{"id":357,"date":"2023-01-11T03:51:59","date_gmt":"2023-01-11T03:51:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dancesportcanterbury.org.nz\/2023\/?p=357"},"modified":"2023-01-30T08:26:32","modified_gmt":"2023-01-30T08:26:32","slug":"simple-dances-where-did-they-go","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dancesportcanterbury.org.nz\/2023\/2023\/01\/11\/simple-dances-where-did-they-go\/","title":{"rendered":"SIMPLE DANCES \u2013 WHERE DID THEY GO?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Sixty years ago before Television, perhaps while TV was still black and white, dancing was a very important social activity.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Just after WWII, I\u2019m told that on a Saturday night there were about FORTY public dances in Christchurch. All those dances required a dance band, often quite small three or four people, often playing country or folk music, Piano, Accordion, Banjo, Fiddle and drums.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Blackpool tower ballroom,  St Bernard&#039;s Waltz, Twixmas 2021.\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/xXz2365IZFM?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>The St Bernard\u2019s Waltz, as danced in Blackpool, UK, in December, 2021. Notice the children at the dance. (They appear at about 2 minutes.) Women dancing together. A man carrying a baby boy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>That was also common at country dances in New Zealand, where there was no (official) alcohol allowed near dances. (But drinking in the car-park was often tolerated although illegal.) That was also before families were expected to find a babysitter if the parents went out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The St Bernards Waltz vanished in Christchurch about 20 years ago. You can see why, it\u2019s not modern. It\u2019s very simple. there are only FOUR parts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Side close and stamp (Actually heal taps)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Side close and walk to center<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Walk to wall and ladies turn<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Waltz turn to finish<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>So simple that you can do it already. But for experienced dancers it was boring, so it vanished, like the Military Two Step, the Pride of Erin Waltz, the Gay Gordons, and the Valetta, and more than twenty others. You can\u2019t turn the clock back, I\u2019m not suggesting that we start dancing the St Bernard\u2019s Waltz, or the Boston Two Step, but please treasure the fairly simple dances that remain, like the Merrilyn, and the Oslo Waltz.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In the comments below you might like to tell us what dances you remember?<\/p>\n\n\n<hr class=\"ub_divider\" id=\"ub_divider_df9bfab8-04d6-4505-8f14-0fce6e14c5bc\"><\/hr>\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-columns is-layout-flex wp-container-core-columns-is-layout-28f84493 wp-block-columns-is-layout-flex\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-column is-layout-flow wp-block-column-is-layout-flow\"><\/div>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-column is-layout-flow wp-block-column-is-layout-flow\"><\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n<div class=\"ub-buttons align-button-center\"  id=\"ub-button-93641fc6-fd47-440b-8e2f-0a5aa0253c37\"><div class=\"ub-button-container\">\n    <a href=\"https:\/\/dancesportcanterbury.org.nz\/2023\/main-menu\/\" target=\"_self\"\n    rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\"\n    class=\"ub-button-block-main ub-button-medium ub-button-flex-medium\" role=\"button\">\n    <div class=\"ub-button-content-holder\"><span class=\"ub-button-block-btn\">List of Main Pages<\/span>\n    <\/div><\/a><\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Sixty years ago before Television, perhaps while TV was still black and white, dancing was a very important social activity. Just after WWII, I\u2019m told that on a Saturday night there were about FORTY public dances in Christchurch. All those dances required a dance band, often quite small three or four people, often playing country [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":431,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"wp-custom-template-blog-index-page-2","format":"standard","meta":{"_uag_custom_page_level_css":"","ub_ctt_via":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[14,21,18,16],"tags":[25,22,24],"class_list":["post-357","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-beginners","category-old-time-dances","category-sequence-dances","category-social-dancing","tag-blackpool","tag-christchurch","tag-st-bernards-waltz"],"featured_image_src":"https:\/\/dancesportcanterbury.org.nz\/2023\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/sequence_dancing-381.jpg","author_info":{"display_name":"Gregory McPhail","author_link":"https:\/\/dancesportcanterbury.org.nz\/2023\/author\/dancingkiwi\/"},"uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":["https:\/\/dancesportcanterbury.org.nz\/2023\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/sequence_dancing-381.jpg",680,381,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/dancesportcanterbury.org.nz\/2023\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/sequence_dancing-381-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/dancesportcanterbury.org.nz\/2023\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/sequence_dancing-381-300x168.jpg",300,168,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/dancesportcanterbury.org.nz\/2023\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/sequence_dancing-381.jpg",680,381,false],"large":["https:\/\/dancesportcanterbury.org.nz\/2023\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/sequence_dancing-381.jpg",680,381,false],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/dancesportcanterbury.org.nz\/2023\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/sequence_dancing-381.jpg",680,381,false],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/dancesportcanterbury.org.nz\/2023\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/sequence_dancing-381.jpg",680,381,false]},"uagb_author_info":{"display_name":"Gregory McPhail","author_link":"https:\/\/dancesportcanterbury.org.nz\/2023\/author\/dancingkiwi\/"},"uagb_comment_info":0,"uagb_excerpt":"Sixty years ago before Television, perhaps while TV was still black and white, dancing was a very important social activity. Just after WWII, I\u2019m told that on a Saturday night there were about FORTY public dances in Christchurch. All those dances required a dance band, often quite small three or four people, often playing country&hellip;","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dancesportcanterbury.org.nz\/2023\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/357","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dancesportcanterbury.org.nz\/2023\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dancesportcanterbury.org.nz\/2023\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dancesportcanterbury.org.nz\/2023\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dancesportcanterbury.org.nz\/2023\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=357"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/dancesportcanterbury.org.nz\/2023\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/357\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1061,"href":"https:\/\/dancesportcanterbury.org.nz\/2023\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/357\/revisions\/1061"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dancesportcanterbury.org.nz\/2023\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/431"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dancesportcanterbury.org.nz\/2023\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=357"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dancesportcanterbury.org.nz\/2023\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=357"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dancesportcanterbury.org.nz\/2023\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=357"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}