The Dance

by Unknown

VI

The German mind has not been strikingly original or racial in folk-dances. It has taken more an abstract and purely musical direction and paid little attention to the dance. If we leave out the dances of the Bavarians, Saxons and Tyroleans, there is little that is of any ethnographic interest in this respect. The Prussian Fackeltanz belongs more to the elaborate pantomimes of the order of ancient Rome, rather than to regular dances. The mediæval Germany that was ruled politically and ecclesiastically from Rome never felt the influence of the rural country people, but, on the contrary, was mostly under the æsthetic and intellectual influence of the feudal barons and urban middle class. Under the influence of these two classes, German music, poetry, drama and literature came into existence. The German classic art is predominantly aristocratic and ecclesiastic. The early German artists were constrained to gather in the aristocratic salons of the rich patricians. The peasant was rarely a model of early German artists, but a German Freiherr, Bürger or Handwerker has been the subject of many German dramas, operas and musical compositions, and of much painting, sculpture and dancing. Wilhelm Angerstein tells us in his interesting book Volkstänze in deutschen Mittelalter that already in 1300 there existed German guild dances—Zunfttänze—such as the Messertanz (‘knife dance’) in Nürnberg, Schafftertanz (‘cooper’s dance’) in Munich, etc. Besides these there were the aristocratic Schreittänze and Schleiftänze. The Drehtanz, out of which originated the later Walzer, was an aristocratic and patrician, but never a truly rural folk-dance.

There is no question that the German people has always been interested in dancing, a fact which is best illustrated in the frequent outbursts of mediæval Tanzwuth—‘dance craze’—that affected the population of various cities. These phenomena became occasionally so threatening to the public morality that in 1024 the Bishop Burchard von Worms issued a special decree putting dancing under the ban of the church. In 1237 over two thousand children left Erfurt, dancing. In 1418 an epidemic rage for dancing manifested itself in Strassburg. The well-known Veitstanz—St. Vitus’ dance—originated in mediæval Germany and spread itself all over the world. The Schuhplatteltanz of Bavaria is a real folk-dance and contains in its gay and grotesque figures characteristic spiritual traits of the Tyrolean peasants. Most of the tunes of the Schuhplatteltänze are gay, joyful and bubbling with mountainous brilliancy, as is the dance. Though played in the waltz-rhythm, the dance is by no means a waltz, but a pretty, quaint little ballet of the people. There are some six to eight different figures in the dance as one can best see it performed in some villages near Innsbruck. It is danced by a man and girl, and begins with a graceful, slow promenade of the couple. Then she starts to flirt with him by spinning coquettishly round and round until he is enchanted and puts his hand gracefully round her waist. Now they dance together awhile, seemingly in love. But suddenly she seems to have changed her mind and tries to turn him down. The dance is full of buoyant joy and clever mimic expressions. It gives the impression of a healthy mountain race, optimistic, simple and humorous. Though occasionally rough, there are passages of sweet and sentimental grace which convey the impression of an old-fashioned Minuet.

The Schmoller is a characteristic dance of the Saxonian peasants, in which the man never reaches his hand to the lady, though they perform the four or five movements in the rhythm of the Mazurka with considerable turning and stamping the heels. A quaint old dance is the Siebensprung of Schwaben which is danced to the accompaniment of a song with humorous verses. The Taubentanz of the Black Forest region is a very graceful and simple dance with distinct mazurka steps, in which the gentleman reaches only his right hand to the lady. The Zwölfmonatstanz of Wurtemberg is a semi-social dance, which is performed by twelve couples. The Fackeltanz has been for centuries a ceremonial display of Prussian nobility and the court. The following is a short account, from the Figaro, of a Torch Dance as it was performed at the marriage of the sister of Kaiser Wilhelm II:

‘Twelve youthful pages, pretty and dainty as the pages of opera, slowly entered by a side door under the direction of the chamberlains. They carried torch-holders in wrought silver, containing thick white wax-candles, which they handed to the twelve ministers. The marshal raised his bâton, the orchestra from the gallery opposite the emperor slowly began a tuneful Polonaise. The bride and bridegroom placed themselves after the ministers, who made the tour of the room, the chamberlain completed the cortège, which stopped before the emperor. The bride made a slight curtsey, the emperor rose and offered his arm, the cortège again passed in procession around the room. On returning, the bride invited the empress and made the tour with her. Then the twelve pages approached and took the torches again. The dance continued. The ceremony might have been monotonous but for the infinite variety and richness of the costumes and uniforms, and the liveliness of the music. The twelve pages were quite delicious and marched with all the enthusiasm of youth.’

The German Rheinländer and the Walzer are both dances of the middle class and the city. Whether they ever were danced as folk-dances by the German peasants, we do not know. They probably originated in the mediæval guild circles and spread gradually over the country. The Waltz, as we know it to-day, originated in the eighteenth century in Germany, though the French claim that it is a development of Volte, which originally was an old folk-dance of Provence. The Volte was in vogue in France in the sixteenth century. Castil-Blaze writes that ‘the waltz which we again took from the Germans in 1795 had been a French dance for four hundred years.’ The German waltz originated from the widespread folk-song, ‘Ach du lieber Augustin!’ which dates back to the middle of the eighteenth century. Gardel introduced it first in his ballet La Dansomanie in 1793 in Paris. But the real vogue for the waltz began after the Czar Alexander the First danced it at his court ball in 1816. Until the masses began to imitate the nobility it was a ‘high society’ dance and such it remained fully half a century, if not longer.

The waltz is written in 3/4 rhythm and in eight-bar phrases. It has a gliding step in which the movements of the knees play a conspicuous rôle. Each country developed its particular style of waltz. The Germans and French treated it as a dainty and graceful courtship play. In Scandinavia it grew more heavy and theatrical. In the English waltz the dancers walked up and down the room, occasionally breaking into the step and then pushing the partner backward along the room. The German rule was that the dancers should be able to waltz equally well in all directions, pivoting and crossing the feet when necessary in the reverse turn but the feet should never leave the floor. Waldteufel and Johann Strauss may be considered as the master-composers of the waltz as a social dance.