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24 The Courier SUN • dance • SEPTEMBER 1, 2016 for breaking news visit www.qns.com dance s TROTTING HISTORY 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 twin sister, Rozika, Yansci performed on Broadway and later in films. 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 rooftop 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 rooftop 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 flexibility in their movements. They could glide across the floor or stay within one area if the dance floor 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 INTO


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