
famous dancing team known as the
Dolly Sisters. With her von Broadway
and later in fi lms. In April 1914,
Yansci and Fox were married. Later
that summer, the New York Theatre
was converted into a movie house.
Hoping to bring in more money, the
theater’s management team turned
the rooft op into a dance spectacular
called Jardin de Danse and added
vaudeville acts downstairs between
movies. The team hired the Dolly
Sisters to perform on the rooft op and
Fox to perform downstairs.
It was during one of his performances
downstairs that Fox began
doing trotting steps to ragtime music.
The audience loved the new dance and
began referring to it as “Fox’s Trot.”
Before long, the American Society of
Professors of Dancing standardized
the steps of the Fox Trot and hired
choreographer Oscar Duryea to
introduce it to the public. Duryea
thought the trotting step was too
complicated and replaced it with
a smooth glide. His new version, a
rolling smooth glide that moved in
large steps across the room, was a hit,
and dancers all over the world began
doing the Fox Trot.
With its combination of quick and
slow steps, the Fox Trot gave dancers
more freedom and fl exibility in
their movements. They could glide
across the fl oor or stay within one
area if the dance fl oor was crowded.
American dancer G.K. Anderson
liked the Fox Trot so much that he
began performing it with his partner,
Josephine Bradley, in competitions
across America and London, further
increasing its popularity.
Variations of the dance, including
the Peabody, the Quickstep and the
Roseland Fox Trot, have cropped up
throughout the years. Dances, like the
Lindy and the Hustle, are also due in
part to the Fox Trot.
Today the Fox Trot is as popular as
ever. Many couples learn it in their
ballroom dancing classes, while others
become masters of it and display their
Fox Trot talents in competitions across
the country.
DANCE