Ballroom
About This Book
Hilary French's history follows ballroom dancing from its early twentieth-century arrival in Britain to the present day. Its story begins when American ragtime and the Parisian tango set off a dance fever across the country. Purpose-built public ballrooms, a previously unknown kind of venue, sprang up in towns everywhere and offered a glamorous space where people of every social class could dance together. The book covers the steps and styles that were codified and taught during the 1920s, and the screen partnership of Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers in the 1930s that kept ballroom dancing as the nation's favourite pastime until the 1960s, when only cinema rivalled it. Along the way it examines the dances themselves, the grand venues, the competitions, and the teachers and figures who shaped the art, from Vernon and Irene Castle to Arthur Murray. The later chapters trace how competitive dancing declined and then revived in recent years, driven by television hits such as Strictly Come Dancing and Dancing with the Stars.
ISBN: 9781789145151
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