This is the story of how millions of Britons
lost themselves in the world of ballroom
and found their dancing feet.
It's 1932, at the Cafe De Paris, London, and the joint is jumping!
# Happy Feet I've got those Happy Feet!
# Give them a low-down beat
# And they begin dancing... #
It's the golden era of dancing,
the time between the two World Wars, when Britain went ballroom barmy.
Millions went dancing, where graceful movement was everything.
But it was also edgy and radical,
a world of real sexual tension,
as we grappled with the Waltz, the Tango,
and each other.
Ballroom dancing was the country's favourite pastime,
when we learnt the steps and polished the moves.
What was it about ballroom that we all enjoyed so much?
And why did we turn our backs on what I consider to be
the greatest dance form of them all?
'This is the Tower Ballroom, in Blackpool,
'a sacred place for any dancer.
'It's the grandest and most beautiful ballroom in Britain.
'I've judged Strictly Come Dancing here
'and I've also glided across its hallowed floor many, many times.'
You know, as soon as you walk into this place,
there's somehow a fantastic atmosphere about it.
And, standing here on this floor,
you know, you can't help but think as a dancer,
how many people have danced here?
How many great dances, how many love affairs have begun,
when boy meets girl, on this dance floor?
It is just the most iconic dance hall of all.
It is just fantastic.
When I started in ballroom,
a night of Foxtrot or Tango was still the biggest thrill
you could get for five bob.
It was an amazing time - dancing was even on the telly.
But the old hands said I'd missed its greatest era,
when ballroom was truly magical.
At the Tower Ballroom these days,
it's a much more sedate affair.
'For me, ballroom was an escape route,
'from manual labour to a world of glamour.
'But I do have a confession.'
Now, I've always loved ballroom,
but when I first started, it wasn't just for the dancing.
'Dance teachers used to tell me
'that ballroom would be great for my posture and my self confidence.
'Well, I don't know about that,'
but I tell you, my strike rate with the girls went right up.
'And I wasn't alone - the dance hall was a chance to hold someone close,
'in a perfectly innocent setting.'
I love all this.
But, you know, my favourite was the "Excuse Me".
When you could go up to some chap, tap him on the shoulder
and dance with his partner.
Now, if your luck was in,
when the music finished, you got a kiss on the cheek.
Oh, when I was a young man...
Oh, joy of joys!
What I would imagine is, when you were growing up as a teenager,
there wasn't that many opportunities to meet boys as there is now.
So, I suppose the ballroom was the place to do it.
It was, it was. And lots of "Excuse Me's". Yeah.
And we used to have fun doing that. Yeah.
SHE LAUGHS
You know, if we got our eye on somebody... Right! "Excuse me!"
Because we used to turn it round to a Ladies' Excuse Me
as well as a Man's Excuse Me. Of course, yes. So it was brill.
So if there was some young chap you fancied having a dance with,
you'd be out there. Absolutely! Go for it, girl!
THEY LAUGH
It was brill!
The music was very romantic.
The lighting, the atmosphere, all lent itself to romance.
It's hard to appreciate
the emotional appeal
of a dance orchestra
playing romantic tunes
whilst you're holding somebody
in your arms and dancing together.
It was a great meeting place,
because, I think, the happiness,
the music and the open space,
the bright lights and the open space
were conducive to people meeting under happy circumstances
and I call it escapism and I think that's what it was.
'One of my oldest dancing pals is Lyndon Wainwright
'and when ballroom was booming, he was in the thick of it.'
There you are, it's Saturday night.
You've got your best gear on. Yes. Right? Out you go, it's lovely.
What was the feeling like as you walked into those ballrooms?
Oh, they were opulent... Yeah.
..by comparison with your home surroundings.
There was the gilt paint and the subdued lighting, and...
tables like this with fancy cloths on. Right, yeah.
No expense was spared in making this place look and feel fantastic.
That's right. And they were all the same.
Looks all innocent now,
but, once upon a time, dancing was a hotbed of hormones and romance.
And don't forget - most of our parents met in a ballroom.
SCREAMING
# Hello, everybody There's music in the air
# Hello, everybody You'll find it everywhere
# So just dance away your troubles
# And your cares Will fade like bubbles
# Hello! Hello, everybody! #
We might get our thrills in other ways now,
but there was a time when ballroom was imbued
with more than a whiff of revolution,
helping to collapse social boundaries
and giving people like me a chance to dance.
There's much more to the story of British ballroom
than gentle tea dances, or even Strictly.
It's about cracks in the class system, sexual intrigue
and about a time when Britain found its feet on the dance floor.
Modern ballroom's story begins at end of the 19th century.
In those days, it was the privileged few,
the aristocrats, the rich and royalty,
who were tripping the light fantastic in grand locations.
Frankly, the working classes didn't get much of a look-in.
You've got private dances, county balls, society balls
by property-owning aristocrats in the country,
but also in London, the Portman Rooms, the Savoy and Ritz Hotels.
They were the centres for the season,
the fashionable upper classes and their balls.
There were a wide range of venues
that the upper classes could dance in before the First World War.
'It may have been the preserve of the well-to-do,
'but ballroom was in the grip of its first craze.'
And one dance ruled.
It was the simplest one of the lot -
and it remains the most popular dance of all -
the Waltz.
The Waltz is the bedrock of so many of the dances that we do today,
but when the first European version of the Waltz
arrived in Regency Britain, there was a moral backlash.
A cutting from The Times shows
just how much the Waltz got pulses racing.
It's hard to believe, but one of their correspondents called it
"an obscene display".
And with that kind of press, the Viennese Waltz could only catch on!
But why was everyone getting so flustered?
And how did we end up with the slow Waltz
that we're so familiar with now?
'Well, that's something professional dancer Erin Boag
'is going to help me demonstrate,
'along with musicologist Derek Scott.'
You know, the thing I found when I danced the Viennese Waltz,
it's the most exhausting of all of them.
Very exhausting. Isn't it? Yeah, very fast, that's why.
People think the Quickstep is the one that we all got tired with,
not for me, it was always the Viennese Waltz,
because it was so, so repetitive. Round and round and round. Yeah.
So, how long would people have danced that for in one go,
back in the day?
At first, these waltzes lasted around six minutes
and then, they grew to be about nine minutes long.
And then, there were warnings if they were ten minutes long,
people would collapse with dizziness and exhaustion.
So, really, the longest ones are nine minutes.
But you got a complete rest once you'd done that.
I think you'd need one after nine minutes.
And, I guess, the Viennese Waltz, originally,
was in Austria and southern Germany.
And was it more for the sort of aristocrats and the country houses,
or was it a dance that everyone did?
That fast one really developed
because of the aristocratic ballrooms,
and then the big, expensive ballrooms
for the wealthy merchants of Vienna.
It developed out of folk dances, the Dreyer, the Laendler.
These were much slower - an example of Laendler rhythm would be this.
Yeah.
And it went one-two-hop! One-two... Yeah.
This was danced outside on the grass, people wore boots. Right.
The ballrooms called for something more refined, you see.
For the aristocracy, parquet flooring was introduced
so that you could do these gliding steps,
which you couldn't do on grass.
And when you listen to it, it does glide along, doesn't it? Yes.
I think that's one of the keys to the Viennese Waltz
is you get that lovely gliding movement.
OK, let me just show you something, Derek, it might surprise you.
There are five points of contact in the hold.
This is one - gentleman's left hand in lady's right.
Now, I'm going to use a handkerchief to go onto the lady's back,
because that's what they used to do back in the day.
Cos the guys all had dirty hands, working-class people.
Oh, no, we can't do that.
So there's contact two.
Now, the lady's upper arm goes on the gentleman's lower, that's three.
Here's four. And all of this was quite fine,
but because of the circling motion of the Viennese Waltz,
if you were too far apart, you couldn't rotate enough.
So, you had to get up close and personal.
And THAT was when the shock horror came in.
Hmmm.
So here we go, we're going to have a little go, a little bit of Viennese Waltz.
我们来跳一下右转步试试效果 We'll do lovely natural turns and see what happens.
-真美 -完美的配合 -Beautiful. -What a team.
你和我 You, me
和音乐 and the music.
'女士们先生们' 'Ladies and Gentlemen,'
现在为大家表演社交舞蹈 now, I will show you the dance of the season
华尔兹 分步演示 the Waltz, step by step.
看我的脚步 Just watch my feet.
华尔兹本身十分简单 The Waltz was simplicity itself,
但是维也纳华尔兹太快了 but the Viennese version was still too fast
为了迎合英式风格 慢华尔兹兴起 and a slower Waltz was developed for British tastes
让每个人都能一试身手 that allowed everyone to have a go.
工人阶级的舞厅里 People, particularly in working-class dance halls,
人们尤其喜欢边喝边跳快华尔兹 were drinking as well as doing the fast Waltz
于是有很多人会转晕 and this was adding to the problems of giddiness
摔倒在舞池地板上 and falling over on the ballroom floor.
所以有必要把速度降下来 So, there was a necessity to try and slow it down,
但19世纪90年代发生了另一件大事 but the other thing that happens in the 1890s
大型流行音乐产业横空出世 is that you have the birth of this really big popular song industry
纽约锡盘巷 Tin Pan Alley, in New York.
当然 他们想写华尔兹歌曲 And, of course, they want to write Waltz songs.
维也纳华尔兹歌曲太快了 很难听清歌词 Well, you can't get many words into a Viennese Waltz, it's so fast.
所以他们放慢节奏 写了<爱尔兰野蔷薇> So they slow it down for songs like My Wild Irish Rose,
-<舞会之后>这样的歌 -是 -After the Ball is Over, that sort of thing. -Right.
我们来一段英式华尔兹 或者说慢华尔兹好吗 So, shall we give it a go at the English Waltz, or the slow Waltz.
好的 OK.
慢华尔兹符合老派精神 'The slow Waltz lent itself to old-fashioned qualities,
男士做引导 同时也尊重舞伴 'where a man lead, but offered deference to his partner.
但由于亲密的肢体接触 'But with its close physical contact,
其中还是存在些许危险 'there was still a little hint of danger.'
慢华尔兹流行起来 The slow Waltz was catching on.
不久 每个人都获得参与的机会 Soon, everyone would have the opportunity to join in.
小店主 图书馆员 甚至我这样的焊工也能跳起来 Shopkeepers, librarians, even welders like me could do it.
爱德华时代末期 By the end of the Edwardian era,
华尔兹逐渐流行于 the Waltz was slowly working its way
英国各个社会阶层 through the social strata of Britain.
但是美国传来的新舞蹈转变了风向 'But heads were being turned by new dances from America.
带头人来自诺福克 'And leading the charge was a Norfolk man
他原本是一位工程师 'who'd originally trained to be an engineer.'
他是世界上最具活力的双人舞者之一 He was one half of the most vibrant dance duo on the planet.
另一人是他的美国妻子艾琳 Along with his American wife, Irene,
维隆·凯撒颠覆了整个舞蹈世界 Vernon Castle turned the world of dance on its head.
人人都想学一点凯撒夫妇的舞蹈 Everyone wanted a piece of what the Castles could offer.
他们是国际潮流领袖 They were international trend-setters,
风情万种 绚丽夺目 exotic and flamboyant.
艾琳是时尚偶像 Irene was a fashion icon -
她的短发和短裙成为一种标志 with her trademarked bobbed hair and short skirts.
夫妇二人与黑人管弦乐队合作 The couple worked with an orchestra of black musicians.
1910年 维隆和艾琳邂逅于美国 Vernon and Irene had met in the States in 1910
成名于巴黎和伦敦 and found success in Paris and London,
以美国的最新舞蹈狂潮震撼观众 wowing audiences with the latest American dance crazes.
1914年 他们已是纽约百老汇的热门人物 By 1914, they were a Broadway sensation in New York,
成为舞厅中的首对巨星 becoming ballroom's first superstars.
这就是让凯撒夫妇无比振奋的舞蹈 And here's what made the Castles so exciting.
他们彻底打破阶级和种族的界线 They were completely blurring social and racial boundaries.
他们吸取美国黑人音乐 爵士 拉格泰姆乐的精华 They took the best of Afro-American music, jazz, ragtime,
将其转换为新的舞蹈 and turned it into new dances.
新舞种如病毒一般席卷全球 And one spread across the globe like a virus.
狐步舞高雅又复杂 The Foxtrot was all elegance and sophistication
需在舞池中进行长距离滑动 with long gliding movement across the dance floor.
它由美国舞者哈里·福克斯发明 并因此命名 Its inventor was an American dancer, Harry Fox, hence its name.
但凯撒夫妇声称 早在狐步舞流行之前 But the Castles claimed they'd seen the moves
他们已在美国黑人舞蹈中见过这种舞步 being danced by black Americans long before it caught on elsewhere.
切分音舞蹈音乐源自美国 Syncopated dance music coming from America,
这是美国继欧洲之后的创造 this is where America takes over from Europe.
之后 重切分音的拉格泰姆音乐流行起来 Now, there had been these syncopated ragtime tunes around for a while.
著名的曲子有斯科特·乔普林的<卖艺人> A well-known one is The Entertainer, Scott Joplin.
这里的哒 哒 哒 重音早了半拍 You know, that de-de-de-dah, you just are ahead of the beat there.
但是这种音乐在英国没太大影响 But this had very little effect on Britain.
事实上 直到1912年底 伦敦上映大型事实讽刺剧 In fact, it was only when there was a big revue in London in late 1912,
<喂 拉格泰姆> 人们才对狐步舞有所关注 Hullo, Ragtime!, that people responded to these dances
和华尔兹一样 狐步舞遭受到道德谴责 and just as with the Waltz, there was moral outrage.
公众希望能禁播歌曲Itchycoo People wanted to ban the song Itchycoo
因为他们不知道这是什么意思 你懂的 because they didn't understand what this might mean, you know.
是的 我理解 Yeah, I understand it.
不得不说 我有时也会跳itchycoo Well, I've had an itchycoo on occasions, I must say.
但我确实理解他们 But I do understand that.
但是斯科特·乔普林的歌曲能改编为狐步舞 But as much as I can appreciate that that Scott Joplin number
真的让我十分赞叹 could be translated into a Foxtrot,
现在的狐步舞非常和缓 更加流畅了 the dance is actually very smooth now, it's much more flowing.
艾琳和维隆·凯撒把它改得更加轻柔 They smoothed it out, Irene and Vernon Castle.
有趣的是 他们一个英国人 一个美国人 Interestingly, you know, of course, one is English and one is American.
1914年 他们在纽约首次表演狐步舞 They premier the Foxtrot in 1914, in New York,
一战结束时 狐步舞大放其彩 and, by the time the War is over, this dance becomes THE dance,
就像你说的 人人都想跳上一段 as you say, that everyone wants to be able to do.
慢狐步舞无疑是所有交际舞的基础 The slow Foxtrot is undoubtedly the backbone to all ballroom dancing
它还使快步舞焕然一新 and it makes a very pleasant change to the Quickstep.
快 快 Quick, quick
慢 慢 慢 and slow, slow, slow.
现在我们所跳的狐步舞中 In the Foxtrot that we dance today,
我们会在六个快步上做一个旋转动作 you do get moments when you get six quicks on the spin. You do, yeah.
例如纺织步 我来演示一下 I'll give you an example of a step called The Weave
我们来走六个快步 and we get six quicks.
一 二 三 四 五 六 One, two, three, four, five, six
然后回到慢步 and then we go back into the slows
然后滑走 and the gliding.
我想狐步舞的魅力就在于 And I think that's what's part of the charm of the Foxtrot
本来你正在进行平滑的走步 is that you do get these moments where it's just gliding along
之后突然切换到快步 and then, you break into these faster moments.
美极了 It's lovely.
不幸的是 维隆·凯撒永远无法亲见 The tragedy is that Vernon Castle would never see
狐步舞的辉煌 just how popular the Foxtrot would become.
一战时 他加入英国皇家飞行队 During World War One he joined the Royal Flying Corps,
在西线服役 serving over the western front
因英勇作战而获得英勇十字勋章 and winning the Croix de Guerre for bravery.
但是1918年培训美国飞行员时 But in 1918, whilst training American pilots,
他的飞机在德克萨斯州坠毁 his plane crash-landed in Texas.
几日后 维隆·凯撒不治身亡 Within days, Vernon Castle was dead.
年仅30岁 He was just 30 years old.
4年的战争结束后 After four years of war,
英国国内难以保持一成不变 there was no way that Britain was going to stay the same.
阶级体系有所松动 社会流动性增强 There was a relaxation in the class system and more social mobility.
战时的工作赋予女人更多权利 Empowered by their wartime work,
她们不愿回归琐碎乏味的家务活 women were loath to return to menial domestic duties.
工人获得更多闲暇和带薪假期 With more time on their hands and paid holidays,
于是也想在宽敞的舞池跳舞 the workers wanted to dance in grand places too.
市场出现缺口 There was a gap in the market
很快 舞厅出现在每个城镇 and, before long, every town had a Palais De Danse.
企业家纷纷进驻 建起很多舞厅 Entrepreneurs moved in, building many of the ballrooms
它们随后成为街区的重心 that would later dominate the high street.
不久之后 许多舞厅场所 And soon, there were plenty of locations
几乎可以与酒吧一比高下 ready to give the pub a run for its money.
舞厅在改变 就工人阶级而言 Ballroom was changing and, for the working classes,
他们得以沉醉在炫目的新世界中 it was an immersion into a glitzy new world.
舞厅的魅力在于这里的气氛 The great attraction of the dance hall was the atmosphere,
这里销魂夺魄 诱惑满盈 which was, in many senses, incredibly glamorous.
# 咖啡馆中 光影低迷 # # 'Twas in a cafe When the lights were low... #
各个舞厅都全力以赴 And many of the dance halls did their best
你追我赶 争奇斗艳 to compete with one another
在奢华程度和场地设施方面相互攀比 in terms of lavishness and provide all sorts of facilities.
# 时光飞逝 业已多年 # # Oh, it was many, many years ago
# 但记忆永驻 炽热不息 # # But still the memory sets My heart aglow... #
诺丁汉的舞厅的舞池中央 At the Palais De Danse, Nottingham, in the centre of the dance floor
有一座能喷水20英尺的喷泉 was a fountain that could rise to 20 feet
不断变色的彩灯照耀其上 and was illuminated by constantly changing coloured lights.
还有一些舞厅是主题形式的 Some of the dance halls were also themed,
比如伯明翰的托尼舞厅 so at Tony's Ballroom, in Birmingham, for example,
选用中东主题 there was a Middle Eastern theme.
舞厅被装饰成清真寺 悬挂着祈祷跪垫 The dance hall was made out to be a Mosque with prayer mats hanging
娱乐室的名字也充满异国风情 and the lounges were given equally exotic names.
如巴格达厅和阿卡乍堡厅 The Baghdad and The Alcazar Lounge.
这种富于诱惑的非为十分重要 So this atmosphere of glamour was really important
可以增添舞厅的魅力 to the appeal of the dance halls.
或许舞厅终于迎来繁荣之日 The ballrooms may have looked the part,
但战争几乎带走了75万人口 but with almost three quarters of a million men dead in the Great War,
会有那么多人到舞厅去吗 would there be enough people to fill them?
战争结束后 政府和媒体几乎有些恐慌 After the War, the political establishment and the press
因为英国失去了很多男兵 were almost panicking about the loss of young British men.
他们想 现在妇女的人数过多 And many of them thought, "These women, we've now got a surplus."
<每日邮报>称她们为我们的剩女 The Daily Mail called them "our surplus girls".
他们问 到哪里去找这么多丈夫 And they said, "Where are the husbands going to be?"
结果证明 他们的担心是多余的 Well, in the event, there wasn't a problem,
事实上 结婚率迅速飙升 because, actually, the marriage rate picked up quite sharply
就在20年代到30年代间 in the '20s and '30s.
交际舞和舞厅简直就是为此而存在的 Dancing, dance halls, fitted brilliantly into this,
解决了最初人们所担心的结婚问题 what was seen initially as a problem of marriage,
因为我们从后来的调查中得知 because we now know from later surveys
战争期间结婚的人群 that a high proportion of the people who married in the inter-war period
大多是在舞厅结识他们的伴侣的 first met their eventual partners at a dance hall. Right.
就这一点来说 从长远看来 So, in that sense, in the long run,
上层社会认为 dances served what respectable society
交际舞的作用值得赞赏 thought was an admirable purpose.
# 微笑吧 厌烦也要微笑 # # Smile, darn ya, smile!
# 毕竟旧世界也没什么不好 # # You know this old world Is a great world, after all... #
英国人开始尽情享乐 Britain started to enjoy itself.
在海滨胜地 And in the seaside resorts,
度假的人穿上他们最美的衣服 holiday-makers poured in with their best clothes in their suitcases
带上钞票 直奔舞厅 and pounds in their pockets and headed off to the ballroom.
# 时机已到 快来尽情欢笑# # ..Time for you and joy To get acquainted... #
布莱克浦的舞蹈 There's been dancing in Blackpool
和海岸上的沙滩一样由来已久 for almost as long as there's been sand on the beach.
布莱克浦塔舞厅从一开始就吸引了大量舞者 And since day one, the Tower Ballroom has attracted dancers
就像磁铁吸引铁粉一般 like iron filings to a magnet.
著名的布莱克浦塔 高500英尺 'Blackpool's famous Tower, all five hundred feet of it,
是兰开夏郡这座游乐园的最高点 'is the high-spot of Lancashire's favourite pleasure ground.
让我们看一下节日的新景象 'Let's get a new slant on the holiday scene.
没错 你仿佛置身于世界之巅 'Yes, you feel you're really on top of the world.
在这里你怎么可能会感到忧郁 'How can you be down in the dumps
你的心灵已升至云端 'when your heart's up in the clouds
可以让烦恼随风飘散 'and you can throw away cares to the four winds?'
很高心见到你 见到你很高兴 "Nice to see you - to see you...nice!"
人们的思想打动了我 Do you know, what gets me is the thought of people,
兰开夏郡的姑娘小伙子们来这里享受周末 you know, Lancashire lasses and lads coming here for their week's holiday
到上面来看见如此景色 and coming up here and seeing this.
我想象不出 那一定心旷神怡的 I just can't imagine it, it is truly fabulous.
从一开始 布莱克浦就知道如何狂欢 Right from the start, Blackpool's known how to party.
那时候 度假胜地有不少大型舞厅 Back then, the resort had huge ballrooms
成千上万的人赶来这里跳舞 and thousands of people used to come dancing.
难怪这里会成为交际舞的精神家园 It's no wonder this place became the spiritual home of ballroom.
# 各地的人群纷至沓来 # # They're all coming From near and far #
# 来到这里 学习跳舞 # # To learn the steps And here they are #
# 旋转走步 你是冠军 # # Eee by Gum, it's champion!
# 这就是布莱克浦步 # # Here's the Blackpool Walk. #
这是一个令人兴奋的新时代 It was a new and exciting time -
20世纪20年代意味着朋克和新浪潮 the 1920s was the equivalent of punk and new wave.
战争的恐惧和西线战事消散之后 And after the horrors of war and the Western Front,
人们想走出门去 抛开礼节的束缚 people wanted to get out and let their hair down.
舞蹈也变得激进而张扬 And dancing became completely radical.
# We're all alone
# No chaperone can get our number
# The world's in slumber
# Let's misbehave! #
As millions were swept off their feet,
moral panic once again hit the nation.
# ..Let's be outrageous Let's misbehave! #
By comparison with the Edwardian dances,
1920s dances seemed a bit less, well, less sedate,
less disciplined, less orderly.
A bit more suggestive, a bit more erotic, frankly, to many people.
# ..Let's misbehave! #
Stories abounded of flappers and bright young things
hooked on cocaine, so they could dance all night.
Nightclubs sprang up all over London,
it seemed that the very social foundations of Britain
were being undermined.
The dance halls were swinging to the sound of the latest music
brought here by touring dance bands from the States.
To some ears, the sound of jazz just wasn't very British.
# ..Let's misbehave! #
There's a moral reaction against the nightclub scene
with which jazz is so inextricably linked.
# ..Let's misbehave! #
Nightclubs were particularly keen on employing
a handful of black musicians to add a sense of exoticism
and authenticity to their music.
And these nightclubs were considered to be incredibly seedy.
They were an indication of a new declining moral standard in Britain
after the First World War.
You've got battalions of bishops and clergymen
and newspaper editors who are lining up to condemn the new dances,
because they viewed it as part of a general moral decline.
Even the politicians were having a go.
The Home Secretary of the time decided swift action was needed.
In the mid 1920s, police raids on nightclubs began.
It was all fertile ground for the headline-writers.
And the dance that was getting all the editorial columns
hot and bothered -
it was the Charleston.
# Charleston! Charleston!
# Made in Carolina
# Some dance, some prance... #
The dance burnt like a bright flame in London in the early 1920s,
but, for some provincial tastes, the Charleston was simply too much.
From Bridlington to Nuneaton,
the good burghers of Britain were saying enough is enough.
# But the Charleston The new Charleston
# That dance is surely a comer!
# Sometime, you'll dance it One time... #
But there'd be no stopping the Charleston.
Nightclub-owner and Dance Teacher Santos Casani's daring routine
on top of a London taxi showed
that this dance wasn't going to respect traditional boundaries.
One of the things that I find fascinating
is whichever new dance came along, there was a sense of outrage
from certain areas of the society that this was a scandal.
It is absolutely true.
A new dance is always viewed with the highest suspicion.
It doesn't matter what it is.
We've seen that the Waltz was viewed as morally suspect.
But as soon as we move onto the syncopated dances,
they, too, come under the scrutiny.
The combination of new music and dances gave journalists a field day.
For some, jazz was a low-type of primitive music
that was the essence of vulgarity,
while others complained of crude gyrations.
For a small minority of critics,
the black American origins of the new dances was of major concern.
And what you find is a lot of the early jazz and dance critics
seem to be obsessed with tracing back the origins of the new dances
and the new music to the jungle, as they put it.
In the Daily Mail, the Charleston was condemned
as being "reminiscent only of negro orgies".
Really? Yes, to some extent, this is the old story
that moral standards are always defined
by middle-aged, middle-class men
who get worried about what young people or women are actually doing.
Despite the scandal,
ballroom continued to find a growing audience.
For most people, it was harmless fun in places that became a second home.
# Love is good for anything That ails you
# Baby, there is nothing Love can't do... #
When I was growing up, I loved the freedom that dancing gave me,
and I let it all hang out here,
at The Rivoli, in South London.
HE CHUCKLES
Oh, yes. Thank you.
HE CHUCKLES
This is the place, I tell you.
I've been coming here since I was 16,
so we're talking over 50 years ago.
I used to first come doing a bit of jive - it was like a jiving place.
Used to try and get hold of a nice bit of crumpet
and go through there and have a cup of coffee or a cup of tea.
But latterly, it was one of my regular places for ballroom dancing.
There used to be a little circuit that we used to do -
one night it'd be the Hammersmith Palais,
then, the Tottenham Royal, Orchid Purley, the Lyceum in The Strand
and the Rivoli Ballroom.
So, it was just every night we used go out dancing, and it was great.
And this place, when you look at it, it's not changed.
Nothing has changed.
It's still the same,
and I used to just love the look of the whole place.
It made you want to dance, because it's from an era, somehow,
where you feel you want to do ballroom dancing.
It's just fabulous.
Oh, I can see me now...
young, fit,
hair dark as a raven's wing.
Walk in. "Oh, good evening."
# The echo of a song You used to sing... #
Oh, you're taller than I thought.
Oh, yes, you move so well...
HE CHUCKLES
# ..Was one long summer's day While you were there... #
But the more I got into ballroom,
the more I realised it was driven by a set of rules.
And much of this was down to one man.
Look what we've got here.
It's the doyen of strict tempo dancing.
Victor Silvester And His Orchestra. Here we go.
Oh!
MUSIC: "You're Dancing On My Heart"
This was Victor Silvester's theme song
and prior to it just starting, he would say his iconic words.
And here they are -
"Slow, slow, quick, quick, slow."
Victor Silvester was a World Ballroom Champion
for whom the rules meant everything.
And what he was witnessing on the dance floor appalled him.
It seemed that everyone was doing their own thing
and that dancing was going to the dogs.
And, in 1920, 200 dance teachers gathered in London
to work out what their next step would be.
It was now a time for action.
The dance profession decided that there needed to be some kind of order
in response to this new seeming chaos or "artistic bolshevism",
as one dance teacher put it.
Over several years, strict rules governing ballroom were introduced.
There'd be a musical solution, too.
Later, as a bandleader,
Victor brought in the discipline of strict tempo -
clear criteria which even dictated
how many bars per minute there should be.
Victor Silvester came along and he was the man
that tamed it all and brought in strict tempo.
And it was consistent.
If it was consistent,
then the dancer could dance to it.
Victor Silvester grooms the music
to be able to be used
and I mean used - used to dance by everybody that felt like dancing.
He had to bring regularity into it
because your dancing today would not exist
if it weren't for Victor Silvester.
'And now for a demonstration of dancing,
'arranged by those famous exponents from the Empress Rooms, Kensington,
'Phyllis Haylor, former World Champion, and Charles Scrimshaw.'
With the music and dance now sorted,
there'd be a syllabus for dance teachers.
The English style of ballroom was born.
'But for your special benefit,
'they're pretending they're just ordinary folk,
'making just ordinary mistakes like this wrong position of the arm.'
There was an emphasis on gracefulness and a decorum,
so the wild, jerking movements of the new dances were tamed.
You must use your heels when you go forward, Teddy.
Slide your foot forward on the heel.
And Freda, don't turn your toes like that, keep them in.
Keep your feet quite straight.
Will you try that now?
This was an attempt clearly
to remove all suggestions of impropriety
and sort of uncontrolled primitiveness.
'Two of the party have just come back from America,
'so here's a swing step, hot from Harlem.
'But it's rather too hot for English ballroom,
'so let's try a swing step that's a little quieter.
'Good.'
That looks rather nice, shall we all try it?
Strict tempo was hugely popular,
but some musicians felt it made the sound clinical and predictable.
Others, such as singer Barbara Jay,
who performed in the dance halls of the '50s,
welcomed the discipline.
It made me sing in time.
It was very good and we used to sing what we call 'on the beat'.
We never used to pull a song around like people do now.
Used to sing accordingly to the arrangement and in tempo,
because that was the tempo for the dancers.
And if the tempo wasn't right,
I assure you the dancers used to come up
and complain bitterly to the bandleader.
"That Foxtrot was too fast..." and "That Waltz was too slow."
So he used to get that.
I find it rather dull, really, you know,
I think, in the main, it's pretty dull,
because the priority is not the music any more.
The priority is the tempo.
It's not played badly, it's played beautifully, often,
and, indeed, sung sometimes.
But often the vocalists are,
in fact, abandoned on strict tempo dance music, often instrumental.
And when we've played for dances
with sort of very dyed-in-the-wool dancers,
they sometimes say, "Oh, we wish you didn't have any vocals."
They don't like the vocals,
they just want the music to be played
at exactly the right tempo, so that they can whoosh around
doing the slow Foxtrot or the Quickstep at the right tempo.
75 million records, Victor Silvester sold.
Really? You know.
As you say, all in strict dance tempo,
and immediately recognisable.
You hear them on the radio, you know that's Victor Silvester.
But, you know, you wouldn't want to listen to that now, would you?
You know, it served its purpose and he was clearly,
you know, he was the man, but to musicians, it's a terrible sound.
The English style had restrained some of the excesses
that had crept into ballroom,
but could it cope with the most sensual dance of the lot?
The Tango.
It was hot, it was spicy, it was passionate.
The big question was, could European sensibility adjust itself
to this Gaucho-driven dance of passion?
Oh, I've gone all hot under the collar.
# One starry night
# In an old southern town... #
The Tango had its roots in the street music of Argentina.
# ..Though with the dawn... #
A more sedate version swept across Europe,
but it still incurred the wrath of the Catholic church.
Later, in the '30s, a little zest was added,
giving the dance a new flavour.
# ..Whispering I'll come back some day. #
When the dance first became popular it was quite a smooth dance,
it didn't have all this staccato and sharpness about it.
Just before the War, a German came along, called Freddie Camp,
who danced here in Blackpool
and brought this sharp, staccato flavour to it
and the place went mad.
I can understand why, because, you know,
if you think of a famous Tango like La Cumpanista, you know.
Those spiky chords.
So, you get a step like The Link,
which is only two steps, but it shows now...
Now, prior to Freddie Camp, you'd get a sort of smoothness about it.
Suddenly, here comes Freddie, full of vim and vigour, and he'll go...
Whoopa! And the whole thing became much sharper and crisper.
And... Shumba!
HE HUMS
'Freddie Camp changed the Tango for ever.
'After decades of toning dances down for British tastes,
'here were the Brits, with a bit help from a German,
'putting the oomph back into ballroom.'
Whoopa!
# Adios muchachos Companeros de mi vida... #
The other characteristic of the Tango
is that we dance it with slightly flexed knees,
there's no rise and fall whatsoever.
And the story goes that they used to wear these leather chaps
and when they were on the horse all day, this leather used to get stiff.
And when they got off their horse,
their legs were slightly bent because of these leather chaps.
They used to smell, you know, and deodorant wasn't around.
So the ladies then put a rose in their mouth
and turned their head to the left.
Which, of course, would have been slightly perfumed
away from the bad smell.
# Everybody dance!
# Why don't you try to Foxtrot Your troubles away? #
With the core dances now making up the English style,
the Waltz, Foxtrot, Quickstep and Tango,
Britain was ready to export its take on dancing all over the globe.
And with the rules now in place,
everyone wanted to learn how to dance properly.
# ..But if you're bashful Let the music say it for you
# Dance... #
But how to spread the message became a major challenge
for Britain's new ballroom establishment.
# ..Up on your toes... #
By the 1930s,
ballroom competitions were all the rage for the committed dancer.
But keeping the rest of the population in line was no easy task.
# ..Dance, dance, dance, dance! #
If you were struggling,
there was always an army of attendants on hand to help out.
They would be penned off in a corner of the dance hall
and you could hire them for one or two dances
or often for the whole evening.
These dancing partners inevitably attracted suspicion
and the rumours were rife
that they were offering more than just a dancing partnership.
'Teaching people to dance has always been a challenge
'and, back in ballroom's heyday,
'dance schools were in the front-line of the battle
'to get people to move properly.
'The rules were in place, they just needed to be enforced.'
Cha-cha-cha...
'And in every dance class across the country,
'no step was spared in making sure they were performed correctly.'
Last one...
'So, it's time to set a 1930s challenge
'for these youngsters in a dance school near Garstang, in Lancashire.'
Excellent, well done.
That's not a seven, I'll tell you.
That's a ten from Len, well done!
THEY LAUGH
Thank you.
Right foot, everybody, ready, go.
One, two, three, cha-cha-cha.
Now, this may seem comical to us now,
but back in the '20s and '30s,
this instruction manual was cutting edge.
And it was produced by the Maestro himself - Victor Silvester.
He showed the steps for every dance,
from The Charleston right through to the slow Foxtrot,
and everything in between.
Now, the question is -
can these young people follow the master's footsteps?
Thank you very much.
Who's the boy ? Me.
The reverse turn.
Left, right, left.
No, no.
One, two, three.
Thank God I wasn't born in the '20s or '30s,
because I'd have a terrible job with this.
Cutting edge? I'd cut me throat.
One, two, three, four, five.
A little bit big in the step, wasn't it?
Arrampah! Yump-bum-bum!
Step three is step forward and across,
slightly to right with left foot.
I've got to work this out.
Step forward with the left foot, turning to the left.
I've done that.
One, two, three, four, five.
I always like a man with epaulettes.
All of you now, I want you all to try it.
Come up here, we're all going to do it. Six steps.
Tango! Ready.
And a-ra-tah-tah!
A-ra-tah!
What Victor Silvester had done is created order.
He's given precise steps and a technique that people could follow.
But, in doing so, I think the common man had lost the feel for dancing.
It was almost as though you had to learn a regimented routine
which, for me, isn't what dancing's all about.
Britain may have been bitten by the dance bug,
but ballroom was in a state of flux.
It's summed up by this place, the fabulous Cafe De Paris,
in London's West End.
'By the mid '30s, ballroom,
'the dance that the masses had taken to their hearts,
'appeared to be divided.'
While the working classes packed out huge dance halls,
and had a right old knees-up,
the well-to-do tucked into their lobster in surroundings like this
and danced the night away.
Smart hotels and restaurants latched on to the idea
that diners would pay a premium for high-end surroundings
and quality music from the nation's best dance bands.
Geraldo, Henry Hall, Bert Ambrose.
They all became household names.
But there were hundreds more belting out the tunes.
They seemed to create a sort of magic atmosphere,
the records from the '30s, of elegance,
and it's something different. It's got a very particular style to it.
The marvellous atmosphere that it creates straight away
and, of course, it had to create an atmosphere straight away.
People needed to hear a few bars of music
and they needed to be whisked onto the dance floor.
# Shall we dance Or keep on moping
# Shall we dance and walk on air? #
But it very quickly became so much more than that.
It became clever music, with wonderful arrangements
and the very best musicians playing in the bands at the time.
The most fantastic jazz solos,
the most fantastic smooth, elegant sounds all mixed together
into a sort of British dance band sound.
Every hotel, every restaurant,
as well as the ballrooms, needed musicians.
It was a field day for musicians.
# ..Dance whenever you can! #
That would have been the time to be a musician.
Because, apart from anything else, it was fun.
They were well paid, well looked after,
and they were playing music that was fun to play.
And, in a way, the music is sort of leading the dance, isn't it?
There's something being generated on the band stand
that people want to dance to.
Live music is absolutely brilliant!
I mean, once an orchestra plays, it just gets in your blood.
'The National Programme from London.'
Now, you're going to hear the first performance
of the new BBC Dance Orchestra, directed by Henry Hall.
# It's just the time For dancing... #
Soon, every living room was echoing to the sound of ballroom.
The bands had huge followings.
Jack Hilton, for example, in 1929,
he travelled over 63,000 miles on tour,
he gave over 700 performances
and his records sold at the rate of about seven per minute,
so he's hugely successful.
Roy Fox led one of the most popular bands of the '30s.
Mary Lee was just out of school when she won a competition
and joined them as a singer.
There was about 20, 25 musicians and Roy Fox,
immaculately dressed in beautiful tails,
all playing gorgeous music, you know.
I thought to myself, "I've died and gone to heaven."
# Cos it's been so long
# Since I held you tight
# When we said goodnight
# It's been so long
# Honey, can't you see What you've done to me... #
It was really brilliant. And these boys knew what they were doing.
You went on and you knew you were working
for the best musicians in the world.
And you couldn't else but be good.
It was a happy, happy time.
# ..It was so nice... #
For three golden years, Mary fitted right in with the boys in the band.
They were lovely, but then, I think I was terribly lucky,
because the band boys could be, you know, rough and ready
and, you know, I won't go any further.
But I remember Roy Fox telling them,
he said, "Now, she's just turned 14.
"I don't want any swearing,
"I don't want any untoward gags or what have you.
"Leave her be.
"Let her grow up alongside you and don't tell her any mucky jokes.
"Please don't."
And that's the way we went along.
Mary was paid the princely sum of ? a week
and with the boys, she played the dance halls
and the swanky West End restaurants,
rubbing shoulders with society's smart set.
It was nice people.
People who had what we would say roughly, a bob or two.
And the ladies were nicely dressed.
We used to sit on the band stand and the boys would pick out
who were the nicest-looking lasses, and all that.
Who had the nicest legs and all that.
We had all that kind of fun.
But, oh, I used to, I used to, oh, die to get down and dance with them
but I couldn't, I wasn't allowed to.
While the dinner dance scene thrived, over in the dance halls,
people were tiring of the rules -
they wanted to experiment.
'And now, we're taking you over to The Locarno, Streatham,
'to learn something of the latest dances.
'Here's one you can all dance and it's sweeping the country.
'The Palais Glide.'
Having a partner was no longer as important
and novelty dances became popular.
'What better than the Palais Glide for making everyone pally?
'Where The Palais Glide originated, we don't know.
'Some say the Midlands, but its popularity is tremendous.'
It wasn't so much revolution as a curious form of evolution.
It was ballroom,
but for those who'd worked hard to establish the rules,
well, it just didn't feel right.
# It's your blooming birthday
# Let's wake up all the town
# So knees-up, knees-up Don't get the breeze-up
# Knees-up, Mother Brown. #
And just when it seemed that the masses were becoming frustrated
with traditional ballroom,
the darkest of times gave it a new lease of life.
During the Second World War, dancing was incredibly popular.
# Dance hall doll Dancing around the floor... #
And it performed a very important function on the home front.
The Government soon realised
just how important dancing was for morale.
'Carry your gas mask, because you'll never know
'where you'll need it.
'Now, at the dance hall in Streatham,
'they grab their partners for the preliminary race,
'and it's on with the gas mask and the dance.'
With the Luftwaffe doing their best to bomb Britain into submission,
people turned to ballroom, in all its forms
and lived every moment as though it were their last.
Home Intelligence reports of the blitzed areas, for example,
found that, in those cities where dancing and dance halls remained open
and continued going during the Blitz,
such as Liverpool and Portsmouth,
morale was much higher than in those areas
where nightlife ground to a halt.
And so, it recommended that dance halls were made repair priorities
and were kept open in the aftermath of the Blitz.
As American GIs hit our shores,
dancing once again became a passport to a meeting with the opposite sex.
'Fraternisation was the order of the day
'and it certainly looks as if everything was going
'according to plan.'
And along with their nylon stockings and fat wallets,
the Yanks brought new music and dances like the jive.
Once again, American influence took ballroom in a whole new direction.
The feel-good factor continued after the War,
but, within a decade, attitudes were changing.
Ballroom was no longer cutting edge.
A new generation voted with their feet.
Dance band music of the '30s, however much we love it,
we have to admit it evokes
the upper crust of society and high society.
It evokes money, wealth, a richness.
And after the War, this just wasn't what people wanted any more,
they wanted a more democratic world.
As a teenager during the war,
Tommy Whittle played saxophone in Lew Stone's Band.
It was style of music soon to go out of fashion.
I think it was skiffle came in, first of all.
You know, a ridiculous sort of music, in my opinion.
And yet, it became terribly popular.
What can you do?
# I dim all the lights
# And I sink in my chair... #
Tommy's wife, Barbara Jay,
played with some of the big bands of the '50s
and saw the golden age of ballroom slowly slipping away.
# ..Fade away in the blue
# And I'm deep in a dream of you. #
They were looking at the new generation coming up, you see.
And they didn't want the dancing that their mothers and fathers went to.
They wanted to have their own kind of music
and this is where the music changed.
There were not so many big bands, there were small groups.
That kind of dancing faded away.
The simplicity of the close hold in the Waltz
and the passion of the Tango
were lost on a new generation who didn't have to be coy any more.
The sexuality of dancing was now there for everyone to see.
With its long list of rules, ballroom appeared to be out of step.
It gained a reputation as being old-fashioned.
Something that old people did.
It was for fuddy-duddies.
In those days, the rock and roll appealed to a different generation,
a more gentle generation at that time liked ballroom dancing.
Dancing went underground a bit.
And it went into the dancing schools,
instead of being in the public halls,
it went into the dancing schools.
Then, television arrived, and that completely changed everything.
People were not going out to dance halls any more,
they were sitting at home watching 'the new box', they called it.
The television.
'This is BBC Television.'
And Victor Silvester, the man who'd brought strict tempo to ballroom,
also appeared out of step with the new dances and crazes.
Well, I don't think that anybody could call the Twist an elegant dance.
What, then, is its attraction?
The answer is rhythm.
Feet six to eight inches apart and twist to the left,
to the right, to the left, to the right, to the left,
to the right.
Right! Twist, two, three, four...
I first fell into ballroom almost by accident.
If it hadn't had been for an ex-girlfriend who invited me along,
I might never have stepped into a world which has captivated me
for the best part of 50 years.
When I first put on my dancing shoes,
ballroom was still popular, but the peak had passed.
It seemed good to me then, so the golden age must have been brilliant.
There was something innocent and warm about ballroom dancing.
That sense of belonging that it gave you,
as well as a degree of self-expression.
It's a loss of something more than just ballroom dancing.
They're packed onto the floor,
because they've all got a common interest.
They all want to listen to the music,
they all want to dance with the best-looking girl in the room.
But the very heart of dancing years ago was to go out and meet people.
It was lovely.
It was lovely. You were hearing good music and, with a wee bit of luck,
you got a wee cuddle and a kiss on the way home.
You know, it was nice.
Ballroom's decline was a slow drift away.
# The sweetest music This side of heaven... #
No-one really noticed as each year the dance halls closed,
only to re-open as bingo halls or nightclubs.
It's hard to imagine that ballroom dancing could ever have been thought of as scandalous,
especially when you see the sort of dancing that's done today.
And yet, it was.
But, for me, there was a romance about ballroom dancing.
There was an innocence.
Boy meets girl, a little bit of flirtation on the ballroom.
And people who still do it, that's what they're tapping into -
this feeling of a romance.
And for me, there's nothing like it
and, if you've not tried it, you don't know what you're missing.
Erin, come on!
# I'm saving the last Waltz for you
# In your arms I'm just longing to be
# Please don't forsake me
# Just let your arms take me
# I'm saving the last Waltz For you. #
Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd