The Charleston Prances Into Favor
New Dance Comes on Swiftly, but It Has Not Yet Reached the Ballrooms of New York
The Charleston is now remembered as one of the primary dances of the jazz era, but a August 1925 New York Times Magazine article portrayed it as the hot new fad.
The journalist Jane Grant wrote:
The Charleston at the moment is in high favor and gives promise of holding its place for months to come. But it is still an infant dance, the Jackie Coogan of the dance world. [Coogan, 10 when this article was originally published, was one of Hollywood’s most prominent child stars.] So far it has been looked upon as much too youthful, to much of a stripling for the fashionable ballroom.
As the dance spread across the country, further and further from its titular South Carolina origins, it morphed and mutated into something less and less recognizable:
The steps have such infinite possibilities that there is simply no pinning the dance down to a set formula. Its preceptors have discovered this fact to their discomfort. The South laughs at the efforts of the North to interpret its dance, and Harlem laughs at Broadway.
Here’s a 1m 46s tutorial video on how to dance the Charleston. Personally, I think it should make a comeback! Maybe with a song that combines old jazz samples alongside more modern sounds, something like Lone Digger by Caravan Palace.
The Charleston Prances Into Favor: New Dance Comes on Swiftly, but It Has Not Yet Reached the Ballrooms of New York
Published: Sunday, August 30, 1925