| Genre | Ballroom dance |
|---|---|
| Time signature | 4/4 |
| Inventor | Henry Fox |
| Year | 1914 |
| Country | United States |
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, and the feeling is one of elegance and sophistication. The dance is similar in its look to waltz, although the rhythm is 4/4 instead of ¾ time. Dancing the slow foxtrot well takes a high level of technical expertise as well as a lot of dance experience and physical skill. Developed in the 1920's, the foxtrot reached its height of popularity in the 1930's, and is today a favourite of many dedicated dancers.
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The exact origin of the name of the dance is unclear, although one theory is that took its name from its popularizer, the vaudeville actor Harry Fox.[1]
Two sources credit African American dancers as the source of the Fox Trot: Vernon Castle himself, and then dance teacher Betty Lee. Castle saw the dance, which "had been danced by negroes, to his personal knowledge, for fifteen years," at "a certain exclusive colored club".[2]
The dance was premiered in 1914, quickly catching the eye of the husband and wife duo Vernon and Irene Castle, who lent the dance its signature grace and style.
W.C. Handy ("Father of the Blues") notes in his autobiography that Noble Sissle told a story that Handy's “The Memphis Blues” was the inspiration for the Foxtrot. James Reese Europe, the Castles' music director, would play slowly the Memphis Blues during breaks from the fast paced Castle Walk and One-step. 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 the "Bunny Hug" in a magazine article. They went abroad and in mid-ocean sent a wireless to the magazine to change the "Bunny Hug" to the "Foxtrot."[3] It was later 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. Today, the dance is customarily accompanied by the same big band music to which swing is also danced.
From the late teens through the 1940s, the foxtrot was certainly 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 the foxtrot. 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.
When rock and roll first emerged in the early 1950s, record companies were uncertain as to what style of dance would be most applicable to the music. Notably, Decca Records initially labelled its rock and roll releases as "foxtrots", most notably "Rock Around the Clock" by Bill Haley and His Comets. Since that recording, by some estimates,[says who?] went on to sell more than 25 million copies, "Rock Around the Clock" could be considered the biggest-selling "foxtrot" of all time.
Over time, the foxtrot split into slow and quick versions, referred to as "foxtrot" and "quickstep" respectively. In the slow category, further distinctions exist between the International or English style of the foxtrot and the continuity American style, both built around a slow-quick-quick rhythm at the slowest tempo, and the social American style using a slow-slow-quick-quick rhythm at a somewhat faster pace. In the context of International Standard category of ballroom dances, for some time the foxtrot was called "Slow Foxtrot", or "Slowfox". These names are still in use, to distinguish from other types of foxtrots.
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Basic Figures
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Standard Figures
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