Summer is a little life. Moreover, dance is a little life outlasted by a dancer! It is a song of the soul, of joy and pain; dance is an opportunity to express feelings without words. Summer is the time for dancing, for listening to awesome music. Music has a great influence on our emotions - it makes us dance for joy, for excitement, for sadness. Moreover, dance is a way of expressing feelings without words.

Dance has been metaphorically called "body poetry" and "the soul secret language". The English poet and playwright John Dryden* wrote that dance is the most beautiful of all arts because it is not a reflection of life -- it is life itself.

In dance, everyone tells his own story that is unlike any other. The foxtrot is a romantic dance in pairs, noted by featheriness and daintiness, delicacy and freedom of movement, evenness and flexibility. Foxtrot is as warm and invigorating as a summer rain and it puts us in a sunny mood.

The exact origin of the name foxtrot is unknown. However, the most popular version connects the name of the dance with the name of Harry Fox, a participant in various shows and vaudeville in the early 20^th century. A large dance pavilion was constructed on the roof of a cinema house in New York to host the Jardin Danse performance. Harry Fox performed there with his dance group “The American Beauties” dancing to ragtime music. Particular attention of the audience was drawn to the dancer's original steps, similar to the movement of a horse trot, which was named "Fox's Trot" in honor of its creator.

The foxtrot was originally a quite temperamental dance, since it included jumping and kicking. Foxtrot was developed as a professional dance; it was quite difficult for ordinary amateur dancers to master it. Moreover, dance halls were not suitable for its performance (foxtrot required a lot of space). In this regard, there appeared a variant of the foxtrot - "social", which did not require any special skills or large space, as it was performed in one place.

Music selection "Foxtrots for a Summertime Cheer"  is in the museum Collection Sound Library. 

On the cover: Dancer. Austria, Vienna. Circa 1900. Bruno Zach

*John Dryden (1631-1700) was an English poet, literary critic, translator, and playwright who was appointed England's first Poet Laureate in 1668. He is seen as dominating the literary life of Restoration England to such a point that the period came to be known in literary circles as the Age of Dryden.