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| Harry Fox |
As a Ballroom Dance lover, one should know how to dance Foxtrot. Having the lady danced the heel turn most of the time, Foxtrot has been known as one of the hardest Ballroom Dances, and it makes it a very spectacular dance to watch. As the name Fox-trot goes, we expect the steps in Foxtrot should be stylish and slicky. Bearing this thought, this dance can never disappoint us. However, if we examine the dance from the angle of history, we may find it wrong to expect a slow and romantic dance as it is today.
The Foxtrot in the world of International Dances, with a tempo ranging from 38 to 40 bars per minutes, is also called Slow Foxtrot (accidentally)- as we can see in the world championship. But a little googling gives us the impression that, Foxtrot is supposed to be invented by Harry Fox, who trotted the Two-step to ragtime music during the swing era, Mr Fox's fast trotting then caught the world's attention overnight.
The musicality of Mr. Fox's Trot was not that slow, and it was and has always been classed as jazz or swing style in terms of music. As Fox's Trot was gaining popularity, rock and roll music started to rule in the era of swing, the Trot evolved along with the music evolution and got even faster, in the end the trotting speed got too fast that ordinary people could not dance anymore. In order for the majority to enjoy the jolly dance, people slower the trot on the social dance floor, and thus started the Slow Foxtrot. The Slow Foxtrot has been through a long long time to catch people's heart and gradually gained its place in the Modern Ballroom. Since the slowing of Trot, there was a need to identify the fast and slow trot, as the slow trot named itself Slow Foxtrot, the fast trot was called the quick step- yes, and that's how Quick Step was born.
Reading the syllabus of Quick Step and Foxtrot, we can spot a number of similarities. It has been a great pleasure to read the dance history and get to know how different dances help one another to evolve. In this case, we can safely conclude that Foxtrot is not Harry Fox's Trot, but Quick Step looks more like Harry Fox's Trot.
And in the end, let's see how the Foxtrot looked like in the Black and White movies:
And in the end, let's see how the Foxtrot looked like in the Black and White movies:
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