I am working on an article “Shall We Dance?” about the 2000-year attack on dancing.
One skirmish was fought at the beginning of the last century.
Animal dances became popular at the beginning of the twentieth century. This was the basis of the Jeeves and Wooster episode “The Bally Balliness of It All” in which newt-fancier Gussie Fink-Nottle laments his lack of luck in love and wishes that humans could have mating dances like the newt, which dance he imitates, inspiring Oofy Prosser to begin a new dance fad at the Drone’s Club.
Karel Capec’s The War with the Newts describes the full-moon dance of the newly-intelligent newts, although he explains “This does not refer to the Salamander Dance which came into fashion around this time, especially in high society, and which Bishop Hiram declared to be the most depraved dance he had ever heard described.”
And in real history the evangelist with the wonderful name of Mordecai Ham denounced
“the waltz… the turkey trot, grizzly bear, bunny hug, honey bug, gaby glide, pollywog wiggle, hippohop, ostrich stretch, kangaroo canter, dizzy drag, hooche kooche, Salomé dance, necktie waltz, Bacchanalian waltz, hesitation waltz, love dance, shadow dance, wiggle-de-wiggle, pickaninny dandle, fuzzy-wuzzy, terrapin toddie, Texas Tommy, Boston Dip, kitchen sink, cartel waltz, boll weevil wiggle, Arizona anguish, Argentines ardor, lame duck, chicken flip, grizzly glide, maxixe, shiver shake, cabbage clutch, puppy snuggle, fado foxtrot, syncopated canter, lemon squeeze, hug-me-tight, tango etc.”
as
“just plain hugging set to music.”
The Reverend Ham cemented his case by appealing to the words of Catholic priests:
Father Brothers of New Jersey declared that “indulgence in the turkey trot, the tango, and other objectionable modern dances is as much a violation of the seventh commandment as adultery.”
Father Hannigan said that if he were a judge, he “would sentence any woman who danced the turkey trot to a year in jail.”
My favorite is the Grizzly Bear. I shall dance it at the next cotillion to which I am invited.
Having now seen the “grizzly bear”, I see why the world went to hell in the Twenties.
My dance card is full at the moment, but I’m up for a pasodoble by next July 7th…
The whole kertuffle about dancing from the church (at least, the Protestant elements) seems to come from the fact that they’re trying to control tightly what can’t be controlled tightly, people’s sexual desires, because the authorities are afraid of what they can’t control. What the Protestants have tried to do with dance, the Catholics have tried to do with marital sex (“natural law” not withstanding).
The ultimate problem isn’t sex but authoritarian fear of freedom. Such authorities confuse “liberty” with “license,” make no distinction between the two and, consequently, legistlate against whatever they can.
This behavior essentially is no different than the Pharisees’ behavior during Jesus’ time. We all know what He said about that, don’t we?
So I just had to check out some of these dances. And after watching several animal-inspired dances all I can think is, really, Father Hannigan? You’d sentence a woman to jail for a year for the turkey trot? Have you a weird turkey fetish, because I can’t see much that would be sensual in that particular dance? Perhaps the good father meant he would sentence her to jail for looking so ridiculous 😉
And what about the man? No jail time for him, I guess. Why am I not surprised? lol
I am looking forward to reading your article on this most interesting subject.
You forgot la lambada, el perrero that were big in hispanoamerica. lol