A-Z of Dance | Page 2 | Vital Football

A-Z of Dance

In Lewis Carroll's "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland" the Mock Turtle and the Gryphon tell Alice that they used to perform the "Lobster Quadrille" dance, when they went to school , under the sea.
 
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That brought back some memories... at school one of our teachers (Mr. Cooper?) often used to recite a poem , which I have just found out is officially called "And now" by J.B. Boothroyd. This party piece was known to us kids as "Another rhumba band" and was often requested by us. Good fun if it was a rainy playtime/lunchtime. He also used to recite another one about a shipwreck and resulting cannibalism - "Crew of the captain's gig"(?). He sometimes did other comedy monologues too. Probably wouldn't have fitted with the current bureaucratic "Key Stage Something" view of education ... but we liked it!

Update : found it - the latter poem is The Yarn of the "Nancy Bell "(Clip on YouTube)
 
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T - Tango. South American partner dance. Apparently my mother listened constantly to Leroy Anderson's 1952 hit, Blue Tango, when pregnant with yours truly. Good tune!
 
Yes, a partner dance - hence the well-known phrase "It takes two to tango". Not to be confused with the fat bloke who supports a local lower league football club, Looked across and saw him in the away end at the NYS once.... being escorted out by the stewards!
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U ULA - ancient Tongan group dance. Observed and reported by Captain Cook. Still performed in modern times.
 
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V VLADIMIROFF - a Russian ballet dancer who had a duel with Grand Duke Andrei Vladimirovich over a woman and shot him in the nose.
 
Re : Yarn of the Nancy Bell - the poem doesn't start with that phrase, but it is in the storyline.

Think he also used to recite "The Battle of Hastings" by Marriott Edgar. ("On 'is 'orse wiv 'is 'awk in 'is 'and...") All of this stuff was from his memory, he never needed to refer to a book!
 
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W - Waltz. Oddly, for a long time it was considered rather indecent. Became fashionable in Britain during the Regency period and Thomas Raikes later recounted that "No event ever produced so great a sensation in English society as the introduction of the waltz in 1813." Almack's, the most exclusive club in London, permitted the waltz, though the entry in the Oxford English Dictionary shows that it was considered "riotous and indecent" as late as 1825. In The Tenant of Wildfell Hall by Anne Brontë, in a scene set in 1827, the local vicar Reverend Milward tolerates quadrilles and country dances but intervenes decisively when a waltz is called for, declaring "No, no, I don't allow that! Come, it's time to be going home."
 
... or ... the Watusi - 1960's dance craze which probably had African origins. Also mentioned by the Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band in their "Hunting tigers out in India" song.
 
X XAXADO - apparently this is a popular dance in the state of Sertao in Brazil and it's named from a noise by sandals as they strike sand during the dance. A bit of a case of chicken and egg, which came first the dance or the name. And in Portuguese it's pronounced something like adu.
 
Y YOLANDE "Pauline" Duvernay - (1812-94). Born in France and became the most famous European ballerina of her era. Often performed in London, and later married an English MP.
 
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