The Viennese Waltz

If you think of a ‘forbidden dance’ you might consider Tango. However, even before Tango gained its reputation, Waltz was already considered as ‘immoral’, due to its origins, character and mainly due to the close hold couples were dancing in.

Originating from France in the 16th Century, it was performed to folk music and called Volta, which in Italian means ‘to turn’. Other sources point to the Ländler, a German folk dance, as the beginning of the Waltz. In the 1780s the Waltz became fashionable in Vienna, hence the name, and was later popularised by the music of great Austrian composers: Franz Lanner and Johann Strauss.

Viennese Waltz is now danced to ¾ time music with a tempo of 180 beats per minute. It is a rotary dance, where couples are turning to the right (natural) and left (reverse) with close change steps used between turns to change a direction. Couples progress around the ballroom anticlockwise. In its original form couples did not overtake but followed each other. Later on other figures were derived from the basics like: Fleckerls, Hesitations, and Contra Checks.