The waltz is a dance with three steps per measure, partners in a closed stance holding onto each other, and beautiful turns and swirls. It is usually performed in 3/4 time. In today’s world, it is regarded as an elegant dance that harkens back to a bygone era. This is in stark contrast to how the dance was viewed when it first appeared in Vienna, Austria in the seventeenth century.
It’s important to remember that when the waltz was first introduced, it wasn’t performed in a closed hold. Dancing masters continued to despise it because the steps were too simple to learn and the swirls and turns were considered indecent. Nonetheless, as history has shown, the dance’s popularity grew, perhaps as a result of the controversy. It evolved from a simple country dance to a dance popular in upper-class circles across Europe, including Austria, France, and England. Clerics, dancing masters, and others were outraged when the closed hold was introduced in the 1700s, and in some cases, only married women were allowed to perform the dance. This did not deter those who enjoyed the lilting music’s steps, 3/4 time, and turns and whirls.
The waltz was brought to the United States, where it quickly became popular. According to the history of the dance, the first waltzes were most likely performed in Boston in 1834 as part of a show put on dancing master Lorenzo Papanti. Even if some people were still enraged the moral decay that the waltz seemed to represent, it only served to popularize the dance, and many people wanted to learn it. Quick waltzes, in which each beat corresponded to a step of the foot, and the Hesitation form, in which a step took up an entire three beats or measure, emerged as two distinct forms of the dance. Both steps are used in modern waltz variations.
In today’s ballroom dance competitions, there are several types of waltz that are judged separately. Viennese Waltzes are fast dances in which the majority of the beats correspond to the dancers’ steps. Slow waltzes, now simply referred to as waltzes in most international dancing competitions, are smoother, slower dances with a greater number of hesitation steps. The latter has a ballet-like quality to it, and many couples learn this dance to perform as their wedding’s first dance. You’ll notice that the Viennese style is much more lively, and both dances have very strict competition requirements.
As the dance’s popularity grew, many composers began to write music specifically for it. The “Minute Waltz” Frederic Chopin and Johann Strauss’ “The Blue Danube” are two popular and classic waltz pieces. The dance, however, does not require classical music to be performed. Any music, especially that written in 6/8 or 3/4 time, can be adapted for either dance form.