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The Viennese Waltz

The Rules

Force?

The women in the partnership move lightly while the men have heavy movements to go along with them. The Viennese waltz is not as a mechanical dance as the original waltz was and allows the dancers to express their emotions more frequently as they dance. 100% of the movements in the Viennese waltz are loco motor as they never stay still in one place, unless it's a brief stop for a dip or at the beginning or end. Talented ballroom dancers have exceptional balance, since they turn a lot during the dance, and a heavy tolerance for spinning is necessary. In a way, the body is isolated since some body parts (hands, arms) cannot move independently when others, (legs, feet) have the freedom to move where ever, and when ever, as long as they stay on beat.

The Viennese waltz was a fairly technical dance and still is, but was nothing compared to the original waltz and hasn't yet died down in the fancy ballrooms. The word 'valse' is French for 'waltz' or 'dance' and the word 'waltzer' is German and comes from the word 'walzen' which means turn. When the dancers would dance, their feet were almost always turned out and back in the 18th century, the rise of the foot was much more important than it is today. This is a particularly quick dance with 180 beats to the minute, double the amount of beats in the regular waltz. All natural turns are to the right, all reverse turns are to the left and the change in step happens in between the natural and reverse turns. The elbows are traditionally held high with the mans hand around the waist of the women. There are many turns, which makes sense from the name, is very repetitive and needs a lot of space. This dance might seem very intimidating but for many ballroom dancers, it's as easy as singing was to Whitney Houston.

Welcome to the Middle Ages!

"Viennese Gossip"

Fashion

The current clothing worn for the dance is very similar to the ones worn when the dance was first publicized. The women often wore full skirted ballgowns because they had large diameters with room for widespread movement. In the 1800s, more specifically 1854-1869, the majority of the women wore hoop skirts. The men wore formal dinner jackets with knickers and long white stockings underneath that were made of brocade which is a silk like fabric with elaborate designs woven within or a normal, fancy, black suit.

The women who were known to participate in this dance got a bad reputation at first because of the amount of contact between the dancers. Emotions were also not only expressed through body movement, but also through facial expressions which the upper-class found weird since that was very unlike their types of dances. However, the dance finally became popular in ballrooms and was no longer considered such a terrible thing and between 1814 and 1815, the Viennese waltz achieved its first triumph at the Congress of Vienna in Europe.

The Viennese Waltz is a type of ballroom dance and was discovered in the 12th century but became an official independent dance in the 18th century.

It was influenced by German and Austrian dance styles like the Deutscher, the Dreher and the Schlieifer.

It originated in Austria, Europe but was most popular in Vienna. The dance had also spread to some parts of England soon before 1812.

Bibliography

What elements of dance does the Viennese waltz have?

http://elbazdance.com/dance-styles/viennese-waltz/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viennese_Waltz

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/strictlycomedancing/entries/7a3bed2e-5a98-3a81-9236-4a67f0e76f00

Let's talk about the deats

Is it the end?

The Viennese waltz needs plenty of space in order to be danced. The level of this dance doesn't change very often and stays medium throughout the piece. The shape and pathway relate in a way because the dancers mostly navigate throughout the room in a circular pattern that is repeated as the dance goes on. The focus of the dancers are usually out towards the audience with their heads hanging back and the movements are small and quick with some large steps every now and then to help maneuver across the room. The tempo is routinely fast and the rhythmic patterns are steady and repetitive.

There were people called the 'bourgeoisie' which were the upper-class at the time. They were the ones who found the Viennese waltz more of a 'modern' dance compared to the ones that they had danced at the time. Before the Viennese waltz, all dances had only brief touching of the hands and hip and both dancers kept their distance from one another. With the Viennese waltz, because both dancers were almost embracing each other, this dance was criticized often and considered scandalous. But, in the 1920s, the Viennese waltz became outdated and extinct to most ballrooms as newer, and more common dances were discovered.

Yes, this is the end, of my presentation! But surely not the end of the Viennese waltz or ballroom dancing. Although the ballroom style has died down, it is still a very elegant and entertaining dance to watch and do, for some. It's a gateway to expression for ballroom dancers, but still has technicality to prevent the dancers from "letting loose". It is very old but hasn't yet been forgotten and has many, many different elements of dance wrapped up within.

By Tisania Smith

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