History of the Foxtrot
The history of the Foxtrot can be traced back to Vaudeville actor Harry Fox. Born in Pomona, California in 1882, Arthur Carringford used the stage name Harry Fox. Fox being the name of his grandfather. At the tender age of 15, Harry joined the circus briefly and at one time played professional baseball. He was hired by a music publisher to sing songs from the boxes of San Francisco vaudeville theaters and appeared in a Belvedere Theater in a comedy production of “Mr Frisky of Frisco” in 1904.
In 1906, just after the Huge earthquake in San Francisco Harry Fox moved to New York where he continued in many vaudeville acts. During this period of Ragtime, beginning in 1910, in the period of Ragtime, a new style of ballroom dancing was developing, with partners dancing closer together in a more relaxed ad-libbed style of movement to the music. This created a new ragtime music style of dance which was exciting and exhilarating with dances such as The Bunny Hug, Turkey Trot, and Castle Walk that the public now embraced. In April 1914, Fox and one of the famous Dolly sisters, Yansci, teamed up to do an act of Hammerstein’s. Around this time the largest theater in the world, the New York Theater was being converted to a movie theater and it was planned that in between movies a vaudeville act should entertain patrons.
Harry Fox and his “American Beauties” were selected to perform and the Dolly sisters were featured in a nightly review on the roof of the theater which had recently been converted to a Janse de Danse. Dance contests were held and often gold cups were given to the winners of these contests. Meanwhile, downstairs, Harry Fox was doing trotting type steps to ragtime music and many people started referring to this dance as Fox’s Trot. Many exhibition dancers started to include this style into the routine and found it exciting and very original. Around 1915 the very talented G.K. Anderson and his partner Josephine Bradley traveled from the United States to London and won many competitions in performing the Foxtrot, the mold had been firmly cast. The foxtrot became popular worldwide with dancers eager to perfect this new and exciting style.
Due to the enormous popularity of the foxtrot a form of dance that could keep the rhythm yet remain on the spot had to be created without completely dropping the traveling style of the original. On the spot dancing made it possible to enjoy the music and dance even where there where large numbers of people together at the one venue. At that time “on the spot” dancing was known as “crush” then it was called rhythm dancing. Today, it is simply called social dancing.
As there is more variety in the steps of the foxtrot, it can take a little extra effort to learn but also gives greater flexibility with fast and slow steps adding to the exhilaration. Variations such as the Quickstep, Roseland and Peabody foxtrot are ever popular and to some extent dances such as the Hustle and the Lindy are loosely derived from the foxtrot. The style of foxtrot danced today in modern ballroom dancing is very smooth and elegant and it can be hard to think of this as the dance developed to ragtime music. The foxtrot forms part of most ballroom dancing regimes and is always on the program of major ballroom dancing competitions and is one of the most popular dances and anyone who has watched a dance competition knows that couples can clear a dance floor when executing perfect moves with passion. Combine this with the amazingly colorful ladies dresses and the stylish suits of male competitors watching the foxtrot being performed can be every entertaining.
Learning to do the foxtrot can be a little tricky compared to other ballroom dances and although many training DVDs and manuals are available today the complex nature of the quick and slow steps augers well for the professional teacher who can better teach the dance student how to correctly dance the steps in the proper sequence at the correct speed. There is little doubt that the foxtrot is popular with most dancers of all ages and abilities who are interested in ballroom dancing.
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