The majestic cabaret ball, c. 1954. Photo / Alexander Turnbull Library
The dancer whirls in a flurry of white taffeta on the cover of this ravishingly illustrated book.
My mother did it. The author's grandmother did it. Katherine Mansfield did it (and wrote about it). Everybody did it. They danced and danced and danced. In woolsheds, church halls,
school classrooms and ballrooms.
Lyttleton, 1851: A festooned warehouse, candle-lit, with a tiny band playing from eight in the evening to four in the morning. Charlotte Godley is in attendance. In a letter to her mother she says little about the ball itself but is proud to have arrived home without spoiling her dress.
"Though it was raining, and pitch dark, and the road very uneven, there was not a spot of mud on my gown.'' Her husband was not so lucky; he "lost one of his clogs in the mud'', and the unfortunate Mr Fitzgerald "fell over on his side''. The inclusion of such letters, diaries and reminiscences that disclose intimate details and gossip elevates this study of dance floor courtship in New Zealand to a fascinating social history.
In 1936, Calder Morrison, a keen dancer, fell in love on the dance floor with a beautiful blonde with a radiant smile. She was also "a divine dancer'' (which I'm sure was the clincher). They wed and spent almost 60 years together.
Manuals were written to guide the organisers of dances, and their charges, through the minefield of dance etiquette. They gave advice on what ladies should wear: if unmarried, light gossamer fabrics, different colours for blondes and brunettes, and don't ever forget the gloves. They advised on how to behave: never dance with the same partner more than twice. And engaged or married couples ``should not dance together at all''. Surely asking for trouble, I would have thought.
Scrupulously researched and written with relish, the book does its author credit.
*HarperCollins, $49.99
- Sunday Extra, HoS
