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Suggestions
for Correct Dancing
by Sandi &
Dan Finch
Do not wiggle the shoulders. Do not shake the hips. Do not twist the
body. Do not flounce the elbows. Do not pump the arms. Do not hop—glide
instead.
Have you heard anything like that recently? Perhaps the advice is as
good today as it was at the turn of the century (that means the
beginning of the last century). Those were the first entries on the
Castle House Suggestions for Correct Dancing, a list of common dance
mistakes that Vernon & Irene Castle hoped to correct in the
early 1900s.
Ballroom Dance Magazine in its September 1960 issue, dates the modern
ballroom era from the era of the Castles. “Previously,” the article
read, “dancing had been the stilted pastime of the rich, or a roughneck
pursuit of the saloon-goers. Just before World War I, the artistry and
charm of the Castles set a whole world to dancing.”
 Their rise to
become household names is portrayed in The Story of Vernon &
Irene Castle, a 1939 movie starring Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers. It
more or less accurately shows how, as newcomers, the Castles were to
perform in Paris for one show—which closed almost immediately—but were
hired to dance an exhibition in a Paris night club, where they set
Europe on fire with their rendition of popular American ragtime dances,
such as the Turkey Trot and the Grizzly Bear. When they returned to New
York in 1912, they were in demand for shows, Broadway productions, and
movies, and opened their own dance studio, called Castle House. On
Broadway, their 1914 show Watch Your Step included Irving Berlin’s
first score and was used by the Castles to refine and popularize the
foxtrot, a new dance that evolved from Harry Fox’s vaudeville routine.
The photo shows them dancing a no-hands tango from their 1914
bestseller Modern Dancing.
The Castle House rules included some rather out-of-date instruction:
“Stand far enough away from each other to allow free movement of the
body in order to dance gracefully and comfortably.”
And one of the most ironic instructions: “Drop the Turkey Trot, the
Grizzly Bear, the Bunny Hug, etc. These dances are ugly, ungraceful,
and out of fashion.“ But those are what made the Castles the sensation
they became.
(Vernon, who had
been a pilot for the British Royal Flying Corps in World War I, died in
a plane crash on a flight training base in Texas in 1918. Irene
appeared solo in a few silent films after that but mostly retired from
dancing and became an animal rights activist. She died in 1969.)
From
a club newsletter, August, 2014,
and
reprinted
in the Dixie Round Dance Council (DRDC)
Newsletter, May 2017.
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