Are you an EPFL student looking for a semester project?
Work with us on data science and visualisation projects, and deploy your project as an app on top of Graph Search.
Concept
Foxtrot
Summary
The foxtrot is a smooth, progressive dance characterized by long, continuous flowing movements across the dance floor. It is danced to big band (usually vocal) music. The dance is similar in its look to waltz, although the rhythm is in a time signature instead of . Developed in the 1910s, the foxtrot reached its height of popularity in the 1930s and remains practiced today.
The dance was premiered in 1914, quickly catching the eye of the husband and wife duo Vernon and Irene Castle, who gave the dance its signature grace and style. The origin of the name of the dance is unclear, although one theory is that it took its name from its popularizer, the vaudevillian Harry Fox. Two sources, Vernon Castle and dance teacher Betty Lee, credit African American dancers as the source of the foxtrot. Castle saw the dance, which "had been danced by negroes, to his personal knowledge, for fifteen years, [at] a certain exclusive colored club".
W. C. Handy ("Father of the Blues") notes in his autobiography that his "The Memphis Blues" was the inspiration for the foxtrot. During breaks from the fast-paced Castle Walk and One-step, Vernon and Irene Castle's music director, James Reese Europe, would slowly play "The Memphis Blues". The Castles were intrigued by the rhythm, and Jim asked why they didn't create a slow dance to go with it. The Castles introduced what they then called the "Bunny Hug" in a magazine article. Shortly after, they went abroad and, in mid-ocean, sent a wireless to the magazine to change the name of the dance from "Bunny Hug" to "Foxtrot." It was subsequently standardized by Arthur Murray, in whose version it began to imitate the positions of tango.
At its inception, the foxtrot was originally danced to ragtime. From the late 1910s through the 1940s, the foxtrot was the most popular fast dance, and the vast majority of records issued during these years were foxtrots. The waltz and tango, while popular, never overtook it. Even the popularity of the Lindy hop in the 1940s did not affect the foxtrot's popularity, since it could be danced to the same records used to accompany the Lindy hop.
Official source
About this result
This page is automatically generated and may contain information that is not correct, complete, up-to-date, or relevant to your search query. The same applies to every other page on this website. Please make sure to verify the information with EPFL's official sources.