With thanks to *The Dancing Times* and Jack Reavely, this article, originally published in their magazine, is featured here with their kind permission.
When a beautifully constructed waltz is danced by couples of eminence, they are able to convey nostalgic tenderness, with a beautifully musical feel.
Foot closures can transmit "beyond" your eyes and ears, releasing an arrow of culture that flies, undiluted, straight into your heart.
In today's major events, I so often see an inability to convey true characterisation of the waltz. Many couples disguise it by an overdone use of hyper-extended postures and too much use of the upper centres, in an effort to send clear messages of their imagined expertise.
Not that the use of the upper centre is not most desirable, but it has to be carefully considered to retain the beauty of the human body.
Ladies, especially, disguise the use of sophisticated postural maintenance by using body actions that are so overdone that they become, to my eyes, grotesque, by leaning so far backwards as to dilute the gorgeous curvatures, carefully blended, that great champions have always possessed.
I do have to say that, at world-class level, especially in Professional ballroom events, the couples have cherished the pioneering principles, handed down to all who care to acquire them. Those top couples fill the minds and hearts of everyone who admires the reality of beauty, through postural excellence and superb musicality. This then transfixes gazes, so that when they dance a beautiful waltz, they invite tears as well as cheers.
I hope that "somewhere in time" it will be realised that, although progress and change are essential, the retention of classical posture, and a lack of ostentation, will bring rich rewards. Follow the paths of the honed use of fundamentals, which our wondrous pioneers gave us as a sumptuous gift.
My mind now takes me back in time, and I can see myself sitting in the Empress Ballroom of the Winter Gardens, Blackpool, seething with sheer excitement.
The entire ballroom is shrouded in a darkened atmosphere, and there is a somewhat lonely model of a Victorian lamppost on the dance floor. It seemed to flicker a welcome to the hushed audience, who were anticipating, with utter relish, what they were going to see next.
A young man appeared at the side of the floor, wearing a tailsuit with a black cloak, a shiny top hat and a cane with a silver-mounted handle. Slowly and nonchalantly, he walked to the lamppost.
Leaning against it, he lit a cigarette, blowing smoke into the air, looking somewhat sad.
I wondered what could awaken him from his present attitude, which conveyed sophistication, but boredom.
Suddenly, a vision of dance appeared, in the form of a beautiful young woman. She walked towards the young man, with a provocative attitude that instantly conveyed that, contrary to his feeling, she was full of the joys of spring. Her walk onto the floor of dance was an invitation to this young man. Suddenly, he was overcome with the thought of perhaps being favoured by this attractive lady, by having the opportunity of dancing with her.
He threw his cigarette to the floor and stamped it out. His cloak was discarded, along with the top hat and the cane. His shoes shone as if they had mirrors on them, reflecting top-class manufacture - perhaps from the Burlington Arcade in London, or hand-made by Supadance.
She placed her arms to dance silhouette, and he instantly accepted her into dance hold. The orchestra, from the stage, gave an introductory few bars of a beautiful waltz, and off from the entire audience conveyed their absolute enchantment with the young and so glamorous couple.
The silence was utter as the dancers creamed their way round the ballroom, and then the audience, as if programmed by a film director, burst into spontaneous, louder-than-loud applause, as they realised they were seeing dance as it should be.
The main feature I found instilled into my mind was the apparent softness and beautiful use of weight transference from foot to foot as the couple danced. She seemed as if she was dancing on a fluffy cloud rather than a dance floor. Their names?
Oh yes... It was the great Bobby Henderson dancing with Eileen Henshall. They were famous for their approach to musicality and to a retention and creation of sophistication.
I remember that Bobby's mother had a dance studio in central London, which was famous indeed, and attended by many people of high social standing. Lewis Ruston was the head teacher, and had a reputation for transmitting sophistication and elegance to pupils of all standards in dance.
The scene is emblazoned into my memory bank as an early facilitator of what is now called
"ideokinetics", which simply is that the idea of imagined motion can be created by a human body, without over-analysis of the constituents required to please those who see you dance. Gosh, I owe so much to "somewhere in time".
As you grow older, you too will have memories that can be recreated time after time.
Photograph: BOBBY HENDERSON & EILEEN HENSHALL IN 1951 - DANCING TIMES ARCHIVE.
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