How To Dance The Foxtrot

By Anon

This vintage book is a comprehensive guide to learning the foxtrot, complete with step-by-step instructions, simple diagrams, helpful tips, and more. “How To Dance The Foxtrot” is ideal for the beginner looking to learn how to dance the foxtrot and would make for a fantastic addition to collections of related literature. Contents include: “The Waltz Changes (Man)”, “The Waltz Changes (Lady)”, “How to 'Rise' Correctly”, “Practising to Music”, “If You Can Walk... You Can Dance!”, “How to Walk Forward”, “How to Walk Backward”, “The 'Hold'... Leading and Following”, “The 'Hold'...Leading and Following”, etc. Many vintage books such as this are increasingly scarce and expensive. It is with this in mind that we are republishing this volume now in an affordable, modern edition complete with a specially commissioned new introduction on dance.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Read Books Ltd.
• Release date: Sep 6, 2016
• ISBN: 9781473352506

Book preview

REMEMBER

A Short Introduction to Dance

Dance is a type of art that generally involves movement of the body, often in a rhythmic fashion and to music. It is performed in almost all cultures around the globe as a form of emotional expression, social interaction or exercise, in a spiritual or performance setting, and is sometimes used to express ideas or tell a story. Definitions of what constitutes dance are extremely difficult to form – and can depend on social and cultural norms, as well as aesthetic, artistic and moral sensibilities. Definitions may range from functional movement (such as folk dance) to virtuoso techniques such as ballet. Martial arts Kata (choreographed patterns of movements) are often compared to dances and sports such as gymnastics, figure skating and synchronized swimming are generally thought to incorporate dance.

There are many styles and genre of dance; African dance is generally ‘interpretative’, ballet, ballroom and tango are examples of ‘classical dance styles’, square dance and electric slide are forms of ‘step dance’ and break-dancing is a type of ‘street dance.’ Any of these dances can be either participatory, social or performed for an audience. Due to the nature of dancing itself however, it is very difficult to trace a history of the genre. Dance does not leave behind clearly identifiable physical artefacts such as stone tools, hunting implements or cave paintings. It is thus simply not possible to say when dance became part of human culture. Archaeological evidence (in the forms of statues and decorations on vases) indicates that dance has been an important part of ceremony, ritual, celebration and entertainment since the earliest civilisations though.

Examples of the evidence we do have includes 9,000-year-old paintings in India at the Rock Shelters of Bhimbetka (Raisen District, Madhya Pradesh) and Egyptian tomb paintings depicting dancing figures,