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International Viennese Waltz
What is now called the Viennese waltz is the original form of the waltz.
It was the first ballroom dance performed in the closed hold or "waltz" position.
The dance that is popularly known as the waltz is actually the English or slow waltz,
danced at approximately 90 beats per minute with 3 beats to the bar (the international
standard of 30 measures per minute), while the Viennese Waltz is danced at about 180
beats (58-60 measures) a minute. To this day however, in Germany, Austria, Scandinavia,
and France, the words Walzer (German for "waltz"), vals (Danish, Norwegian, and Swedish
for "waltz"), and valse (French for "waltz") still implicitly refer to the original
dance and not the slow waltz. The Viennese Waltz is a rotary dance where the
dancers are constantly turning either toward their right (natural) or toward
their left (reverse), interspersed with non-rotating change steps to switch
between the direction of rotation. The Viennese Waltz, so called to distinguish
it from the Waltz and the French Waltz, is the oldest of the current ballroom dances.
It emerged in the second half of the 18th century from the German dance and the
Ländler in Austria and was both popular and subject to criticism. The Waltzen,
as written in a magazine from 1799, is performed by dancers who held on to
their long gowns to prevent them from dragging or being stepped on. The
dancers would lift their dresses and hold them high like cloaks and this
would bring both their bodies under one cover. This action also required the
dancers' bodies to be very close together and this closeness also attracted
moral disparagement. Wolf published a pamphlet against the dance entitled
"Proof that Waltzing is the Main Source of Weakness of the Body and Mind of
our Generation" in 1797. But even when faced with all this negativity, it
became very popular in Vienna. Large dance halls like the Zum Sperl in 1807
and the Apollo in 1808 were opened to provide space for thousands of dancers.
The dance reached and spread to England sometime before 1812. It was introduced
as the German Waltz and became a huge hit. It gained ground due to the Congress
of Vienna at the beginning of the 19th century and the famous compositions by
Josef Lanner, Johann Strauss I and his son, Johann Strauss II.
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