Viscount Bennett Junior High School - Terminal Yearbook (Calgary, Alberta Canada)

Page 103 text:

THE TERMINAL LITERARY SECTION PAGE 91 A ESSAY - 2nd PRIZE. DANCE PAGEANT Across the pages of history, much is written on cultural activities, not the, least of which is the dance. As it builds up through the years you find a distinct pattern in the degree of association between the sexes during the dance of the day. Let us begin with the Minuet. During this dance the man was allowed to hold the lady ' s white glove in his white glove while they tried to catch each other by running around in a circle through the medium of slow, graceful steps in three-quarter time. Later came the waltz, wherein the gentleman held the lady ' s hand and waist. Romantic but uncomfortable, I ' d think, for the fashions of the day were such that the gentleman ' s boots were separated from the lady ' s slippers by three yards of muslin, silk, hoops, and horse-collars. Time marches on, and in the early 1900 ' s we find the tango is all the rage. This dance placed the couple so close that they moved in unison. It was a one-two-three man bends girl, four-five-six girl bends man motion. You remember Rudolph Valentino who did the tango and introduced the saying Oh, my sacroilliac. Having thrown out their spines in several different places the dancers moved into the Charleston phase of history, which had one of two effects on the population. You either became double-jointed or you helped the chiropractic business soar. It must be noted that often, during this dance, the partners touched each other, but nobody j held it against them. Finally we arrive at the dance of today, [ the cha-cha-cha. This is a South American ! dance in which the girl goes north and the man goes south and they never see each otheh again. It seems that the partners in a dance grew closer and closer together and then went farther away from each other as the years went by. What is to become of the dance? I ' m sure I couldn ' t say, but with | a little bit of luck maybe in ten years or i so we ' ll all be doing the minuet again. Oh well, whichever one you prefer, be it waltz or Charleston - - Everybody Dance, PHILIP EADIE (11-27) !