KinSource - Tale of the Week - The Dizzying Whirl

KinSource

Minnesota Tales

The Minneapolis Journal, January 2, 1891, p. 7

THE DIZZYING WHIRL.

People Who Are Anxiously Looking for the New Dance

From the New York Tribune.

Those people who dance - and the number seems to grow with great rapidity each year - are wondering what will be the "new" dance this season. As yet it has not made its appearance; but then the season is young and there is plenty of time before Lent puts an end to the gay dance. Last season brought out the "Caprice," a dance which has won great popularity. Yet is hasn't the enduring qualities of the waltz and the polka, which are universally recognized as "old reliables" in any system of fashionable dancing, and it is likely that after this year the "Caprice" will take its place on the shelf with the "Heel and Toe" and the "Yorke," which is gradually disappearing from the dance floor. Still the necessity and the desire for novelty are as strong in dancing as in other forms of amusement, and possibly before the Lenten days are here a new dance may enter upon a career, short perhaps, in town, but prolonged indefinitely in the multitudinous summer resorts, where dancing is as much in favor by night as tennis is by day.

Of dancing classes, so called, there is, apparently, no end, and scarcely a winter night passes by without a meeting of one of these classes at the rooms of the Mendelssohn Glee club, in W 35th st, or at Sherry's popular place in 5th av. Why they are called classes is not exactly clear; there is no instructor present, nor is there any apparent or organized effort to give instruction. They are really private parties, under the supervision of hostesses, at which dancing is the chief source of entertainment. But, after all, class is a handy word, and everyone knows what it means when used in the sense referred to. It is said that the rooms at Mendelssohn's and Sherry's have been engaged for dances every night this winter. No other amusement appeals so strongly to the young men and girls who "go out." The frown of the church against it has been softened, and dancing is no longer regarded as one of the deadly sins, which come next in atrociousness and blackness to a rupture of any one of the Ten Commandments.

Dancing is all well enough in its way, but it is a diversion which implies formality and the dress suit is an inevitable accompaniment. But people, and especially young people, tire of the formal, and long for amusement that is free of restraint and stiffness. For these the winter provides plenty of diversified entertainment. Bowling clubs, for instance, are almost as numerous as dancing classes, and the rumble and click of tenpin and ball are heard all over town. So with riding clubs, in which, however, the element of expense plays a more formidable part than in the case of the bowling organizations. Tennis clubs are not infrequent, too, and with these three, bowling, riding and tennis, there is no reason why the young people shouldn't have the gayest of times through the winter months, when the chances for outdoor exercise and recreation are limited.