The Viennese Waltz is a dance performed to music with three beats to the bar. This means that the dance steps can be very difficult for starters because when a step is taken on each beat, then the next bar will have to start on the opposite foot. However, when this technique is mastered, the dancer acquires an enchanting and romantic rhythm. The first dance of a three-fourth beat on record was danced to folk music called the Volta. The dance was a peasant folk dance from a provincial area in France in 1559. The Volta, however, is also claimed to be a folk dance from Italy during this time. The word "Volta" is an Italian word that means "the turn". This shows that even in its earliest form, the waltz involves a couple turning while dancing. The Volta became well-known in the royal courts of Western Europe during the 16th century. It was described as similar to the Galliard, which is a dance performed to music with a 3/2 beat, but instead danced to a slower 6/4 beat. They are similar because both dances make five steps to six beats, therefore the dancers need to alternate feet in alternate measures. The partners in the Volta are in a closed position but the lady is positioned at the left of the man and is held by the waist. The lady places her right arm on her partner's shoulder and holds her skirt with her left hand. Holding the skirt is an important part of the dance because the frequent turning and lifting may cause the skirt to fly up. The lifting was done by the man using his left thigh which is positioned under the lady's right thigh. This lift is demonstrated in the famous painting where Elizabeth I of England is dancing the Volta and is lifted by the Earl of Lancaster. There is also a contemporary Norwegian Waltz which is a folk dance similar to the Volta because it is also a turning dance. Although, in this dance, the couple is required to do a step around their partner and doing this would mean that each would have to take large steps to be able to get around from one side of their partner to the other. In this waltz, the man assists his partner in the big step by lifting her as she takes the step therefore accommodating gracefully the difference in leg length between partners. When this lift is incorporated in the Volta, the couple was required to hold each other in a very tight embrace. The level of intimacy produced was deemed immoral by Louis XIII and banned the action from court on this account. The Volta evolved from a three-time and became a five-time. One of the first dances in three-time that were published was the "Hole in the Wall" in 1695. The first music played for the actual "Waltzen" was in Germany in 1754. However, any link between the Volta ad the Waltzen is unclear, although the word "Waltzen" also means "to revolve" in German. The Waltzen, as written by Arndt in 1799, is performed by dancers who held on to their long gowns to prevent them from dragging or being stepped on. The dancers would lift their dresses and hold them high like cloaks and this would bring both their bodies under one cover. This action also required the dancers' bodies to be very close together and this closeness also attracted moral disparagement. Wolf published a pamphlet against the dance entitled "Proof that Waltzing is the Main Source of Weakness of the Body and Mind of our Generation" in 1797. But even when faced with all this negativity, it became very popular in Vienna. Large dance halls like the Zum Sperl in 1807 and the Apollo in 1808 were opened to provide space for thousands of dancers. The dance reached England in 1812 and was introduced as the German Waltz and became a huge hit. Throughout the 19th century, the dance gained further fame with the music of Josef and Johann Strauss. Nowadays, the Viennese Waltz is danced to music with a tempo of about 180 beats a minute. However, it has a restricted range of figures which are the Change Steps, Passing Changes, Hesitations, Hovers, the Contra check and the Natural and Reverse Turns. |
